The Best Places to Eat and Do in the United States

Vintage mirrors, cherry wood, and brass gas chandeliers give this Downtown Brooklyn steakhouse an amber glow that makes every Tuesday feel like an occasion. The kitchen draws on the legacy of Edna Lewis, who ran it in the late eighties, so fried chicken and crab cakes share the menu with dry-aged prime beef. Dessert gets taken seriously, which a baked Alaska deserves. It has a spot on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

The burritos here skip the rice, which Mission purists treat as either heresy or gospel depending on which taqueria they grew up on. Order yours dorado-style and the kitchen presses it on the plancha until the tortilla blisters gold. Counter service, cash-register lines out the door, no frills beyond the food. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have both made the pilgrimage to this old-school Mission taqueria, which tells you something about the burritos.

A European restaurant tucked into the Melrose District's Wagon Wheel building, where the back patio's twinkle lights and two-top tables make the whole thing feel like a date you actually planned. The menu changes with the seasons and you can do a five-course tasting or just pull a bottle from the adjoining wine shop and order à la carte. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest.

Garlic naan pulled straight from a clay oven is the baseline here, and it only gets more interesting from there. Zareen's is a casual South Asian counter-service spot where street food classics share the menu with a chapli kebab burger on a pillowy bun and paneer tikka masala wrapped burrito-style. The masala fries alone are a strong argument for the side dish. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws a steady lunch crowd of people who know exactly what they're ordering.

Matt Groening is a regular, and his illustrations hang on the wall alongside the framed press clippings, which tells you something about the Jitlada experience. This Southern Thai restaurant occupies a well-worn strip mall on Sunset, but the menu runs to hundreds of dishes, split between familiar Thai standards and a deep catalog of southern specialties that most LA Thai spots don't touch. A James Beard nominee, and the kind of place regulars will talk your ear off about.

The booths at this coal-oven pizza parlor are so carved up with initials and signatures that the wood itself is basically a guestbook for the last several decades of Greenwich Village. Whole pies only, thin-crusted and charred just right, no slices and no exceptions. The room is loud, cheerful, and not trying to impress anyone, which is precisely why it has been full since before most of its customers were born.

Live fire anchors the open kitchen at this spacious Contemporary American restaurant, where Levi Goode channels five generations of Texas roots into a menu that swings from seafood towers to whole duck. The monkey bread served alongside the deviled crab is the kind of detail that makes a dish unforgettable. Ranch-inspired without being the least bit kitschy, it's the sort of place Houston does better than it gets credit for.

The house-made soba is the point here, though the menu at this elegant soba house in the Arts District runs wide enough to spark a real argument about what to order. Cold or hot noodles arrive with seasonal toppings that range from strictly traditional to a Bolognese that has no business working as well as it does. Grilled freshwater eel comes with its crisped spine, exactly as it would in Japan. The Michelin Guide has it listed among its selected restaurants in Dallas.

A 10,000-pound custom oven fires the pies at this Arcadia pizzeria, and a quarter of every dollar goes to the dog rescue operating out back. Each evening, adoptable puppies come out to a covered patio pen, which is where your appetizers will go cold. The pizza is better than you'd expect from a place whose headline act has floppy ears. Bring a date or the kids, and decide in advance exactly how many dogs you're allowed to take home.

A sunny Ethiopian cafe in Silver Spring where you pick your injera before anything else, choosing between imported (extra tangy) and local, both soft enough to do the job properly. The menu is vibrant and the cooking runs from a bubbling chickpea stew to crispy beef tibs to collards that hold their own. Show up early and order the wheat flatbread fried in butter and drizzled with honey. A James Beard semifinalist chef runs the kitchen.

The team behind Boia De runs this wood-fired New American spot a few doors down, with no gas stove in sight. What's surprising is that vegetables do most of the heavy lifting: the lasagna sheets are made from mustard greens, and the menu treats produce with the same care you'd expect from a proper steakhouse. Pizza and some meat round things out, but the room is casual enough that kids and couples share tables without anyone feeling out of place.

A slice counter at the entrance means you can be in and out before the circular bar crowd even finds a seat. Pizza Rock is a big, loud, rock-and-roll pizza shop spread across multiple rooms, with booths for two and communal tables for everyone else. The menu runs several regional styles, and the staff can actually explain the differences. Named among 50 Top Pizza USA's excellent pizzerias, it draws a crowd that didn't want to eat on the Strip.

