The Best Southern Food in the United States

EJ Lagasse took over his father's legendary Warehouse District fine-dining room at 22, after stints at Frantzén and Core by Clare Smyth, and now holds two Michelin stars. The tasting menu threads Creole classics through a contemporary lens, BBQ shrimp tarts and deep-flavored gumbo alongside smoked salmon cheesecake. Floor-to-ceiling glass frames the kitchen like a stage, and the service team plays the room with genuine warmth. Emeril's, basically reinvented.

The elevator deposits you on the 63rd floor of a landmark skyscraper before you've had time to rehearse an expression for the view. Saga is a fine-dining tasting menu restaurant with two Michelin stars and velvet banquettes to match the ambition. Charlie Mitchell's cooking runs soul-food maximalism through Japanese minimalism, producing bites that read delicate and land heavy. The Moroccan tea service closing the meal is a quiet house tradition worth knowing about.

You pass through a cocktail bar to get to the dining room, which sets the tone. Bastion is a tasting-menu restaurant in Wedgewood-Houston built around contemporary Southern cooking that treats the region's pantry as a creative dare rather than a comfort blanket. The kitchen holds a Michelin star and a James Beard nomination, and earns both by keeping things loose enough that the whole thing still feels like a good night out.

Skillet cornbread arrives with a steak knife and honey butter, which tells you most of what you need to know about Erick Williams's Southern restaurant in Hyde Park. The dining room is warm and unhurried, the kind of place the university crowd treats as a standing Thursday plan. Williams holds two James Beard Awards, and the Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand. The cooking is rooted and serious without ever feeling like a lecture.

A food truck that grew up and got a roof, Odd Duck on South Lamar is a casual, come-as-you-are restaurant built around shareable Southern plates with a roving global curiosity. Chicken heart satay sits near wagyu burgers and stuffed quail with dirty rice, and nobody seems troubled by the range. The Michelin Bib Gourmand recognized it, and the sourdough ice cream with pecan streusel will make you understand why the room is always full.

The turquoise Garden District mansion has been turning out Modern New Orleans Creole since Ella Brennan and a young Emeril Lagasse were essentially inventing the genre together. Fine dining in the grand sense, white tablecloths and all, though the room skews festive rather than stiff. Meg Bickford runs the kitchen now, keeping the cooking by turns classicist and a little bodacious. Wine Enthusiast put the cellar in its Hall of Fame, and the weekday lunch martinis go for a quarter.

The dining room walls, red and hung with African-American art, tell you this is a place with a history before you've touched the menu. A Creole fine dining institution in New Orleans, it holds a James Beard America's Classics Award and a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the cooking, gumbo, fried chicken, peach cobbler, earns every regulars' loyalty. The matriarchs still walk each table personally, which at a certain point stops being service and starts being something else.

The historic two-story Queen Street house has its own garden out front, which tells you something about how seriously this Southern restaurant takes its sourcing. Seafood arrives in seasoned broths, the cornbread has inspired genuine reverence, and the pimento cheese with country ham is the kind of opener that makes the rest of the menu feel like bonus rounds. Reservations are scarce, and a sidewalk queue forms before the doors open most evenings.

The open kitchen anchors a room where wood floors and exposed ductwork split the difference between industrial loft and neighborhood restaurant. J.C. Holdway is a Southern-leaning American dinner spot in downtown Knoxville, the kind where buttermilk biscuits arrive topped with braised pork belly and the pasta is house-made. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and the chef is a James Beard semifinalist. Tennessee ingredients run through nearly everything.

Swordfish schnitzel doesn't show up on many Southern seafood menus, but Dean Neff, a James Beard Outstanding Chef nominee, has that kind of restless disposition. Seabird is a full-service seafood restaurant on the Wilmington waterfront, nautical in feel without leaning on the clichés, serving dinner and weekend brunch. The catfish and grits crowd and the caviar deviled eggs crowd somehow occupy the same room, and neither seems bothered by the other.

