The Best Places to Eat and Do in the United States

Zaba's is a Vegas-born mini chain in Downtown Summerlin, the kind of counter-service Mexican grill where you build a bowl, burrito, or quesadilla by choosing a protein and pointing at things. Grilled shrimp, shredded beef, and battered fish all get a turn. The Valencia heat tacos toss orange slices in chile powder, which sounds like a dare and eats like a plan. Wear whatever you wore to the farmers market, and expect to be out in twenty minutes.

Pachi-Pachi is an izakaya-style lounge near Fremont East, which means the drinks and the snacks get equal billing and nobody pretends to be there for just one. Hand rolls, katsu sandos, and fried deviled eggs you can spike with wasabi sit alongside highballs and a martini infused with kimchi and nori. The pub burger arrives under molten Japanese beer cheese, a combination that sounds like a dare and eats like a plan.

Pal's is a seafood restaurant tucked against a yacht club at the far end of Hayden Island, which means you get the marina views without the dock fees or the mildew. Oyster platters and seafood towers sit alongside calamari nachos, a combination that sounds like a dare and goes down easily. It's a casual, convivial spot, best timed so the sun drops into the Columbia while a paloma is in your hand.

Pancho's is a Mexican restaurant that came to Summerlin from Southern California, and it brought the margarita list with it. More than forty tequilas sit behind the bar, plus a Cadillac or two, and the decor is lush enough that you'll feel overdressed in a ball cap. Daily happy hour covers the chicken-and-cheese egg rolls, and the combination plates of enchiladas and tamales arrive without any reinvention.

Papa Noodle is a fast, casual Chinese noodle shop a short walk from a good chunk of SoMa's office towers, which explains the lunch-hour line of people holding badges. The menu is a handful of bowls, including pork or chicken noodles, beef noodle soup, and a vegan option, with noodles made daily. Every order comes with a White Rabbit candy, the closest thing to a dessert menu or a raise.

Peaches HotHouse is a casual Bed-Stuy counter-service spot for Nashville hot chicken, back when that was a rare find in the city and long before the chains with celebrity backing showed up. You pick your heat (regular, hot, extra hot) and your bird, shrimp, or catfish, then add grits and collards. Dress for a paper-lined basket and a mild sweat. Eater lists it among the best places to eat in the neighborhood.

Petite Edith is a French bistro on the ground floor of a luxury apartment building, which means the neighbors can claim it without ever putting on a coat. The big U-shaped bar seats solo diners comfortably, and the banquettes in back suit a quiet dinner for two. The kitchen takes French classics through a Midwestern filter, so you get two kinds of bread, and brunch brings duck fat hash browns.

The broth at this Chinatown pho shop has been going since 1987, and regulars treat it accordingly, never opening a menu. A sprawling Southern Vietnamese lineup covers nearly 60 dishes, but the namesake bowl, available in more than two dozen variations, is the reason most people brave the line. The imperial egg rolls, crisp and stuffed with pork and wood ear mushrooms, make a strong case for arriving hungry enough to order both.

Fruit tarts are the whole point at this Taiwanese bakery in Alhambra, where the crusts are milled from Tehachapi Sonora wheat and the fillings lean on local farms, including strawberries from Harry's Berries. The chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu and did time at Milo and Olive, and the drinks menu runs single-origin espresso, hojicha, and seasonal sparkling sodas alongside. A focused, careful little shop doing one thing with very deliberate ingredients.

Pink Tiger is a Wharf cocktail bar and restaurant where everything arrives in some shade of rose, from the patio umbrellas to the drinks, which seem to have been color-matched to the walls. The menu wanders between Southeast Asian, American, and Mediterranean ideas, so go in with a loose itinerary. Expect a dressed-up, mildly flamingo crowd and a tab that matches the waterfront address.

Pizzana is a Neapolitan-leaning pizzeria on West Gray, a Los Angeles import that gave Houston its own Tex-Mex pie with spiced porchetta and a chipotle salsa. The cacio e pepe pizza made the trip too, along with a Negroni di Napoli and a ranch water that knows where it is. You can also buy the dough to go for $5, in case River Oaks wants to pretend it made dinner.

Planta Queen is an upscale vegan restaurant on North Clark, part of a chain that dresses its plant-based menu in design-forward rooms. The sushi stands in for fish with eggplant, watermelon, and carrots, which is a lot of faith in a carrot. Monday brings unlimited maki for $35, and lunch has a two-course special. Expect a polished crowd that came for dinner, not a lecture.

This is a small oyster bar with an outsized patio, parked a few steps from the Wharf's fish market, where the barge bobs and the air does some of the marketing. It's run by the oyster growers whose name is on the door, so the bivalves have a short commute. Weekday happy hour from 4 to 6 puts oysters at $2 and clams at $1.50, which tourists and locals both do the math on.

