The Best Places to Eat and Do in the United States

The copper kitchen gleams open to the dining room, so you can watch the brigade work while you eat. This is the hotel restaurant at JW Marriott Grande Lakes, doing contemporary Italian with enough confidence that it doesn't feel like a hotel restaurant. Small plates, housemade pasta, and roast chicken in parmesan brodo sit alongside each other without apology. The room runs to booths and banquettes in soft, muted tones, and the bread arrives before anything needs deciding.

Genting Palace is a white-tablecloth Chinese dining room inside Resorts World, with high ceilings, floral wallpaper, and tables spaced far enough apart that nobody hears your negotiations over the duck. Dinner is Cantonese fine dining, and the Sunday seafood buffet sets up in the same formal room, complete with a carving station. It holds a Forbes Four Star, so wear something with a collar.

A lakeside terrace with a direct view of the water is a strong opening argument for any pizza shop, and Robert's doesn't squander it. The pies have a crispy, well-salted crust and toppings that lean generous rather than restrained, built for sharing. The room itself is airy, anchored by a big bar counter, and the staff treats you like an actual guest. It landed at #8 on 50 Top Pizza USA, which tracks.

The horchata cream doughnut sells out early, which tells you everything about the pace of a morning here. Casaema is a daytime cafe in Houston Heights rooted in Mexican foodways, with a pastry case full of conchas and guava-queso empanadas alongside a coffee menu running café de olla lattes and piloncillo chai. The chilaquiles are built on housemade chips with brisket. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Fátima Juárez nixtamalizes heirloom Mexican corn every morning to produce blue, red, and yellow masa, which explains why the tortillas at this molino inside Mercado La Paloma have their own devoted following. The short menu runs through tacos, tlacoyos, and chucitos, but the molotes de plátano, plantain dumplings fried crisp around fresh quesillo and floated in mole negro, landed on the New York Times list of best dishes in the country. Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The name says it all: "anju" means Korean food made to go with a drink, and this gastropub on 18th Street takes that premise seriously, with soju, makgeolli, and beer running alongside a menu of fried snacks, rich stews, and banchan. Brick walls, wood floors, and a bit of funky art make it feel like a neighborhood spot that happens to be packed every night. The chef is a James Beard nominee, and the cooking has a mom's-kitchen warmth that earns that comparison without being sentimental.

Oysters dressed with curry emulsions and Kashmiri chili signal right away that this modern Indian restaurant is not following a familiar script. The menu traces the chef's path through the Maldives, Seychelles, and beyond, so coastal raw bar items sit alongside the subcontinent's spice pantry without apology. The room leans toward subdued opulence, the plating rewards a camera, and a James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant keeps the ambitions in view.

Soup dumpling tortellini is either a great idea or a cry for help, and at Maxwells Trading it reads as the former. This contemporary restaurant in the West Loop packs a converted warehouse, where the bar stretches nearly the full length of the room and the kitchen folds Japanese, Chinese, and Thai threads into a single, coherent menu. A rooftop herb garden feeds the kitchen. Named a James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Great Lakes two years running.

Sky-high ceilings, velvet drapes, and cushy curved booths set the stage for chef Tara Monsod's Filipino- and Asian-inflected steakhouse, a room that takes a night out seriously. The menu moves between wagyu, kinilaw, and kare kare without apology, and the bar is worth a stop on its own. Monsod is a two-time James Beard nominee for Best Chef California, which tracks with how the kitchen handles comfort food this opulent.

Warm ochre walls, bookshelves stacked with dried flowers, and handmade pasta that regularly lands a James Beard nomination: this cozy Italian restaurant on Free Street is the kind of neighborhood spot that somehow becomes a national conversation. The chef's shapes and sauces pull from whatever local producers are doing well right now, and the wine program is its own reason to linger. Settle in and watch Portland's Arts District do its thing out the window.

The open kitchen here runs on live fire: a wood-burning oven, a grill, and a turnspit that turns out roasted pork while chefs pull oysters and raid a glass-windowed vegetable humidor in full view of the dining room. It's a New England restaurant in a high-ceilinged brick warehouse above the Old Port, and a James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur winner. The rope-cultured mussels in garlic-almond butter are the kind of thing regulars order without looking up.

The comal choricero never stops, and every cut of pig goes in at a different moment so the lard carries the memory of everything that came before it. This tiny taqueria on the Lower East Side does pork and pork only, from snout to cheek to offal, wrapped in homemade tortillas with fresh salsa. Paint buckets double as seats. The chef earned a James Beard nomination, and the Times put it among New York's best new restaurants of 2024.