A converted warehouse in the Central Business District, Cochon does Southern cooking with a Louisiana accent: wood-fired oysters, fried alligator, gumbo loaded with house-made andouille, and rabbit and dumplings pulled from the chef's family recipes. The cracklins with Steen's cane syrup make a strong case for arriving hungry. The whiskey and bourbon list is long enough to make the decision feel important. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

This is a Viet-Cajun crawfish house on Bellaire Boulevard, where you wear a bib and gloves big enough to look like a bit. The crawfish come boiled with lemongrass and ginger, and the turkey necks arrive pre-spiced. The room works like a sports bar that lost the plot, with the Astros on every TV and a Darth Vader helmet in the corner nobody will explain. It's casual, loud, and messy, and the check stays reasonable.

This is the old-line Creole dining room on Royal Street where bananas foster was invented, and the servers still set it on fire at your table without losing track of your questions. It's fine dining in the jacket-and-good-posture sense, so you'll find yourself saying "powder room" without being asked. The bar program has James Beard attention of its own, and the Sazerac arrives the way it should.

String lights and climbing vines turn the back patio into the kind of dinner setting that makes you forget you're in the middle of a city. Alta Adams is a Southern restaurant on the West Adams corridor, and the kitchen cooks with the confidence of someone who has been making fried chicken and coconut cake their whole life. Portions run generous, which makes it a natural for groups. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: California.

The fried chicken here has been drawing Atlantans to this tiny soul food cafe on MLK Drive since before most of their parents were born. It's takeout only, which doesn't slow anyone down. The menu runs classic Southern, with daily specials and sides like tangy-sweet beans alongside whatever protein you came for. Finish with a cobbler. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the New York Times put it on its Atlanta list.

A neon fish glows over the door in Asheville's South Slope brewery district, and the vibe inside this seafood counter is as no-nonsense as the name. Chef Ashleigh Shanti runs a fish fry built around North Carolina catfish and dayboat shrimp, with the fish sandwich, dredged in locally milled cornmeal and finished with spiced buttermilk tartar sauce, drawing the most attention. The New York Times put it on their 2024 Restaurant List, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.

Southern cooking and a cocktail program that pours buttermilk and benne seed into the glass share equal billing at this casual Five Points restaurant and bar. The chef runs with heirloom grits and collard greens but also hot-and-sour catfish and sorghum-tamarind pork shoulder, so the kitchen respects the tradition without being hostage to it. The team behind the preeminent cocktail bar Yacht Club runs the drinks side, which explains the ambition in a room that looks relaxed about the whole thing.

A modern Southern restaurant on University Boulevard where the menu moves from shrimp dip and fried green tomatoes straight into honey garlic pork chops and gumbo, with peach cobbler waiting at the end. It has the feel of a place that hit its stride fast and knew exactly what it wanted to be. The crowd skews Alabama faithful, which tells you something about the portion sizes.

A mural of Fillmore Street circa 1962 covers the wall, which makes sense given that the chef grew up in the neighborhood and spent years dreaming of bringing her soul food restaurant here. The rosemary fried chicken, fragrant with fresh herbs and marinated in housemade spices, is the reason people line up, though the butter cornbread and mac and cheese give it real competition. Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2025.

Two wood-burning ovens run the show at this Glassell Park Southern restaurant, and nearly everything on the menu passes through them at some point. Oysters, cornbread, pork chops, braised greens that bubble by the coals all night. Long communal tables and wax candles fill the main room; counter seats face the kitchen. A quieter wine bar in the back serves a shorter menu for anyone who wants the vibe at half the volume.

A converted meatpacking warehouse in the Westside gives Miller Union its bones, and the kitchen fills them out with seasonal Southern cooking that changes with whatever Georgia is growing. The room is casually upscale, the kind of place you'd take someone you're trying to impress without making it obvious that's what you're doing. The New York Times named it among Atlanta's 25 best, and the pastry program drew a James Beard nomination.

The kitchen is literally front and center here, open to the room so the whole team works in full view, moving like they own the place, which they kind of do. Nolia is a casual dinner spot where servers wear branded sweatshirts and the skillet cornbread arrives with a scoop of cane-syrup butter melting dramatically on top. Southern ease, exposed brick, and a menu that quietly runs gluten-free without making a cause of it. The house hot sauces are made from scratch, and one will have you fanning yourself.