A massive retro mural reading "Welcome to Leucadia" covers the outside wall, and honestly that sets the tone. Coffee Coffee is a casual coffee shop right on the 101, all big windows and easy light, with seating inside and out. The menu runs the usual espresso route plus an extensive tea list and light breakfast and lunch bites. Surf-town regulars and the unhurried crowd from nearby Bing Surfboards both seem equally at home here.

Three coffee trees grow out of a circular planter in the middle of the room, which tells you something about how seriously this coffee shop takes its atmosphere. The half-moon bar looks borrowed from a boutique hotel, and through the sliding glass doors at the back you can watch the team roasting and cupping while your pour-over is pulled. The menu runs to passionfruit ginger espresso tonics and a sweet corn cream Americano for the adventurous.

A small, bright restaurant on Aurora where the kitchen turns out somewhere between 700 and 800 momos on a busy weekend, which tells you everything about the pace. The six-page menu covers Indian and Nepali cooking, with dumplings in ten styles, a full vegetarian slate, and enough bread to require a decision. The dal bhat thali is where to start, a sampler of traditional foods that the team describes as the closest thing to a home-cooked dinner in Nepal.

Lobster chow mein on the menu is your first clue that the kitchen at this Hayes Valley dinner spot isn't playing it safe. The room is rustic-chic and compact, distressed wood and a light-dark palette, and it books out well in advance, so the bar is the move if you show up without a plan. California cooking with global detours and fine-dining precision runs through the whole menu, delivered by a staff that keeps pace with the crowd.

Tortillas pressed from heirloom corn varieties anchor the menu at this lively Mexican restaurant tucked into a Woodlands strip mall. The chef, a James Beard semifinalist, grew up in Jalisco and cooks like it, with lamb shank slow-braised in agave leaf and a tableside al pastor that gets lit on fire, because apparently subtlety is optional. The crowd that fills this place on a Friday night suggests the mall address puts nobody off.

Pillowy pita, blistered or fried, arrives alongside hummus and baba ghanoush worth skipping the entree for, though that would be a shame. Bavel is a stylish Middle Eastern restaurant from the team behind Bestia, set in a high-ceilinged Arts District warehouse that smells exactly like somewhere you want to be. The menu draws on Israeli, Moroccan, Turkish, and Egyptian cooking, and the room fills with people who booked ahead and dressed accordingly.

The name means "heart, captured" in Persian, which sets the tone before you've even sat down. This sceney Inman Village restaurant is built around sharing, with spreads and house bread to start, a dedicated section of tahdig on the menu, and slow-cooked meats for the table. The crowd arrives dressed to be seen, but the food is the kind that makes people stop talking mid-sentence. A Michelin Guide selection.

1111 is a Montrose cocktail bar and restaurant that takes its cues from Mexico City, which explains the cave-like room and the oval bar at its center. It's pronounced "eleven eleven," a favor to anyone who'd otherwise say it four ways. The margarita comes crystal clear under a cloud of salty lime air, and it sits next door to a jazz club, so the evening practically plans itself. Expect cocktail-hour prices and a good outfit.

A Neapolitan pizzeria in the Heights where the reservation book fills so fast that the walk-in line starts forming early, which is a lot of ceremony for a pie. The wood-fired menu leans on Texas farms and seasonal produce, with tortelloni and polenta tots filling out the table. Upstairs, a 16-seat Italian Deco bar pours things like a Biscoff espresso martini. Eater counted it among Houston's best new restaurants.

A disco ball spins over the dining room at this Graham Avenue pizzeria, where the thin-crust pies share the bill with house pasta and focaccia made in the open kitchen. The Italian wine list runs to two pages of sparkling alone, which tells you something about the ambitions here. The Calabrian soppressata and hot honey on the Diavola have a following. Michelin has it in the guide.

Exposed brick, dim lighting, and vintage New York photography set a mood that a taxidermied dog in a birthday hat quietly undermines. Confidant is a sharing-plates restaurant in Brooklyn Heights with a menu that runs from scallop crudo and trout mousse to dry-aged meats and a prawn pot pie worth leaning across the table for. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and the food takes the whole thing more seriously than the decor lets on.

Florence Supper Club is a red-sauce Italian-American restaurant done in dark wood, roomy booths, and checkered tablecloths, lit low enough that everyone looks like they have a good alibi. The menu sticks to clams casino, towering Caesars, and chicken Parmesan, all of it heavy, so bring friends with appetites. Reservations run scarce, but the bar takes walk-ins, and waiting there with a drink is no hardship.