The name means "simmered," which tells you something about the chef's approach: unhurried, precise, nothing showing off. This is a casual French prix-fixe counter in the Mission, built around a weekly four-course menu that follows Northern California's seasons and a natural wine list that would feel at home in a Paris cave. The chef trained in France via Japan, and the room, all warm wood and open kitchen, has the nerve to be unpretentious about it. A James Beard nominee.

Pasta anchors the menu, but the chef insists Wildweed isn't an Italian restaurant, and a rib eye with umeboshi, seaweed jelly, and fermented crab makes a reasonable case. This Over-the-Rhine dinner spot grew out of years of pop-ups, and the bar counter lets you watch the kitchen work through every strange, precise move. Named to the New York Times Restaurant List and a James Beard nominee, it earns the attention without seeming to chase it.

A wide, foldable New York-style slice in a city that usually wants to put mango on everything takes a certain conviction. Miami Slice is a no-reservations counter in the Arts District, fast and focused, with a short menu of recognizable pies and a crust that stays crisp without going brittle. The line moves constantly between people eating in and people walking out. 50 Top Pizza placed it third in the country for slices.

A crawfish gumbo gravy poured over egg foo young tells you everything about this Asian American diner in Houston Heights. Named for the chef's parents, Agnes and Sherman blends Chinese and American comfort food into something scallion waffles and pandan French toast feel natural sitting on the same menu. The cocktail list leans equally sideways. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, and the room fills fast with people who figured that out early.

The wood-grain bar wraps around the pasta station, where sheets are rolled, cut, and hung to dry in full view, which tells you everything about what Sarah Grueneberg is doing at this West Loop Italian spot. Counter stools fill by 5:30, and the regulars who claim them rarely need menus. The cucina tipica runs deeper than pasta, but the pasta is why people talk. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

The Montanara Starita comes out of the kitchen lightly fried, sauced, and finished in the wood-fired oven, which is a more interesting origin story than most Midtown pizzas can claim. This Neapolitan pizza shop off Times Square is the New York branch of a Naples institution, run by a chef who grew up in the family craft. Ranked seventh on 50 Top Pizza USA, it draws a crowd that skips the tourist traps one block over and knows exactly what they came for.

Barbs B Q is a weekend-only BBQ shop in Lockhart that draws hours-long lines on Saturdays and Sundays, which is the only time the pitmaster opens the doors. The compact menu runs classic smoked meats with unexpected turns, like pork ribs finished with lime zest and turkey with a black pepper rub. Texas Monthly, Bon Appétit, and the New York Times have all taken notice, and the Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

The name means "mix mix" in Indonesian, which is either a promise or a warning depending on your appetite. This eclectic Southeast Asian restaurant from Thomas and Mariah Pisha-Duffly blends Indonesian and Malaysian flavors with bistro instincts, dry-aged tartare showing up alongside rendang and satay. The rice table feast gives the fullest picture of what the kitchen is doing. A James Beard nominee and a New York Times pick.

The smoke from California white oak drifts into the parking lot long before you reach the door, which is by design and also a warning to arrive early. Heritage is a Texas barbecue shop in San Juan Capistrano where the line forms fast and brisket runs out faster. The chef earned a James Beard nomination and a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the trays of charred, glistening meat make both feel self-explanatory. Save room for the banana pudding.

A yellow neon sign greets you at the door of this small Columbia Heights restaurant, and everything inside quietly contradicts it: white floors, blue banquettes, geometric screens carving out private nooks. The menu runs through modern Hong Kong cooking, the kind where high-heat wok technique meets unexpected pairings. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the chef picked up a James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

The dining room, tucked into a 19th-century building with an interior by Helen Rice, has the feel of a very elegant private residence where you happened to get a table. It's a European-leaning seasonal restaurant, the kind where the pasta is made with care and the slow-cooked chicken tastes like someone started it two days ago. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, and coveted enough that regulars wear their reservations with quiet pride.

Duck dusted with jerk seasoning, served alongside rice and peas and Haitian pikliz, tells you what kind of neighborhood restaurant this is: one where the African diaspora, South Asia, and the Caribbean are all at the same table. The team behind Comfort Kitchen, one Ghanaian, one Nepali, traces how ingredients moved across continents through trade and forced migration. A James Beard nominee, and a New York Times pick for Boston's best right now.