Melba Wilson, a born-and-bred Harlemite, named this Southern comfort restaurant after herself, which sets the tone immediately. Fried chicken with eggnog waffles is the move, and a fruit cobbler that has no business being that good closes things out. The room feels like a gathering spot rather than a destination, warm and unhurried in a way that explains the James Beard nominations for Outstanding Hospitality two years running.

Chicken and dumplings unveiled tableside is the move at this East Nashville restaurant built around Appalachian and Southern cooking. The share-plate menu leans seasonal but keeps a few old-school anchors no matter what, leaning into ingredients like benne seeds and paw paws in ways your grandmother probably didn't but might wish she had. The vibe is rustic and cozy, the kind of room that makes you want to become a regular on your first visit.

Deborah VanTrece's modern Southern restaurant in a Westside industrial strip is the kind of place where the bar program is as serious as the kitchen, a James Beard semifinalist on both counts. The menu takes the food your grandmother made and runs it somewhere she probably didn't, with collard dip alongside pimento cheese fondue and fried chicken arriving with a collard green roll. The New York Times put it on their Atlanta list, and the room earns the attention.

The open kitchen gives you a view of the whole operation, and it runs with what looks like choreographed precision. Tiffany Derry's modern Southern restaurant in Farmers Branch earns James Beard nominations alongside regulars who could probably recite the menu cold. Duck fat-fried chicken is the calling card, the gumbo is serious, and the cast-iron cornbread arrives first for good reason. Dressy-casual, suburban, and worth the drive from anywhere in Dallas.

The restaurant is named for chef Michelle Carpenter's grandmother, whose fried chicken recipe anchors the menu at this contemporary Cajun and Creole spot in Oak Cliff. Dark-meat, deeply seasoned, and handed down through generations, it's the kind of dish that makes everything else feel like a warm-up act. The charbroiled oysters with Parmesan and andouille crumbles suggest the kitchen has range. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant in 2023.

The line outside on Sunday mornings tells you what kind of place this is before you even read the menu. A Southern breakfast institution in Inglewood, The Serving Spoon draws the post-church crowd in numbers that would alarm a fire marshal, all coming for pancakes that arrive buried under butter and maple syrup. A 2026 James Beard America's Classics winner, it's been a neighborhood anchor for decades and shows no sign of quieting down.

The table by the window on St. Charles is the one to request, and once you're in it you'll understand why this place has been around forever. It's a full-service restaurant where French and Italian instincts run through Cajun and Creole cooking without apology or explanation. The house-made spaghetti fills tables every night, and the duck confit with dirty rice keeps people coming back.

The original carriage house of the Wentworth Mansion holds this fine dining room, where white tablecloths and soft lighting set a tempo the rest of Charleston is still trying to match. The chef has been running these seasonal menus for what feels like forever, and the tasting menu moves through the Lowcountry with enough range to keep things interesting. A AAA Four Diamond property, and one of the more convincingly romantic rooms in the city.

A Church Hill dining room in a building old enough to have opinions, the Roosevelt runs Modern Southern cooking through a genuinely soulful lens. The chef, a 2026 James Beard semifinalist, draws on food-anthropologist sources and old family recipes, so the menu feels more inherited than invented. Virginia bottles anchor the drinks list, with regional beers and inventive cocktails filling out what's become a quietly serious beverage program.

The house motto is "a little bit class, and a little bit trashy," which tells you everything you need to know about this Gulf Coast seafood spot in Midtown Houston. Crawfish come dry-seasoned or wet in a buttery Viet-Cajun sauce, and the broader menu runs from raw oysters and po'boys to shrimp and grits. Biscuits arrive with seasonal jam and whipped butter. The Michelin Guide has it listed, and Texas Monthly named it among Texas's best new restaurants.

