The Best Places to Eat and Do in the United States

Dino's is an East Nashville dive that has been feeding the after-hours crowd since the 1970s, mostly with gooey cheeseburgers meant to talk a hangover out of existing. You can sit at a diner table in the dim main room or out on the covered patio, and the punk rock restroom is considered part of the visit. The bar pours Coors, Shiner Bock, and mezcal, Campari, even Malort, and the line peaks right after the bars close.

Dockside is a counter-service seafood joint wedged beside the Jax Beach boat ramp, where you order at the window, eat with plastic forks, and wash it down with cheap bottled beer. Locals come for catches that were recently somewhere else, in combo baskets of shrimp, scallops, or crab cakes, blackened, grilled, or fried. The screened-in patio is the move, mostly because the seagulls out there have notions about your lunch.

The pistachio-green wood-fired oven is the first thing you see, which tells you exactly where the evening is going. Dolomiti is a pizzeria and wine bar that anchors Millwork Commons, a warehouse district that recently decided it wanted nice things. Sourdough-crust pies come out blistered and a little smoky, and the mortadella panino, made from the same dough folded around house-made ricotta and pesto, keeps showing up in people's orders a second time.

Dragonfly is the casual bar next door to Freya's tasting menu, built for people who want a drink but would like to be a functioning adult tomorrow. The cocktails run low-alcohol or zero, flavored with herbal teas, cucumber, and natural sweeteners, so the drinks read more like a garden than a bar. The room is done in cool blues, and shareable plates keep the evening from becoming purely liquid.

Dune Brothers is a counter-service seafood shack in downtown Providence, which is a funny thing to say about a state where nobody is more than a few miles from water. You order at the window, then carry your fried fish and clam cakes across a shell-strewn patio to a picnic table. The Jonah crab roll rotates in as a special, and a cold Narragansett or a local Yacht Club soda goes with it. Dress for a quick lunch.

A pair of food trucks running Tijuana-style tacos around San Jose, with a charcoal grill and a spinning trompo on weekends that explains the line before you even smell the smoke. The chicharron fundido, a giant handmade corn tortilla loaded with crackly pork belly and melted cheese, is the kind of thing that makes "just a quick taco" a laughable plan. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best tacos in the Bay Area.

The salted mugs for micheladas arrive frosty enough to fog, which tells you something about the priorities at this Mexican taqueria and seafood spot with a few Milwaukee locations. Shrimp comes in a chalice-sized portion, tacos al carbon carry that backyard-grill smoke, and the housemade chorizo leans hard into its smoke too. The verde salsa is the kind of thing you want to sneak home in a cup.

Porchetta ribs and bucatini all'Amatriciana anchor the menu at this Italian restaurant on Frankford Avenue, where Greg Vernick stepped outside his usual lane to cook regional Italian for the first time. The room runs buzzy and packed, the service is tight, and the wine list leans Italian by the glass. It's a genuinely sexy room to land in Kensington, and the seasonal menu follows Italian tradition closely enough to feel considered without feeling like a museum piece.

Epi's is a family-run Basque restaurant in Meridian, built on one great-grandmother's recipes and handed down through three generations without anyone apparently wanting to change them. Expect a sit-down meal of croquetas, lamb stew with green peppers, and baby squid in broth the color of printer ink. Eater lists it among Boise's essentials, and the gateau Basque at the end is how people keep the family tradition going.

Wings here get sorted by size before brining for a full day, which is the kind of attention you don't expect from a casual wing spot. The sauces are all made in-house, and several are named after regulars, so the menu doubles as a hall of fame for people who've eaten here too many times to count. If there's a wait, the dive bar next door is right there.

Falafel x Bar is a Levantine counter-service spot that doubles as a natural wine shop, so the bottle you grab off the shelf is also your dinner plan. The patio garden is big enough for a group that would rather split snacks than commit to entrees, and the tinned fish board turns up there alongside pickled things and sumac-dusted fries. Eating in gets you the toppings bar. Lunch to-go works too, but it skips the garden.

Tucked inside a working garden nursery, this fine dining room earns its farm-to-table premise rather than just decorating with it. The menu shifts with the season and the region's producers, so what lands on the table reflects what's actually ready, not what reads well on a permanent menu. Surrounded by greenery and open to the California air, the room feels more like a destination than a detour on the way to the coast.

A Mediterranean bistro tucked into the District at Prairie Trail, a walkable pocket of local shops that feels nothing like the suburban sprawl surrounding it. The kitchen leans into seafood paella, gyros, and generous sharing platters piled with falafel, house-made bread, dips, and roasted vegetables. Worth the fifteen-minute drive from downtown Des Moines, which is apparently how Ankeny earns its keep.

Foo Dog Curry Traders runs on a build-your-own formula: pick a curry, a starch, and a protein, and lunch is handled. It's mostly a takeout counter, though there are tables if you've been flipping through crates at Tiger Records or caffeinating at Bold Bean nearby. The Canada, a poutine-style heap of fries under buttery tomato curry, is a hangover remedy that never claims to be health food. Vegan popcorn chicken is also on offer.

A jewel-box bakery in Oak Park where butter croissants, Earl Grey tea cakes, and herby scones sell out before noon most days. The pantry shelves hold Guernsey dairy, local flower bouquets, and cookbooks, so it functions as a neighborhood general store for people who care deeply about breakfast. Saturdays draw a line down the block, which tells you what you need to know about the regulars' commitment levels. Go early, follow their social, and do not arrive expecting golubki if it's past noon.