A quaint seafood restaurant on MacDougal where the wine list is sorted by whether you'd rather be James Bond or Austin Powers, and that tracks with everything else here. The fish and chips, a hake fillet in lacey batter, is what put the place on the map when it was still a pop-up. The menu turns with the season, the room is small and blue-and-white, and getting a table requires actual planning.

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.

A little bungalow turned Peruvian ceviche bar where the kitchen leans hard into citrus-cured fish, leche de tigre in several forms, and a pisco sour menu that makes the decision-making easy. The cooking draws from the owners' Peruvian roots, and the flavors are bright and punchy in a way that earns that description. A James Beard nominee two years running, and the cute patio fills up fast.

House-pressed coconut milk in the curries is the kind of detail that tells you everything about Talat Market's approach. This no-reservations Thai restaurant in Summerhill pairs Georgia produce with traditional Thai flavors in a room that splits the difference between industrial and vintage. The chef earned a James Beard nomination in 2024. Go for the curries and the som tum, and expect heat you'll want to chase with the fruit salad.

Savory rosette cookies arrive first at most tables, which tells you something about the chef's sense of humor and ambition. Atoma is a fine dining spot tucked into a converted Craftsman home in Wallingford, running a hyperseasonal Pacific Northwestern menu that's formal enough to take seriously and loose enough to actually enjoy. A James Beard nominee, it draws the kind of crowd that knows exactly where Canlis is, which is where the chef came from.

You descend a staircase into a room held up by 40-foot cast brass palms and malachite-inlaid tables, which sets the tone pretty efficiently. Delilah is a supper club inside the Wynn that leans hard into old Vegas glamour, the kind of room that makes you feel underdressed even when you're not. The beverage program earned a James Beard nomination. Dress up; this is not a jeans situation.

A converted firehouse turned wine bar with a retail shop stocking over 200 bottles you can also drink on the spot. The menu rotates around whatever the chef's neighbor harvests from the garden across the street, which keeps things genuinely seasonal in a way most places only claim. The backyard runs to lawn chairs and picnic blankets, with DJs on weekends. It landed on the New York Times Restaurant List and Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants in the same year.

The menu at this Vietnamese restaurant in Pilsen is split into five sections and leans into lesser-known dishes, the kind that make you feel like you've been missing something for years. The room offers an open kitchen with counter seats, a cocktail bar, and two dining rooms, one with communal tables. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. The cafe next door, Cà Phê Đá, handles coffee and street food.

Filipino food done with a chef's instincts, Musang is a sit-down restaurant on Beacon Hill where the menu rotates by season and earns a James Beard nomination for a reason. Melissa Miranda's cooking stays rooted in Filipino flavors while letting dishes go wherever they want, so a side of greens in adobo can quietly outshine everything else on the table. Come with people you like sharing with.

The copper accents and rich-hued interior visible through the Magazine Street window signal a sophisticated Indian restaurant that takes New Orleans ingredients as seriously as its spice rack. A family-run kitchen, it finds the overlap between Indian classics and Southern tradition, landing somewhere around curried seafood gumbo, which shouldn't work as well as it does. A James Beard nominee and a New York Times pick for the city's best.

The bread basket alone, a trio of lentil roti, oat porridge crisp, and teff biscuit, tells you exactly what Marcus Samuelsson and chef Fariyal Abdullahi are doing here. Hav & Mar is a minimalist seafood restaurant in Chelsea where Ethiopian and Swedish traditions fold into each other without apology or explanation. A James Beard Emerging Chef nominee in 2024, Abdullahi runs a room that feels personal rather than concept-driven.

The kitchen grinds and nixtamalizes heirloom corn daily, which means every tortilla at this innovative Mexican restaurant starts from scratch in a way that most places quietly gave up on long ago. Chef Janet Becerra, a James Beard Emerging Chef nominee, brings European fine-dining technique to cauliflower al pastor tacos and tuna tostadas with morita Kewpie mayo. The room is cozy and the crowd is lucky to have found it.

The name refers to dried coconut meat, which tells you roughly where the kitchen's head is at. Srijith Gopinathan's South Indian restaurant fills a lush, two-story corner room in the Fillmore that photographs well and eats even better. The sharing menu runs from a palette of housemade chutneys with pappadom to shell-on crab curry, the kind of sticky, tamarind-dark sauce that renders your outfit a casualty. A James Beard semifinalist and ranked fourth on the Chronicle's Bay Area top 100.

The signature juice, Ji, sits bottled in the retail section alongside coffee beans and condiments from a sister market, which tells you this is a place with a community idea behind it. Baobab Fare is a Burundian restaurant on Woodward, one of very few in the country, serving slow-roasted goat, pan-fried chicken in mustard-onion sauce, and a coconut-mango dessert that has no business being this good. A James Beard Nominee for Outstanding Restaurateur.