The bread basket alone sets the tone: sheet-pan biscuits and jalapeño johnnycakes before you've even decided anything. This is a sleek Modern Southern restaurant in Summerhill, where the menu keeps one foot in tradition and one somewhere unexpected, think berber-spiced fried chicken or a dish cheekily called lamburger helper. A James Beard semifinalist and a New York Times pick, Southern National reads as a neighborhood spot that just happens to be cooking at a different level.

Real butter and sugar go into the crawfish boil here, which tilts the whole thing sweeter than the standard Cajun approach. This Viet-Cajun seafood spot on Bellaire runs a long roster of sauces, from garlic butter to Thai basil, and lets you mix them into something entirely your own. The menu does what it promises and little else, which in this corner of Houston is plenty.

Gumbo as dark as a Louisiana bayou at midnight, only built around smoked brisket and wilted greens, is a reasonable summary of what the kitchen is doing here. This modern Cajun-Creole restaurant in Louisville's Schnitzelburg neighborhood lands chef Lawrence Weeks on the New York Times Restaurant List and a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist nod, both in the same year. The menu takes familiar Southern dishes and quietly tilts them sideways with Haitian, Latin, and Gulf Coast influences.

The small orange building on Blake Street looks like it could be anyone's house, which is sort of the point. Hannibal's is an old-school soul food restaurant where the menu leans hard into Lowcountry seafood, with crab and shrimp rice that locals and working chefs both talk about. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and the room makes clear why: nobody here opened a menu for the first time today.

Crystal chandeliers hang over dark-paneled walls covered in jazz-themed artwork, which is either perfect or a lot, depending on your mood. This Southern fusion dinner spot runs on house-infused spirits and live music, and the kitchen leans New Orleans by way of the Southwest: gumbo with Andouille and hush puppies, pasta soaked in lobster broth and crawfish. The kind of room that feels designed for a date night where everyone is trying slightly harder than usual.

Glittery chandeliers and wax candles do a lot of heavy lifting in this handsome fine dining room on Tchoupitoulas, where exposed brick and white tablecloths split the difference between grand and comfortable. The chef is a Louisiana native steering contemporary Creole cooking, and the kind of place where birthdays and anniversaries have been showing up for years. Friendly servers keep it from tipping into stiff-necked territory, which takes some skill when the room looks like this.

A sandwich shop on Haight doing exactly one thing from New Orleans: the muffuletta, served in a wedge like a slice of savory pie, toasted or cold. The meat version layers prosciutto, mortadella, soppressata, and provolone under a spicy olive spread; mushrooms and scallions handle the vegetarian side. The pickled egg salad with potato chips stuffed inside is its own argument. Seating is tight, but Buena Vista Park is a short walk away, which seems intentional.

A converted house on Canton Street with a porch and a dining room that feels like someone's well-appointed grandmother let things get a little festive. Table & Main is a Southern restaurant where the kitchen follows the seasons closely, so the menu shifts around what's good rather than what's familiar. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Roswell is a quick drive from Atlanta, and the room fills early with people who clearly made a plan to be here.

St. Coffee is a neighborhood coffee shop on St. Claude Avenue, a mile or so downriver from the Quarter, where the breakfast burrito comes stuffed with boudin, because this is New Orleans and the tortilla has to pay local taxes. It's counter service, pastries and espresso, the sort of place where you order in a hoodie and nobody asks questions. The Infatuation put the burrito on its national breakfast burrito list.

A casual lunch counter on Oretha Castle Haley that serves New Orleans Creole the way the neighborhood expects it: red beans, gumbo, Gulf seafood po' boys, priced so that going twice in a week doesn't require a conversation. The staff includes students learning the trade as part of a job-training mission, so the meal comes with a side of genuine purpose. The chef behind the kitchen spent years in upscale rooms before landing here, and the cooking shows it.

The mashup that writes itself on paper sometimes falls apart on the plate, but Korean and Cajun cooking share enough soul food DNA that at KJUN it holds together. The chef trained under the legendary Leah Chase in New Orleans, and the Murray Hill dining room reflects both that Southern lineage and her Korean roots, with fried dishes, rice, banchan, and Louisiana classics sharing the menu without any of them feeling like they wandered in from somewhere else.

