The Best Places to Eat and Do in the United States

Mesquite and pecan wood smoke drifts out of the open kitchen at this Chihuahuan-rooted restaurant inside Tempe's Culdesac neighborhood, where the grill does serious work on meats, peppers, and open-faced quesadillas. The team behind Tacos Chiwas built something more personal here, moving from taqueria to family table. Moles, micheladas, and brunch dishes like concha French toast fill out a menu that runs morning to night. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur semifinalist in 2024.

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.

A Knoxville pizzeria that bets everything on sourdough, with 12-inch Neapolitan-style pies split into red, white, and build-your-own. It's casual, jeans-and-sneakers territory, though it takes reservations, which a slice joint would find hilarious. Starters run to a pickle plate and mushroom pâté, and the gelato board changes often. The Michelin Guide lists it as a Bib Gourmand.

The L-shaped marble bar and brass fixtures in the Flatiron Hotel's ground-floor Italian restaurant set a tone that's polished without being stiff. The kitchen butchers whole animals in-house and sources from local farmers' markets, running the results through wood-fired pizzas, handmade pastas, and solid main plates. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, which here means you eat very well and still recognize your credit card statement afterward.

The sunny yellow exterior and orange canopy on the corner of Melrose are hard to miss, which is fitting because neither is the pizza inside. Nancy Silverton's pizzeria has been an LA institution forever, with bare wood tables, skylights, and a Bib Gourmand to its name. The pies come out of the oven with puffy, golden edges, and the seasonal dessert selection runs deep enough to cause genuine indecision.

The bread is the whole philosophy here: Union Loafers is a bakery-turned-full-service restaurant in Botanical Heights where naturally leavened loaves set the tone for everything else on the menu. The pizzas split the difference between New York chew and Neapolitan char, and the sandwiches built on house bread give you a very good reason to show up before dinner. St. Louis-style pizza is conspicuously absent, which some locals treat as a provocation.

Dolly's is a bakery-cafe on Rockaway Avenue that also runs a soft serve window, and the soft serve is where the strangeness lives. The blueberry pancake one comes with an actual pancake on top, so you can eat the dessert and its inspiration side by side like a tiny experiment. Flavors rotate through cereal and banana pudding, and it's all cheap, casual, and eaten standing up. The Infatuation has listed it among the best bakeries in NYC.

Vindicktive is a Belltown beer bar built the opposite way from most sports bars: you come for the wings and the game is background noise. The skin shatters like a potato chip over juicy meat, and the flavors run from buffalo to salt and vinegar. It's a blue-cheese-only house, so ranch requests will be received with a long, quiet look. The Infatuation put the wings on its national list, which tracks.

Nong's is a casual counter-service Thai spot that grew out of a one-dish food cart and still mostly sticks to the plan: poached chicken over rice cooked in the schmaltz, with a cup of clear broth on the side. The ginger sauce has the kind of following that has Portlanders keeping a bottle in the fridge door like a family heirloom. It's cheap, easy, and the city's default answer to a cold.

Lost Larson is a Scandinavian-leaning bakery and cafe in Andersonville that mills its own flour, which sounds like a bit until you see the loaves. The pastry case looks like a Great British Baking Show finale, all tarts, cardamom buns, and savory croissants. Order at the counter, grab a sandwich or an afternoon bun with Earl Grey sugar, and expect to linger over coffee longer than you planned.

Sugar Moon is a takeout-only bakery in Logan Square, so there's no table to claim, just a sidewalk line that starts forming a good half hour before the 9am opening and doesn't care about the weather. The reward is a curried cauliflower croissant or a Nutella-pear brioche bun, plus scones that crumble the way scones should. Pastry runs cheap, the wait costs you a Saturday morning, and it's been named among the country's favorite bakeries by The Infatuation.

Marble-top bar, globe pendants, and coffee-brown tables give this Basque restaurant on the Lower East Side a midcentury feel that somehow never reads as costume. The room runs loud and convivial, the way a good tapas night should, and everything is built for sharing. The wine list leans deep into small Spanish organic and biodynamic producers, which is either very convenient or a very pleasant trap, depending on your evening.

Il Canto is a takeout counter in the Financial District, a Mediterranean spot best known for a breakfast burrito that has a lot of cheese going on. Scrambled eggs and creamy chipotle aioli come wrapped around it, and for a couple extra dollars you can add sausage, bacon, shrimp, potatoes, or beans. It's served all day, so the suits in line at noon don't have to pretend they're there for the Mediterranean part.