The counter seats by the roll-up door are the ones to ask for at this Basque-leaning bistro in Denver's West Wash Park. The chef runs a rotisserie, ships white asparagus from France when it's in season, and keeps a pan con tomate on the menu that nearly every table orders. The New York Times put it on their 2026 Restaurant List, which tracks. The whole place reads like a bistro that skipped the part where bistros become self-conscious about being bistros.

Jantra is an eight-seat Thai tasting menu room carved out of a former private dining room, which makes it the rare restaurant where the whole place is the chef's table. The premise is dinner as seen by someone just landed from outer space, a fitting angle for Houston. It's $175 for eight to 10 courses, one seating at 7 p.m., so show up on time and dressed like you've planned this.

Caramelized onions, sour cream, and chives crown the classic potato-and-cheese pierogi here, and that's more or less the whole argument for visiting. What started as a DeKalb Market stall grew into a lively Ridgewood restaurant and market doing contemporary Polish comfort food. Schnitzel with endive and pickle martinis signal ambition, but the pierogi are still running the show. A casual, cheerful room where the crowd orders like they've been waiting all week.

A player piano sets the tone at this Montrose dining room, where the dress code is "go ahead and try" and the menu leans toward Mayfair via Paris. The kitchen runs British-French, which means duck Wellington and oysters at the bar feel equally at home. The Marigold Club is the kind of place where ordering a martini first is not just acceptable but expected, and Esquire has already taken their side on the matter.

Half seafood market, half full-service restaurant, The Tides sits in a quiet Safety Harbor neighborhood north of St. Pete and pulls off both roles without apology. The menu runs large with a Southern lean, so fried green tomatoes and pimento cheese show up alongside oysters Bienville and po'boys stuffed with fried grouper. The kitchen is open all day, with weekend brunch, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice.

Cocktails named for San Francisco neighborhoods anchor the bar at this fine dining spot in Cow Hollow, where modern Indian cooking gets a California reframe. The kitchen folds seasonal produce into dishes that stay recognizably Indian while drifting somewhere new. Both à la carte and tasting menus are on offer, so you can commit as much or as little as the occasion calls for. The room is elegant without being stiff.

The name means "grand performance" in Hindi, and the room in North Hills plays along with a striking modern interior that makes dinner feel like an event. This contemporary Indian restaurant works local ingredients through traditional techniques, though the kitchen slides between classic and fusion without much fanfare. The chef earned a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist nod in 2025, which tracks with a menu confident enough to end on a dessert mapping her journey from northwest India to the South.

A glassed-in butchery room off the dining floor sets the tone at this polished American restaurant from Hosea Rosenberg, a James Beard semifinalist. Seats at the counter face the open kitchen, and the bar is well-stocked for lingering. The charcuterie comes from in-house, the pasta is inventive, and the donuts have a way of becoming the whole point of the meal.

The gummy bear chaser that arrives alongside your espresso tells you almost everything you need to know about Brio Coffeeworks. This roastery coffee bar in Burlington's South End Arts District takes its coffee seriously and its atmosphere playfully, with pink and purple fixtures and a rotating cast of microlot single-origins on espresso or drip. Vermont small-business goods fill out the shelves and the drinks menu, and the crowd skews curious rather than caffeinated-and-cranky.

The copper bar catches the afternoon light in a way that makes you want to order a Bloody Mary before you've even sat down. Zuni is a bi-level California bistro that's been a fixture on Market Street forever, shaped like a triangle and decorated like someone with actual taste. The wood-fired chicken for two, served with a warm bread salad, is the dish regulars have been quietly hoarding for decades.

The campfire pie, an Oreo-crusted chocolate and toasted meringue dessert that a New York Times critic compared to Rothko edges, signals exactly what kind of neighborhood restaurant Charlie's is: Napa Valley wine-country cooking without the ceremony. The menu ranges globally, the room skews community rather than occasion, and the whole thing carries a legacy from Cindy Pawlcyn's old Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in the best, most low-key way.

The line snaking through downtown Palo Alto at noon is the surest sign this ramen shop is doing something right. A Tokyo-based chain with a cult following, it serves rich tonkotsu broth in five varieties, each bowl customizable down to noodle firmness and salt level. The red king, centered with a blazing eye of miso pork and cayenne, is the one people queue for. No reservations, but you can order while waiting, so you sit down to a bowl almost immediately.

Brady Williams built his name at Canlis, and Tomo is what happens when a fine-dining chef stops apologizing for also loving a steam burger. The à la carte menu lands somewhere between Japanese comfort food and upscale American, with kakigori towering improbably over its bowl for dessert. The room runs dark and stylish, and the wine list is adventurous enough that the four-glass, diner-paced flight exists as a sensible entry point.