Half fish market, half seafood counter, Fishmonger seats guests at a communal table or window stools and takes orders from the back. The menu stays compact: oysters, crudos, sandwiches, soups, and whatever the boat brought in that day. The blackened grouper sandwich on a buttered seeded bun with pickled peppers and Florida sauce has become the house staple for good reason. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and a Bon Appétit best new restaurant pick.

The biscuits come in jalapeño-cheddar if you want them to, which tells you most of what you need to know. This Southern breakfast and brunch shop in Grant Park earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand turning out the kind of food that started as a pop-up and never got pretentious about it. Baked goods run deep, cinnamon rolls included, but the biscuit sandwiches stacked with hot honey chicken and pickles are the reason the line forms before you've had coffee.

The pleather booths and wood paneling in this Petworth neighborhood spot haven't moved in decades, which is fine because neither has the fried chicken. It's a Southern comfort restaurant where the menu reads short and the kitchen makes everything to order, including that chicken, which arrives crisp, juicy, and worth whatever wait the buzzy bar requires. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the homemade fries have something to do with that.

The menu is posted on the front windows of this Art Deco corner spot, which is either a charming invitation or a warning that space inside is tight. Either way, mint-green walls and Mason-jar lights above a glossy tile bar make the room feel worth the squeeze. Southern-inflected seasonal cooking, a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a wine list that actually holds its own round out a neighborhood restaurant that punches well above its square footage.

Frosted glass panels half-obscure the open kitchen, which is either atmospheric or a tease, depending on how curious you are about what's happening back there. This moody, industrial gastropub in Winter Park earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand for modern Southern cooking that treats pub classics as a starting point rather than a ceiling. The menu leans into charcoal, smoke, and pickle in ways that feel considered without feeling fussy.

A fifteen-minute ferry ride from the French Quarter lands you in Algiers, where Melissa Martin's second restaurant occupies a century-old property that reads more Provençal farmhouse than Louisiana. The Cajun-French cooking leans into whatever the season offers, stone fruit and wild grapes drifting across duck confit and dark roux gumbo. A 2026 James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, it made both the Times's New Orleans and national restaurant lists in 2025.

A New Orleans-style tavern in Wicker Park named for the chef's great-grandmother, which tells you the food comes with some actual stakes. The bar up front runs three-deep, the dining room behind it hums with the kind of staff that keeps things loose without losing the thread. Gumbo, po'boys, and beignets anchor the menu, and the Nashville fried chicken has quietly become the thing regulars steer everyone toward.

The chef behind Lola's spent years doing refined seasonal cooking at a museum restaurant before deciding she'd rather cook food people want on a Tuesday. The result is a Southern-inflected neighborhood dinner spot on 28th Street where the cooking is casual without being simple, and local produce keeps showing up in places you didn't expect. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024.

Brick walls, wood tables, and a menu that changes with whatever the nearby farms are sending over, this New American restaurant on Dauphin Street has been quietly doing farm-to-table before the term became an eye-roll. The kitchen keeps things passionate rather than preachy, cycling through snacks, small plates, and entrees that land Gulf shrimp and blue crab alongside local grits. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The chandelier-and-tile dining room reads like a 19th-century brasserie someone quietly upgraded from the inside. This is a modern American bistro on Magazine Street where the chef folds global techniques into the Creole tradition without making a fuss about it. The New York Times named it among New Orleans' 25 best right now, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed. The food moves forward; the room pulls you back. Both things are happening at once, and that's kind of the point.

A neon sign reading "Bless Your Heart" anchors the bar, which tells you exactly the kind of contemporary Southern restaurant this is. The menu leans hard into local vegetables and whatever the season is doing, with dishes that manage to be creative without being precious about it. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice too. Date-night crowd, candlelit tables, the works.

Challah soaked in Grand Marnier, griddled until the sugar crust cracks like a crème brûlée top, is the thing people come back for at this Southern brunch spot in Scottsdale. Catfish and grits, chicken and waffles, and a waffle so light it barely holds its own weight round out a menu that swings comfortably between sweet and savory. Weekends bring a DJ and mimosas on every table; weekdays are quieter and the wait is shorter.