A warm raisin scone arrives before you've even looked at the menu, which tells you everything about the priorities at this intimate neighborhood bistro tucked into Henderson Avenue. The contemporary American cooking leans seasonal and unfussy, and the hospitality earned a James Beard nomination to prove it's not an accident. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the room fills with the kind of regulars who stopped reading the menu months ago.

A whole sea bream arrives at this contemporary Indian restaurant still wearing the grid lines from the wood-fired grill, which tells you most of what you need to know about the kitchen's approach. Srijith Gopinathan, the chef behind Palo Alto's Ettan, blends regional Indian cooking with California ingredients, and the Bib Gourmand and a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Restaurateur followed. It sits inside a Menlo Park development where you can buy a Swiss watch on the way in.

A large spinning rotisserie dominates the open kitchen at this Capitol Hill New American restaurant, and the menu more or less organizes itself around it. The duck is the obvious move, but seasonal Mid-Atlantic produce does serious supporting work throughout. The room is spare, which keeps the focus where the kitchen wants it. The New York Times put it on their D.C. shortlist, and a 2024 James Beard nomination for Outstanding Restaurateur followed.

The line forms before the doors open, which tells you something about a strip-mall pizzeria in suburban Maryland. Tony Conte left fine dining to make neo-Neapolitan pies here, and the blistered crusts show it. A James Beard nominee and a spot on 50 Top Pizza USA, the place punches well past its zip code. The roasted potato and onion pizza, fragrant with rosemary, was named one of the DC area's favorite dishes of 2025.

Emmett is a Kensington restaurant that treats the Levant as a starting point and then wanders off through France, Italy, and the American South without a map. The cocktail list includes a lamb fat washed rye, so the bar is also in on it. Dinner here is a sit-down affair, polished and on the pricier side, and the James Beard folks nominated it for Best New Restaurant. The main problem is ordering a reasonable amount.

Twelve counter seats and a reservation on Tock are your entry points to this North Loop omakase spot, where the chef plates Edo-style sushi and seasonal small dishes in a room stripped down to near-silence. The minimalist space is deliberate, meant to keep your focus exactly where he wants it. The chef was a James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Midwest in 2026, which tracks with the precision on the plate.

Each dinner follows a literal script, with courses named Acts I through V and a menu built around a short story or novel that changes every six weeks. Nodoguro is an intimate Japanese omakase tucked into a downtown building, where the chef composes each plate in front of you at the bar. Ryan Roadhouse sources his rice from Hokkaido, and the whole thing moves with the quiet precision of someone who has thought very hard about the order of things.

A small bungalow in Orlando's Mills 50 district, Kaya runs a modern Filipino tasting menu that moves through multiple courses with a rotating cast of local seafood and central Florida produce. The kitchen riffs on classic Filipino flavors rather than replicate them, and the open kitchen keeps things convivial for a neighborhood spot. A James Beard nominee, it draws the kind of crowd that actually reads the menu before they sit down.

The bar stocks around 150 agave spirits, which tells you something about where the priorities lie at this NoDo Mexican restaurant. The interior channels Tulum and Quintana Roo in a way that makes you want to stay for another mezcal cocktail. The kitchen works through Mexico's regional traditions, from Veracruz to the coasts, and the chapulines, tiny fried grasshoppers seasoned with tamarind and chili, are offered completely without apology.

A glass dome over the upper terrace announces that this is not a casual tikka masala stop. Ettan is an upscale Indian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto where chef Srijith Gopinathan builds a Cal-Indian menu around coastal Keralan cooking and whatever California farms are doing that week. The two-level room, dressed in indigo fabric and beaded chandeliers, draws Desi families for milestones and couples who like their date nights with some drama.

Chef Hugo Ortega's flagship is a dressy, sit-down Mexican restaurant on Westheimer that's been the city's go-to for regional cooking for what feels like forever. Brunch pulls a crowd on both days, Saturday à la carte and Sunday buffet with live music. Dinner runs deeper, with dishes like cabrito roasted and pulled from the bone. A James Beard nominee for Outstanding Hospitality.

Nasim Alikhani spent decades as a home cook in the Iranian diaspora before opening this Persian restaurant in Park Slope at 58, which explains why the food feels like someone's mother finally decided to show the city what she'd been holding back. Whitewashed brick, marble bar, black wood beams. The kitchen is faithful to Persian tradition but loose enough to foam a yogurt or call a pomegranate-marinated rib-eye a kebab. A James Beard nominee for Best Chef New York State.