China Mama is a Chinatown Chinese restaurant on South Jones that covers Cantonese, Szechuan, and Dongbei cooking, which makes the menu roughly the length of a short novel. Crispy beef, dry pepper chicken, and mapo tofu share the table with braised pork belly and a taro duck. It's a sit-down, shared-plates affair where ordering for the group turns into a negotiation, and Eater has put it on its Las Vegas lists more than once.

Leather booths, stone and copper accents, and woven rugs on the wall set the tone for a sit-down New Mexican restaurant that skews considerably more swanky than the cuisine's roadside reputation suggests. The marble bar is massive and the patio invites lingering, especially at brunch. Green chile shows up in nearly everything, from eggs Benedict to a pecan-wood-grilled cheeseburger, and the dinner menu runs to rack of lamb and enchiladas.

A chalkboard of rotating cocktail specials and a basement bathed so completely in red light that no other color survives the trip down. This speakeasy-style cocktail bar is tucked beneath the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel, behind a mural and open only two nights a week, which is exactly the energy. Vintage velvet chairs and low tables give it the feel of a sitting room someone forgot to leave, and the drinks arrive in coupes and crystal-cut rocks glasses.

A ramen shop where the broth might arrive laced with matcha or built around five preparations of garlic in a single bowl. Mensho brought its Japanese noodle concept to Arizona with this Mesa outpost, a light-wood room centered on an open kitchen where handmade noodles go into thick, creamy broths. The kind of place where the bowl keeps revealing itself as you eat, which is a polite way of saying you'll want to stay longer than you planned.

The dining room pulls from Vienna's Secession movement, all gilded geometry and serious intent, which feels right for a fine dining restaurant inside the Ace Hotel where the food runs Austrian and French with a modern hand. The New York Times gave it three stars, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed. The chef behind the now-closed Bâtard is back, and the room draws people who dressed up on purpose.

A wood flame burns in the hearth, thin slats line the ceiling, and a gleaming copper bar anchors the room, which tells you everything about where Cotogna sits on the rustic-to-refined spectrum. This is an Italian restaurant where the suited FiDi crowd fills tables at lunch and families slide in beside couples at dinner. The single raviolo, one egg in browned butter, is the move. Deep Italian wine list, lovely outdoor parklet.

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.

Peter Chang has quietly turned the D.C. suburbs into a Sichuan outpost, and Mama Chang is his tribute to the women of his family who actually did the cooking. The warm-wood dining room is upscale-casual Chinese, the kind where dry-fried cauliflower seems to land on every table without anyone admitting they ordered it. The New York Times and The Washington Post have both put it on their D.C. essentials lists, which for a Fairfax strip mall is a flex.

Pressed tin ceiling, globe lights, and worn wood floors set the mood at this seafood restaurant on South 20th, where the menu stays tight enough that everything on it feels deliberate. The raw bar anchors the room, oysters and scallops up front, while the gumbo pulls in lobster, crab, and Carolina gold rice. Grab a seat at the back bar if you can, the chefs are right there. A James Beard semifinalist in 2026.

Slow-roasted cochinita pibil is the anchor here, available as a plate with rice and beans or folded into tacos at this Mexican cafe and market in Houston's East End. Weekend brunch draws a crowd for chilaquiles and a loaded breakfast platter, while the daily agua frescas change with whatever fruit is in season. The chef behind it is a two-time James Beard semifinalist. Before you leave, the market sells frozen tamales and her cookbook.

CherCher is an Ethiopian spot that took over what was once a rowhouse living room, and the platters still arrive like someone's relatives are visiting. Expect injera for scooping, berbere-spiced meats, and a vegan combination so sprawling it could feed a small congregation. There are no reservations, so go on a weekday and bring friends who don't mind sharing from one big plate. It's casual, loud in the right way, and easy on the wallet.

Smoked brisket finished with awaze, an Ethiopian spice sauce, is the move that separates this casual Arlington barbecue joint from every other spot selling half-pounds off butcher paper. The team built it from a trailer smoker and weekend pop-ups into something the New York Times noticed and a James Beard semifinalist nod confirmed. Order a platter if you want range, and reach past the mac and cheese toward the lentil stews.

The wood-burning oven runs the show at this Italian restaurant tucked inside the Manhattan West development, where everything from onion torta to pasta passes through its heat. It's a Danny Meyer production, so the room is handsome and the service moves like it has somewhere to be. The chef keeps the menu generous and designed for sharing. The New York Times named it among the 100 best restaurants in the city.