The mid-century bones, globe lights, and tall windows looking onto South Main suggest a certain kind of restaurant, and then the menu arrives to politely disagree. This fusion dinner spot folds Indian, Mexican, Thai, and Italian into each other without apparent anxiety, and the corn mash, which the New York Times flagged as one of the standout dishes of 2024, is a case study in how that audacity pays off. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2026. Portions run large, so bring company.

Antique stained glass windows filter whatever light San Francisco's summer fog is willing to spare, and the room is cheerful anyway. Early to Rise is a brunch spot in NoPa where the daily doughnut arrives warm while you wait, the French toast comes loaded with seasonal fruit and a few things creamy and crunchy, and the ambrosia salad quietly signals the chef's Southern roots. The owner does his own table rounds, coffee pot in hand, which keeps things easy.

A whole snapper, deep-fried twice for a crunch audible from across the room, arriving upright as if still swimming, tells you everything about what kind of soul food restaurant this is. Six tables on Staten Island, pitchers of rum punch and sangria on nearly all of them, and a dining room that always feels like a party that forgot to wait for a reason. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024.

Gritz Café is a small Southern breakfast spot a short drive off the Strip, where the portions are built for people who plan to nap afterward. The chicken and waffles lead the menu, but the cheesy jalapeño grits and hotlink omelets have their defenders. The dining room is tiny, so a wait is normal, though the servers move fast. The sweet potato pie travels well enough to survive airport security.

Grab a tray, check the chalk board for today's proteins, and pick three sides: that's the whole system at this old-school Nashville meat-and-three. The turnip greens, studded with smoky pork, are the kind of thing that makes you wonder why you ever cook at home. The room fills fast with people who already know their order, and the line moves whether you're ready or not.

A man in a tuxedo greets you at the door, which tells you most of what you need to know. Clancy's is an old-school fine dining room in Uptown New Orleans, white tablecloths and uniformed servers included, with a Creole menu that leans hard into seafood, French technique, and Cajun flavor. The fried oysters with brie have been a house signature long enough that regulars would riot if they disappeared.

The gumbo arrives with a crab claw jutting out of the bowl like it owns the place, surrounded by fat rounds of okra and a cloud of white rice. This Creole soul food cafe sits down the street from NASA, has signage that will not help you find it, and is on The New York Times Restaurant List. The fried catfish barely fits the plate, and the chef named the whole operation after his grandmothers, which tells you something about the cooking.

The paper cocktail napkins tucked under the stemware haven't changed since the '90s, and that's the point. SNOB is an old-school Charleston dining room that made local, seasonal Southern cooking a serious proposition before it was a trend. Day boat fish arrives crispy outside and tender within, cornbread is non-negotiable, and the butterbeans are exactly right. The room carries its era comfortably, and the kitchen cooks like the legacy is watching.

The fried chicken arrives in a styrofoam container, still crackling from the fryer, and costs around eight dollars with two sides. This counter-service Lowcountry soul food spot has been an old-school institution on Meeting Street for years, run by the daughters of the woman who started it. The okra stew tastes like it was never meant to be written down in a recipe.

The staff will advise you not to order the hot chicken above mild, and they mean it. Bolton's is a no-frills neighborhood soul food counter that predates the hot chicken craze by a decade, which earns it a certain authority. The fried catfish, ordered mild, makes a strong case for itself as the move here, and mild still has something to prove. A Nashville institution, in the most unpretentious sense possible.

Fried chicken in five flavors, ranging from OG to Nashville hot, is the organizing principle at this Southern comfort spot tucked into East Providence. The menu reads like a greatest-hits of the genre: pimento mac and cheese, sweet potato tater tots, cornbread with honey butter. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025, which is not a bad argument for crossing a state line for a thigh, a drumstick, and Texas toast.