Mama's Luncheonette is a daytime takeout window in Cow Hollow that has built a following on things wrapped in foil. The breakfast burrito comes stuffed with smashed tater tots, soft scrambled eggs, avocado, and cheddar, and the thick-sliced house brisket is an add-on you'll want to say yes to. The salsa arrives in a small cup, so ask for extra. There's also a chicken caesar wrap, because lettuce deserves a tortilla too.

Red leather banquettes, white tablecloths, a snappy U-shaped bar, and a shiny open kitchen pack into fifty seats on Dickerson Pike. This is a French-leaning dinner spot where smoke drifts in from a Basque-style wood-fire hearth and the wine list has Brooklyn credentials. Philip Krajeck's third Nashville restaurant has landed on the New York Times' list of Nashville's 25 best, which for a room this quietly romantic feels about right.

This is a Vietnamese bakery counter tucked inside the Hong Kong City Mall, more prep station than dining room, and it takes cash only. The case is stacked with small snacks, from banana-leaf sausages to rice balls, but the bánh mì đặc biệt is the one people circle back for. It runs about five bucks, which makes ordering two on the first visit more sensible than greedy. It turns up on The Infatuation's list of Houston's Chinatown restaurants.

Toyori is a casual ramen shop on Bellaire Boulevard in Houston's Chinatown, where the dark walls and utilitarian booths hand all the drama to a floor-to-ceiling gold mural. The menu reads a lot like every other ramen menu in the neighborhood, which makes the consistency bowl after bowl the whole trick. The meal ends with a tiny probiotic drink, a small cute gesture that somehow feels like a dessert course.

An old Schlitz tavern in Bay View that smells like someone's grandmother has been cooking since morning. This cash-only Serbian dinner spot runs on its own clock, which means a 45-minute wait is fairly standard and nobody seems to mind. Goulash, moussaka, chicken paprikash, and flaky böreks fill out a menu built for cold weather and real hunger. An old-school institution doing exactly what it has always done.

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.

The name honors San Pasqual, patron saint of cooks, and someone in the kitchen grinds masa from heirloom corn every single day. This energetic Capitol Hill Mexican restaurant is built around the hearth, and the chefs spent two years working with local farmers just to secure the right herbs. Everything lands in the middle of the table for sharing. It landed on North America's 50 Best list, and getting a reservation still takes some planning.

A sea-foam green Victorian near downtown Eugene is an unlikely home for a West Indian rum bar, but here we are, and Oregon is better for it. Yardy started as a food truck and graduated to a cheerful brick-and-mortar where sorrel punch anchors the cocktail list and pholourie, fried chicken sandwiches, and twice-fried plantain jibaritos do the heavy lifting. A 2025 New York Times Restaurant List pick and a James Beard semifinalist.

The art deco bones of this Walnut Hills live-fire Mediterranean restaurant are half the reason to book a table, the kitchen being the other half. The chef leans hard into the eastern Mediterranean, the kind of cooking where roasted vegetables become pita dips and hamachi collar gets a glossy glaze. Regulars have already claimed favorite bartenders, which for a restaurant this new is saying something. A 2024 New York Times Restaurant List pick and a 2025 James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist.

Vanilla soft serve finished with olive oil from the owner's Italian vineyard tells you plenty about what kind of place this is: a neighborhood cookshop in North Naples where the kitchen is having fun and doesn't mind if you notice. The menu swings from caviar served with Bugles to chorizo potatoes with chipotle hollandaise, and the room is warm enough that first-timers feel like regulars by the second round. A James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist.

The handmade tortillas, corn or flour, come out warm and the salsas live in a cooler you're invited to raid freely. This beloved Austin taco shop started as a food truck and the sisters behind it still run the show, turning out breakfast tacos loaded with eggs and chorizo alongside a mole negro chicken option at lunch. The migas taco, stacked with thick crispy chips, is hard to leave without. Order a La Bomba juice and you'll feel embarrassingly virtuous about it.

Mesquite charcoal does the heavy lifting here, giving the carne asada a smokiness that flour tortillas, silky and lightly crisped, are well suited to carry. This is a no-frills Sonoran taco shop in Glendale with a salsa bar and a menu that runs from al pastor to tripa to cabeza, none of it timid. Phoenix New Times gave it Best Tacos and Best Carne Asada in back-to-back years, and USA Today named it a Restaurant of the Year.

The name means "to fuss around in the kitchen," which tells you everything about this Jewish deli in Knoxville's Old City. It started as a pop-up and grew into a proper room serving comfort food that bubbe would recognize but maybe not endorse, like matzoh ball soup finished with chili oil. The challah comes out of the oven daily, the babkas rotate flavors, and the sandwiches are large enough to warrant a to-go box. A James Beard semifinalist.