A welcome sangria at the door, a poem written for the menu, and a bouquet arranged by the chef's mom set the tone at this intimate tasting menu spot tucked behind an unremarkable door on Madison. The chef earned a James Beard nomination in 2026, and the kitchen rotates its menu completely every few weeks, chasing the season. The counter seats feel less like a restaurant and more like a dinner party thrown by someone who thought of everything.

A backyard patio that somehow feels like a secret, even though Sonoma Plaza is right there. Valley is a neighborhood wine bar and bottle shop where the list leans into organic and biodynamic bottles from corners of California you haven't thought to explore yet. The short menu of small plates is built for sharing and changes often, with a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod confirming the kitchen punches well above its modest ambitions.

A four-course tasting menu in Bay View where the chef's Top Chef celebrity lands a little lighter than you'd expect. Dan Jacobs and Dan Van Rite run a focused, seasonal room, the kind where you follow the menu wherever it leads, from liver mousse and shrimp toast toward squash with red curry or something involving boudin blanc. A James Beard Nominee for Best Chef Midwest, the duo earns the room's easy trust.

The scalloped sushi bar inside Rosewood Miramar's moody Japanese-house dining room sets the mood before a single piece of fish lands. AMA is a hotel sushi shop doing edomae-style nigiri, available à la carte or as a full omakase. The name nods to Japan's legendary female pearl divers, and the vibe follows through, all dark wood and lantern light. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected restaurants.

A marble bar, duck fat fries, and oysters on the half shell make a strong case for showing up before dinner even starts. Elvie's is a French-leaning bistro that moves easily from morning pastries through a cheery lunch to a more polished evening service. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, the New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and a James Beard nomination followed. Jackson, Mississippi, apparently has thoughts about French food.

The dining room runs peach and carrot tones with a retro-meets-modern feel that signals a proper occasion, and the uniformed servers confirm it. This is upscale New American with a wink: potato "churros" with caramelized onion dip, roasted chicken with sauce vin jaune, a chocolate candy bar for dessert. The chef is a James Beard Emerging Chef nominee, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice. Prices are serious, but so is the kitchen.

The Vaucroissant, a lattice croissant stuffed with sausage from Vaucresson's, a venerable Black-owned Seventh Ward institution, is a good place to start understanding what this neighborhood bakery is doing. The chef, a former dancer, bakes with a historian's eye: benne seeds on toffee cookies, cornbread muffins wrapped in their own husks. A 2025 James Beard Emerging Chef nominee, she's built something that tastes like New Orleans and remembers where it came from.

Dark walls covered in Japanese murals set the mood at this Chinatown fine dining spot, where the kitchen blends Vietnamese, Mexican, Italian, and Japanese influences into something that shouldn't work as well as it does. An open fire does a lot of the heavy lifting. The chef earned a James Beard nomination for Best Chef Southwest, which tracks for a room this quietly serious about food that refuses to settle on any one identity.

The smoked duck, with its lacquered, crackling skin, is the thing people come back for at this Mission bistro. A veteran sommelier opened it and named it after his father, so naturally the wine list punches well above neighborhood-bar weight. The cooking is unfussy California bistro food, heavy on charcuterie and good meat. Warm without trying, the kind of room that makes a Tuesday feel like a reasonable night out.

White tablecloths, candlelight, and a wine list so deep in Barolo it borders on a personal obsession: this Cherry Creek fine dining room has been a northern Italian anchor in Denver for as long as anyone can remember. The front-of-house team takes annual trips to Europe, and it shows in a warmth that never tips into theater. The four-course degustazione with pairings is the move, though grazing at the bar on a weeknight has its own quiet appeal.

String lights and vivid artwork set the tone at this colorful Indian street food restaurant in Decatur, where the menu reads like a series of small arguments for ordering just one more plate. The kitchen leans on local, seasonal ingredients for its South Asian cooking, and the format works as well for two as for a full table going family-style. A James Beard semifinalist and Michelin selected, it draws a crowd that tends to ignore the menu only because they already know what they want.

Hugo Ortega's Oaxacan restaurant inside the Marriott Marquis is the kind of place that makes you think differently about mole, a sauce most people treat as a single thing rather than a whole universe. The kitchen explores that universe seriously, working through pipián, mole negro, and variations in between. A James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef nominee rounds out a meal that doesn't skimp on the sweet end. The Sunday brunch draws a devoted crowd.