Reggies is a heavy metal bar and live music venue that happens to serve jumbo, crispy, sauce-soaked chicken wings, which is a sentence you don't often get to write. Rock, rap, and metal shows fill the stage, with the odd cover band, and the rooftop deck runs on heat lamps once the weather turns. Expect fried pickles, sandwiches, and a respectable beer list, plus a dress code best described as band shirt.

Duck fesenjoon with pomegranate and walnuts is the kind of dish that makes you wonder why Persian food doesn't get more attention in this city. Rumi's Kitchen is a full-service Persian restaurant that started in Atlanta and has landed at Westfield Century City, bringing herb-heavy stews, saffron-marinated kebabs, and a menu that reads like a very convincing argument for going somewhere other than the food court upstairs.

Sam's Place is a wine bar in a Highland Park bungalow with no website, no social media, and apparently no interest in either. Locals arrive with their dogs and split a platter of sausage, crusty bread, and cornichon butter alongside natural or Old World pours. Wood paneling keeps things cozy, weekends fill up without turning rowdy, and the bar steak is there if a snack plate doesn't count as dinner.

Enrique Olvera's Casamata group opened this seafood-forward Mexican restaurant in a space that has been an Olvera address before, which is either poetic or just convenient real estate. Chef Chuy Cervantes runs the kitchen, sending out mariscos that make a strong case for the coastal zip code: local rockfish ceviche, Dungeness crab tostada with furikake, oysters with turnip salsa. Wine, beer, and cocktails round it out.

This is a family-run Mexican spot on the Tigard stretch of Pacific Highway, a counter-service taqueria with a panaderia attached and a price tag that won't make you check your balance. The burritos arrive at roughly the size of a throw pillow, and the rice and beans migrate across the plate like they're settling new territory. A glass wall of pan dulce guards the door, which makes leaving without a bag nearly impossible. Eater has it on its list of the best restaurants and food carts in Portland.

Schneider Deli is a counter-service Jewish deli tucked into the old Ohio House Motel diner, where the midcentury bones survived the renovation and so did the booths. Breakfast runs from corned beef hash to bagels with lox, then lunch turns to pastrami, brisket, and turkey sliced to order while you watch. Casual, quick, and priced like a sandwich shop, which is the correct amount of money for a deli.

Seia is a contemporary Italian restaurant on the 54th floor of a Brickell skyscraper, where floor-to-ceiling windows frame the skyline, Biscayne Bay, and the Atlantic beyond. The menu leans on handmade pastas and seafood, with an Italian wine list and cocktails to match. Expect a dressed-up room of date nights, anniversaries, and people whose phones come out before the bread does. Eater lists it among the best restaurants in Brickell.

Seville is a rooftop Mediterranean restaurant on top of a Hilton, which sounds like a warning and mostly isn't. The menu leans on tapas, pasta, fish, and pinsa, all sized for splitting, so it suits coworkers on the company card and out-of-town friends who just got talked into the Skydeck. The big patio gets you the Loop skyline without pressing your face against glass. The Infatuation lists it among the Loop's best.

Sexy Steak lives in the old Grand Army of the Republic Building downtown, where you pick your own cut from a case lined with Himalayan salt, like choosing a lobster, but for people who'd rather not. Everything is halal, the wagyu runs Japanese and American, and the menu also wanders into Italian dishes, seafood, and oysters. Expect a steakhouse bill and a lounge upstairs, plus a wine list built for the Napa cabs and Bordeaux.

Shelby is a basement cocktail bar in the Financial District, where finding the door is the first round of the evening. Downstairs, the drinks run from a proper espresso martini to a pineapple Averna negroni riff, backed by shared plates like beef tartare and a mushroom dish that politely impersonates escargot. It was a James Beard semifinalist for outstanding bar program. Book on Resy so you only get lost once.

The menu calls them "Sichuan ravioli," which tells you everything about the vibe here. This old-school International District Chinese restaurant has been serving homestyle Sichuan long before hot pot chains made the cuisine trendy in Seattle, and the approach hasn't changed much: big plates, ropy noodles, a pepper-reddened boiled fish that sounds mild and isn't, and portions sized like someone's grandmother is worried you look thin.

This is the diner tucked inside the El Cortez, an old Fremont Street casino hotel, with a menu long enough to need its own table of contents. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and a late-night run all share the pages, and prime rib is the house specialty at any hour. It's a proper diner, so nobody dresses up, and weekends it keeps going until 7 a.m. for people whose night has outlasted their plans.

A tea room and cafe on the second floor of a Bowery building, reached by buzzing an unmarked door and climbing an industrial staircase. Neon gramophones, Togo couches, a vinyl listening room, and a DJ who drops in twice daily to play something like Boards of Canada on a sound system that did not come cheap. The MacBook presence is significant, but the Japanese teas and pastries give everyone a reasonable excuse to stay.