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.

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.

Banh Mi Hue Thai is a takeout sandwich counter on Garvey Avenue, where the baguette does most of the talking. It's thin-crusted and airy enough to crinkle when you bite it, without shredding the roof of your mouth, so even the house special with cold cuts tastes good. There's one table inside, which is more of a suggestion than a dining room, and it's cash only. Make a stop at the ATM first. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best bánh mì across America.

BBAD is a daytime counter in Pasadena that stands for Breakfast Burritos All Day, and it commits to the bit with a menu of just four burritos. The tortillas are wrapped tight enough to hold a full breakfast plate, soft eggs, crispy potato that can pass for bacon, and slow-roasted pork with a tart tomatillo salsa on the side. The Infatuation put the chile verde burrito on its list of the best breakfast burritos in America.

Bebe Zito is a pint-sized ice cream shop in Minneapolis where the spoons change color and the flavors reference both Brazilian desserts and a childhood spent near a cereal aisle. Guava swirls into cream cheese custard, Fruity Pebbles get caramelized, and a flight lets the indecisive sample widely. The burgers come out of a food truck parked in the alley, which is a bold move for a place with this much sprinkle exposure. It's on The Infatuation's list of the best ice cream in America.

The upstairs dessert room, a separate posh chamber with live piano and house-roasted coffee, tells you everything about how seriously this old-school Tampa steakhouse takes a night out. Suits on the floor, garish vintage décor everywhere, and a wine collection so large it earned a spot in Wine Enthusiast's Hall of Fame. The dry-aged prime steaks are the move, but save room: the bananas Foster upstairs is practically the point.

Cafe Los Feliz is a neighborhood bakery and cafe on Hillhurst, where the line for the soujuk breakfast burrito is a cross-section of Los Angeles. Soujuk is a spicy, dry-cured Armenian sausage, and it arrives with salsa and chipotle aioli in case the kick wasn't loud enough. Locals and the occasional TV face queue up in the same sunglasses, which in this city counts as an equalizer. It's counter service, so wear whatever you slept in.

Casa Bake is a warehouse bakery tucked into a strip of units off SW 47th, where the croissants cost $3.50 and nobody has to put "artisanal" in a headline to justify it. The plain one is the move, flaky enough to shed on your shirt, and it pairs well with a cappuccino. There are almond and pistachio-cream versions too, plus classes if you'd like to find out how much butter is involved. The Infatuation put it on a national croissant list.

Cowy Burger is a Miami smashburger counter in a scene where half the internet seems to be filming the same fist-on-beef routine. The patties here are pressed so thin they're nearly a rumor, and the move is the one with bacon jam, sweet and chunky in a way that sounds like a band you'd tell your nephew to quit. Come in whatever you're wearing, expect to eat with your hands, and plan on a line.

Cuzzy's is a kitschy ice cream parlor in South Philly where the flavors read like a dare from someone who's never been told no, such as banana with black sesame and peanut butter, or Rice Krispie with cinnamon goo. Vanilla and chocolate-chocolate cake are always on hand for the traditionalists. Add sprinkles and Oreo whipped cream, and take a few pints home. The Infatuation named it the best ice cream in America.

DCity Smokehouse is a counter-service barbecue spot on Good Hope Road, and its smoked wings are the ones that end the dry-rub versus saucy argument. The skin comes crisp, seasoned with a house blend that lands somewhere between salty and sweet, and every sauce arrives on the side, including a cilantro ranch and a Carolina-meets-mumbo mix that is very much a DC compromise. Bring the friend who has opinions.

Deep City is a Lake Street breakfast spot built around plate-sized pancakes, one per order, griddled just past golden by the chef who made them famous in town. The menu runs to buttermilk, buckwheat, and a gingerbread-spiced version, and each plate arrives with a whole jug of Vermont maple syrup. A former vice president once ate here and then found change on the sidewalk, which is the kind of luck a pancake place can't promise.

Dudley Market is a Venice seafood restaurant a short walk from the sand, where the move is a few oysters followed by a burger that arrives with caramelized onion-bacon jam. The Infatuation put that burger on its list of the best in America. Expect sunglasses worn indoors by people who are not squinting at anything, and a bill that assumes you flew in from somewhere with a different zip code.