The line outside this Houston breakfast and brunch spot is so reliable that they've worked out a whole system: heaters in winter, water in summer, and occasionally a bouncy castle, which is a sentence you don't type about many restaurants. Southern and Creole comfort food is the draw, wings and waffles being the dish everyone mentions first, with catfish and grits not far behind. Show up when the doors open or plan around the wait.

A whitewashed South Austin bungalow with just a handful of tables and a few bar seats, Lenoir is a small, romantic restaurant where the menu rotates every six weeks or so around a different global theme, French Cajun one visit, something else entirely the next. You can go à la carte or commit to a multicourse tasting served family style. The Michelin Guide has taken notice, and a reservation here books up accordingly.

The horseshoe counters at Poole's have been around forever, and the regulars at them look like they have too. It's a Southern dinner spot in a space that's part classic diner, part reclaimed warehouse next door, and the menu leans into the region without making a fuss about it. The tomato pie and the mac and cheese are the things people can't stop talking about, and the slow shrimp suggests the kitchen is in no hurry, which is a compliment.

White tablecloths in an Uptown cottage near a bend in the river, which tells you something about how New Orleans operates. Brigtsen's is a Cajun-Creole restaurant where the chef spent years under Paul Prudhomme absorbing the bayou side of Louisiana cooking, then brought it back to the city and blended the two traditions into something that belongs entirely to this place. The room is unhurried, the menu is not trying to be fashionable, and that combination tends to fill tables with regulars.

The draft beer comes in a frosty goblet roughly the size of a young pumpkin, which tells you exactly what kind of place this is. Liuzza's by the Track is a barroom with a menu, the menu heavy on po' boys and Creole and Cajun stews that rotate as daily specials. The gumbo is a brothy shrimp version seasoned carefully enough that you probably won't reach for the hot sauce, though you will reach for that goblet.

A hot chicken shop that started as a popup and grew into an East Bay institution with a '90s aesthetic that nobody asked them to drop. The bone-in and the sandwiches are the move, and the heat scale is honest, meaning medium is a real warning and anything above it is a commitment. Complimentary comeback sauce arrives ready to talk you off the ledge. Nashville-style fried chicken done without ceremony.

Etc. is a stylish Southern restaurant in the Loop, a neighborhood not known for fluorescent pillars or an R&B soundtrack that makes you forget you're a few blocks from a Willis Tower gift shop. Couples split smoked turkey rice and fried okra, friends pass lamb chops, and the oxtail comes under gravy, next to purple grits. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Great Lakes semifinalist, if you like your comfort food credentialed.

The two-story dining room pulls off a plausible New Orleans impression without leaving Baltimore, which is the whole point. This Cajun and Creole restaurant runs on the late Paul Prudhomme's influence, and the kitchen leans into Maryland pantry staples to keep the gumbo and jambalaya from feeling like a costume. The Sazerac, New Orleans' official cocktail, is on the menu, and ordering one is the correct move.

The name nods to NoDa's old textile-mill past, and the denim-covered banquettes keep the joke going without overdoing it. This is a Southern comfort restaurant with exposed beams, a lively counter, and a menu that leans into fried chicken, deviled eggs, and banana pudding served in a Mason jar. Weekend brunch draws a crowd, the draft beer list is long, and the tater tots are not something to wave away.

A mother-and-son Cajun and soul food restaurant where the menu shifts with the day of the week: catfish on Fridays, wings on Wednesdays, Sharon's soul food the first Sunday of the month. Their Louisiana and Mississippi roots show in a shrimp étouffée that's lighter and brighter than you'd expect, and a beef debris over grits that rewards patience. Hong Kong-style praline French toast with cardamom and fennel is either the strangest thing on the menu or the most logical.

A Gulf Coast fish-and-chicken restaurant in Independence Heights from a pitmaster who clearly didn't want to choose between the smoker and the fryer. Catfish and chicken share the spotlight, with shrimp po'boys, chargrilled oysters, and a pork belly BLT on Texas toast for people who read the whole menu. Gumbo comes with a Brussels sprouts salad, which counts as balance. Lunch is a casual Tuesday-through-Saturday affair.