A corner breakfast spot on Doyle Avenue where the menu can't decide between diner and bistro, so it lets you have both. Fluffy pancakes sit near the quiche, and the maple syrup is described, with a straight face, as "good syrup." There are potatoes in vinegar for the European mood and cubed hashbrowns for everyone else. On Fridays it quietly switches to dinner, with pasta, salads, and a short vermouth list.

The wood-burning oven was built in Naples by Stefano Ferrara and runs close to 1,000 degrees, which explains the blistered, char-edged crusts that come out of this Neapolitan pizzeria in downtown Fullerton. The mozzarella bar stocks cheese imported weekly from Caserta, so the margherita is taken rather seriously here. The dining room fills fast with locals who have clearly done this before, so plan accordingly.

Gardel is a small Argentine spot in Fox Point where the empanadas and croquetas arrive alongside a bottle of Malbec, and nobody pushes you toward the steak. Brown professors and students fill the cozy room, treating dinner as a cheap flight to Buenos Aires. They run empanada-making nights too, where you'll fold your pastry badly and the friendly staff will lie to you.

The charred pizzas come from family roots: the team behind Gather 22 also runs Byrne's Grilled Pizza, and you can taste the lineage. This all-day neighborhood cafe and bar in Fall Creek does coffee and breakfast in the mornings, then pivots to lunch and dinner with a menu that ranges from those blistered pies to a vegan Philly made with house seitan. A lounge overlooks a pet-friendly patio, and the cocktail list leans playful.

A hydroponic farm in the basement supplies the herbs and vegetables, which is either the most Old Market thing imaginable or a genuinely clever trick, depending on your mood. This comfortable, chic restaurant in Omaha's Old Market runs a produce-forward menu where the ingredients feel like the point. Ask the staff to show you the farm after dinner, because not every meal ends with a basement tour.

Three levels of Pacific views in La Jolla, each one feeling like a slightly different restaurant. George's at the Cove is a seafood institution that's been around forever, and the rooftop Ocean Terrace draws the kind of crowd that shows up before sunset and stays well past it. The menu runs toward fresh, coastal-California seafood, and the setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, which at this address is entirely fair.

A horseshoe sushi bar anchors this grotto-like den tucked beneath Dante Boccuzzi's namesake bistro on Professor Ave. Boccuzzi came up at Nobu, and the sourcing at this intimate omakase and a la carte spot reflects that pedigree without the midtown price tag. A couple of shabu-shabu tables break up the raw-fish monotony, and the sake list is long enough to require its own homework. Go hungry and leave the decision-making to the kitchen.

Brady Street's old-school Italian grocery moved across the street a few years back into a space bright enough to make you squint, but the pantry staples, the olives, and the deli counter came along for the ride. Stock up on guanciale and giardiniera, or skip straight to the sandwiches. The Human Torch, loaded with calabrese salami, capocollo, and hot pepper spread, takes its name seriously.

The Golden Ox has been in the Stockyards District forever, and it carries the beef-town energy like a badge. It's an old-school steakhouse with porterhouses that require a plan, oysters Rockefeller, and creamy cocktails like the Pink Squirrel for anyone feeling retro. The team claims the Kansas City strip originated here, which Kansas City is happy to believe. The adjoining Stockyards Brewery handles nightcaps when you want the Western aesthetic to go a little longer.

The peeling paint is part of the decor at this old-school Mexican restaurant in Walker's Point, a neighborhood that was majority Latine long before anyone called it up-and-coming. Menudo and pozole arrive steaming, mole and birria simmer all day, and the chile de arbol sauce runs a deep mahogany and takes no prisoners. Come hungry, come with a tolerance for heat, and come ready to build your own tacos from whatever the kitchen sends out.

Pinball machines, vintage hats for sale, and bags of Flossie cotton candy set the tone at this neighborhood deli, which leans hard into sandwich-shop whimsy, pun names and all. The menu takes vegetarians seriously, not as an afterthought but as an actual mission, with options built around wild mushrooms and goat cheese rather than just meat subtracted. Sandwiches with names like Shrooms over My Hammy, rosemary and all, do the arguing for the rest.

From the street, Hermosa looks like the hot dog and beef stand you grew up near, which is the joke, because inside it's a Cambodian sandwich shop with a fried chicken sandwich that has opinions. At night it quietly becomes a dinner tasting, where a group of up to 14 can take over the whole room for an 11-course BYOB spread. It's casual and counter-service, so dress for sandwiches, and bring the wine.

Locals call it "steak basement," which tells you nearly everything: it's a kinda-casual steakhouse tucked below street level in Virginia-Highland, the kind of room that hasn't tried to reinvent itself and doesn't need to. Old-school cuts arrive on heaping platters with starchy sides, and the martinis come with a sidecar so the drink stays cold. Weekend brunch pulls a crowd, but really any night works fine.

Hovan is a casual, inexpensive Mediterranean counter in Five Points, done up in blue and white, where a weekday lunch line of neighborhood office workers moves fast. Regulars get their order started the moment they walk in. When vegan requests picked up, the owners learned to make seitan from scratch for a vegan gyro, which is a level of customer service most places reserve for hostage negotiations. The catering trays turn up at everything from watch parties to funerals.