Tucked behind a parking lot, Han Oak is the kind of Korean restaurant where you might have to step over a toy truck to reach the courtyard. The chef runs it next door to his own house, which tells you everything about the register: clamorous, buzzing, and genuinely homestyle. The seasonal menu leans into braised short ribs and bold pantry flavors, and the cocktail list throws gochujang into a mezcal drink without apologizing for it.

Lyons is a small river town north of Boulder where you wouldn't expect to find a contemporary French restaurant this precise, yet here it is. The menu shifts constantly, chasing whatever the chef is curious about, and the wine list leans into small Old World producers working with native grapes, which the floor staff navigate with you rather than at you. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mountain.

Carlo Lamagna built out much of this corner dining room himself, and that DIY spirit still reads in the space. Magna Kusina is a modern Filipino restaurant on a quiet Clinton Street block, with a bar program and chef's counter rounding out the room. The squid ink noodles with crab fat have become one of those Portland dishes people bring up unprompted. The chef was a James Beard nominee in 2022.

Marufuku is a ramen shop on the second floor of Japantown's Japan Center mall, and the line snaking out before they open tells you everything about how the neighborhood feels about it. The Hakata-style tonkotsu runs cloudy and deep, with thin noodles and slow-cooked pork belly. The chicken paitan is lighter but no less serious. Expect a wait, and consider using that time to decide whether you're ordering the deluxe.

Avery is a hotel brasserie up front, with cassoulet and the white-tablecloth French the genre promises, plus a British-style pub out back that does shepherd's pie and Guinness. Both rooms run on old Brunswick bars, and the pub's is reportedly the oldest in Boise, so it has seen things. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mountain, and Eater lists it among Boise's essentials.

Terroir is a bistro on Boise's 8th Street restaurant row, where steak frites and chicken Lyonnaise sit on the same menu as sablefish in miso broth, which is the French equivalent of a friend who studied abroad and came back with range. It began as a butchery, then a wine store supper club, then a winery food trailer, so a permanent address counts as settling down. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Mountain semifinalist.

The kitchen opens by warning you it's not a chips-and-salsa situation, which either excites you or sends you down the road. This modern Mexican restaurant inside the Camptown Hotel takes its cues from regional Mexican cooking, turning out tetelas stuffed with seasonal fillings, pig's head barbacoa with fresh tortillas, and a blood sausage tamale that regulars order at both brunch and dinner. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2026.

The view from the top of Reunion Tower has been making Dallas look good for years, and the steakhouse that lives up there now leans into it hard, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a dress code keeping things appropriately sharp. Sushi shares the menu with steaks from local farms, and the triple-cooked fries are the kind of side you order again before the first plate is cleared. Book well ahead; 200 seats fill faster than you'd expect.

Sitting inside the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale, this modern Mediterranean restaurant earns its own reason to show up, with a menu that pulls from Levantine cooking and slips in Floridian touches along the way. The room faces the pool and the Atlantic beyond it, which is either inspiring or distracting depending on your dining companion. The kitchen leans into spreads, skewers, and the kind of food that makes a long dinner feel easy.

The dining room is built to look like a Soviet dacha, complete with turquoise shutters and diagonal wood paneling modeled on the owner's great-grandparents' cottage. Kachka is a full-service Eastern European restaurant where the menu runs from happy-hour zakuski and herring salads to Siberian pelmeni and rabbit braised in a clay pot. Horseradish-infused vodka from the team's own distillery handles the rest. The New York Times named it among Portland's best.

Open-flame cooking runs through everything at this cozy Levantine restaurant in Redwood City, from spiced chicken to cauliflower roasted until it's tender inside and crisped at the edges. The menu leans into Jordanian-style street food, with falafel, baba ghanoush, and shawarma slicked in garlicky toum alongside larger sharing plates. A James Beard semifinalist in 2025, it draws families into a plant-filled dining room where the light comes in from above.

The open kitchen takes up half the dining room at this cozy vegan restaurant in Northern Liberties, which runs on foraged produce, small local suppliers, and the chef's own ferments and preserves. The menu is shareable Italian-inflected plates, around three per person, with a casual Northern Liberties crowd that books the place solid most nights. A James Beard semifinalist, and one of those spots that makes vegetable-forward feel like a choice rather than a compromise.

Counter-service seafood in Fremont, where the chef sources directly from local fisheries, a supply-chain headache most spots at this price point don't bother with. The menu reads like Pacific Northwest bar food done with actual conviction: rockfish banh mi, salmon teriyaki, home fries tangled with smoked cod. The crab roll on a split-top bun comes out only on weekends, so plan accordingly. The New York Times put it on their Seattle list, which tracks.