Golden Pride is a counter-service New Mexican spot on Central Avenue where locals recite their order by number, and the number is usually 9. That's egg, cheddar, hashbrown and bacon in a flour tortilla, with real Hatch green chile doing the heavy lifting. It's about as cheap as breakfast gets in Albuquerque, and The Infatuation ranks that burrito ninth on its national list. Plan on eating it fast, since the tortilla peaks in minutes.

Grass Cattle Company is a farm's burger tent at the Burlington Farmers Market, where Saturday brings a line of shoeless people and their dogs trying to queue single file. The patties come straight from the farm's own herd, and the farmer is usually on hand to explain what the cows ate. The breakfast burger adds a fried egg and an English muffin from a vendor a few tents over. It's cash-in-your-pocket, eat-it-standing-up food.

Hellenika is a small gelato counter tucked into the Pike Place Market area, where the cultured gelato gets churned right in front of you. It leans toward Greek yogurt, so expect a sour tang and restrained sweetness rather than a sugar rush, in flavors like lemon curd and coconut ube. Downtown Seattle once offered only mystery soft serve, so the bar was low. The Infatuation named it The Best Ice Cream In America.

This is a scoop shop on Cape Cod with dozens of flavors, avocado and brownie batter sharing a case with vegan, non-dairy, sugar-free, and gluten-free options. The line often spills out the door and onto the deck in the late afternoon, but it moves fast. Black raspberry, peppermint stick, and maple walnut are all in play, and you can add salt-water taffy for a dessert after your dessert. The Infatuation put it on its Best Ice Cream In America list.

Isaac's Cafe is a no-frills Mexican breakfast counter in Wilmington, across the street from the longshoreman dispatch hall, which explains why its signature burrito is named after the place and sized for people who move freight for a living. It's stuffed with rice, beans, eggs, bacon, and enough avocado to raise questions at customs. The Infatuation put it on its list of America's best breakfast burritos.

Izola is a downtown bakery and cafe where the croissants run oversized and the bibimbap version arrives on a wooden slab, stuffed with bulgogi and gingery sauce, closer to lunch than pastry. The plain croissants hold up fine too. The owner also reverse-engineered the well water from his Kansas hometown so it could come out of a tap here, which is a lot of effort for something most people would just filter. It made The Infatuation's list of croissants across America.

A snug downtown Fargo burger-and-beer joint where the quarter-pound patties get grilled in plain view, in a state that has opinions about beef. It made The Infatuation's list of the best burgers in America, which the menu handles with a shrug. The fried-egg-and-american-cheese situation is the move, and the peanut butter schmear is there for anyone who hears "fancy" and wants to pull the other way. Cheap, loud, and unbothered.

Kanomwaan is a Thai gelato shop on Hollywood Boulevard where the flavors do the traveling, like pandan and a smoked salted egg that somehow tastes like a blown-out birthday candle. The gelato is dense and custardy, there's a two-scoop minimum, and the giant shaved ice sundaes are built for splitting among friends. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best ice cream in America, and a cup runs about what you'd expect.

Kono's is a beachside breakfast counter on Garnet Avenue where the line forms by 7am and the kitchen doesn't close until 3. It's mostly surfers who've been up for hours and tourists who've read the same lists you have. The burritos come in five sizes, and The Infatuation ranked the #1 the top breakfast burrito in America, which is also the smallest, so ordering up is a choice, not a necessity.

This is a frozen custard stand where the staff wear white paper hats and the burgers hold their own against the dessert. The custard gets its golden richness from egg yolks, and the flavors rotate daily, so you can get a swirl of Bailey's Irish Cream Coffee or apple streusel and call it dinner. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best ice cream in America, and the line proves nobody here is eating salad.

La Victoria is a casual Dallas Mexican spot on Haskell Avenue where the main event is a griddled 10-inch breakfast burrito, wrapped in a chewy tortilla and sturdy enough to survive the walk back to your car. People order the Don's Delight with eggs, bacon, and avocado, and add peanuts, a move that sounds like a typo until the first bite. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best breakfast burritos in America.

Liberty House is a casual daytime cafe wedged between a juice shop and a yoga studio, which is Asheville's version of a perfectly balanced breakfast. The sourdough blueberry pancake is the draw, proofed overnight, seared in cast iron, and finished in the oven until the outside crackles like a croissant. It comes as a single cake with butter and flaky salt, and The Infatuation named it the best pancakes in America.

Ludi's is a Filipino diner a few steps from Pike Place Market, which means a line of people who skipped the fish-throwing and went straight for breakfast. The headliner is the ube pancakes, rice flour flapjacks under a coconut glaze the color of a highlighter, with a sweetness that stays on the right side of dessert. It's a casual, counter-and-booth morning spot, so wear whatever you had on.