A rooftop restaurant perched atop the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Skywalker Grill pulls its ingredients from George Lucas's own Skywalker Ranch, which is either a charming farm-to-table story or the most elaborate movie tie-in you've ever paid for, depending on your mood. The modern American menu runs from wagyu burgers and lobster corn dogs to chicken tenders served, with a straight face, alongside caviar ranch.

Someday is a cocktail bar and restaurant tucked down an alley off Division, so the busiest shopping strip in the neighborhood quietly becomes someone else's problem. The shady patio has a Mediterranean slouch to it, and the drinks lean playful, with basil, strawberry, pandan, and tamarind all getting a turn. Plan on a spritz that turns into the cheese plate, and dress for a first date or a 50th anniversary, both of which fit.

Soraya is a modern Japanese American restaurant on the ground floor of the Federal Reserve Building, which is a very Detroit place to eat a katsu. The menu runs from takoyaki and udon to sushi rolls, plus cocktails built on Japanese whisky for people who'd like their banana and brown sugar to feel like a decision. Come in somewhere between work-casual and date-night, and book on Resy.

A former Silver Lake church became Hotel Lucile, and the team behind De La Nonna tucked this restaurant inside it, which gives the room more drama than most new openings deserve. The menu threads French technique through California farmers market produce, with a Southern ease in how it's all served. A full bar runs cocktails that lean tequila and mezcal, and the whole thing is relaxed enough that you won't feel underdressed.

Southern Chicago is a steakhouse-ish dinner spot in the South Loop where the crystal chandeliers and plush velvet seating suggest the Las Vegas Strip got lost on the way to Soldier Field. The kitchen cooks steaks over open flame and stacks seafood towers, and the sides lean decadent, like deviled eggs topped with shrimp and caviar. Plan on dressing a notch up, and on a lot of conventioneers.

Coffee arrives at Specs spiked with Cynar, corrected with maple cream liqueur, or topped with Angostura whipped cream, all from 8am. It's a coffee shop and daytime cocktail bar in Winooski, the former mill town next door to Burlington, where the crafty set debates linocut workshops in the sunny windows while big dreamers at the bar puzzle over how to dome the town rotary. When talks stall, the attached bev mart stocks 24-ounce Busch Ice and cigarettes.

The dry-aged bone-in ribeye arrives blanketed in hot butter, which tells you everything about the register this grand steakhouse is playing in. From the family behind Mastro's, Steak 48 fits Beverly Hills like a bespoke suit, with a seafood tower stacked high and sides that go past the usual (corn brulee, Hasselback potatoes). The room skews dressed-up and the tabs follow suit, but the kitchen keeps the promise the room makes.

Sunday Sauce is an Italian-American restaurant on North Killingsworth that treats New Jersey red-sauce comfort food as a cuisine worth remastering. The decor is a loving nod to Y2K little league pizza parties, which is a sentence nobody expected to write about a pasta joint. It works for a date or a Tuesday, and the lunch menu now runs to heroes and subs, with the Bergen County line debate left to you.

Sunny Hill is a bright, casual pizza place a short walk from Golden Gardens, which makes it the natural spot to sit down once the beach has worn you out. The round pies come blistered, and the Detroit-style squares have a focaccia-ish crust with frizzled cheese at the edges. There are also cheeseburgers and waffle fries, and the black garlic ranch for dunking them is not optional in spirit, even if it is on paper.

Metal band posters on the walls and distorted guitars blasting while someone brews the most delicate pour-overs in Williamsburg is the whole vibe at this small coffee shop. The owner sources from Brooklyn's Sey roastery and makes his own blends, and the result is coffee that tastes less like coffee than like the memory of a fruit. The drip is worth the trip on its own if you're not in a splurging mood.

Sushi Ichiban is an all-you-can-eat sushi spot a short walk from the Fremont Street canopy, marked by orange neon and a mural on 6th Street. The roll list is long enough to need a bookmark, running from plain salmon nigiri to a shrimp tempura Fremont roll, with corn cheese on the side for anyone who wants a vegetable-adjacent moment. Service moves fast, and takeout comes at a discount.

Daisuke Nakazawa trained under Jiro Ono, and that lineage hangs quietly over every piece of Edomae-style nigiri served at his Los Angeles omakase counter on South Robertson. The room is hushed and deliberate, the kind of place where you eat with full attention. An omakase here moves through nigiri flights with the optional chef's menu adding hot and cold courses before and between.

Hidden in the valet-parking alcove of a Rodeo Drive retail building, this intimate omakase counter seats fewer than twenty people and pairs its high-end nigiri with wine instead of sake, which sounds like a sommelier's dare and somehow works beautifully. Six seats at the bar, a near-invisible entrance, and enough hush to make the whole thing feel like a pleasant conspiracy. The Valley outpost earned the devoted following; this one earns the real estate.