The Best Places in the United States

Cafe Bionda is a red-sauce Italian American spot on South State, where the menu still runs on rigatoni in Nonna's gravy and a carbonara that knows what it is. The bar got bigger after the 2022 reopening, and happy hour now draws a loud, cheerful crowd for $9 cocktails and $10 fried things. The lasagna is enormous and takes half an hour, so order it early and have a second cocktail.

Lemon ricotta pancakes show up on nearly every table at this airy daytime cafe in East Hollywood, indoors and out, full of laptops and Canyon Coffee. The menu stays deliberately short: pancakes, pastries, a handful of sandwiches, tea. It's the kind of neighborhood spot that gets called a community hub without irony, and somehow earns it.

Cafecito is a casual Cuban counter on East Congress, right next to the Auditorium Theatre, which makes it the default pregame for anyone with curtain time on their mind. Sandwiches on crisp pressed bread are the main event, with platters of rice and beans for people who want a fork. The cortaditos and cafe con leche are there to get you through a long first act, and they cost less than a theater snack.

Cantina Bambina is a two-story bar on the Wharf where the main attraction is the sunset, which turns the whole room gold around 8pm in summer. Drinks run to beer, wine, and a vodka-strawberry lemonade, and the food is beef sticks, Moon Pies, and potato chips, so eat dinner first. It suits the stretch before a show at the Anthem across the street, or any sunny afternoon with nowhere to be.

Wood-fired Argentine steaks on Melrose, served with the unhurried warmth of a family room that hasn't updated its aesthetic since Clinton's first term, and means it as a compliment. This intimate steakhouse has been around forever, still run by the same family, with one brother in the kitchen and one working the floor. The postre Gardel, a layered dulce de leche cake, has its own reputation. On the Eater 38 list of essential Los Angeles restaurants.

The ceramic logo bricks are for sale, and so is almost everything else in this coffee shop annexed to Carpet Company's Baltimore skateshop. The concrete counters were poured by a local artist, the C-star tiles commissioned in Egypt, and the lattes lean toward rose cardamom. Every skater and graffiti writer inside is either friends with Turnstile or working on it. Come for the coffee; leave quietly coveting the glass table with giant jacks for legs.

Casale's Halfway Club is a red-sauce Italian joint with checkered tablecloths, and you can still spot old bedroom doorframes in the dining room from when the family lived here. Meatballs lean on breadcrumbs, lasagna is baked to order in single portions, and the ravioli comes split between meat and cheese. Reno regulars treat it as home, the dive label is optional, and Mama Inez is spoken of the way other towns speak of saints.

A Cuban-inspired brunch spot on the second floor in Waikiki where the Cubano and choripan keep locals coming back despite the tourist foot traffic below. The chef leans hard on local sourcing, which is rarer here than you'd think, so the fruit plate runs on farmers market tropicals instead of the usual imported berries flown in from somewhere cold. Sandwiches and braised brisket do the heavy lifting on a menu that reads like it belongs somewhere else entirely.

A food concept from B.J. Novak that treats chain restaurants as source material rather than punchlines, Chain landed its first permanent home inside a mall food court, which feels exactly right. Four chefs each riff on a fast-food classic: a Cantonese fish sandwich, a spicy chicken number, a teriyaki bowl, a mapo wagyu wrap. The nostalgia is the point, and the execution is the twist.

A pint-sized Venezuelan cafe on Melrose that grew out of a popular dinner party pop-up, Chainsaw serves arepas, coffee drinks, and pie from a counter you can count the seats at. The menu shifts often, but the passionfruit-lime icebox pie with its bracingly tart filling keeps showing up for good reason. Sidewalk seating, daytime hours, and a chef who might pivot to a fried snapper plate or a potato-stick-topped hot dog any given week.

Che Ah Chi is the full-service restaurant inside Enchantment Resort, set up so the red rocks of Boynton Canyon are the main event and the food is the supporting cast. Breakfast leans açai bowl and egg-white scramble, the sort of order that says you plan to hike later, while dinner moves toward mole and lamb with a resort-appropriate bill. Reserve ahead, since anniversaries tend to descend on the room all at once.

The team behind Loreto, Bar Seco, and Santa Canela converted a former Arts District spot into a rooftop restaurant and bar with outdoor screens and one of the more dramatic skylines Downtown has to offer. Focaccia sandwiches, panzanella, and fritto misto keep things casual while a game or a film plays overhead. It's the kind of place where the view does half the work, and nobody seems to mind.

Civico 1845 is a small Little Italy trattoria that does Calabrian cooking, with all the pasta made in-house. It has been said to be the first Italian restaurant in the country with a fully vegan menu, which sits alongside plenty of meat, so the table that can't agree on dinner finally has a place to go. The room is homey and the service is warm, at a price that suits a casual dinner out.

Cocody is a pink French dinner spot in the River Oaks Shopping Center, which is exactly the setting you'd expect for pink. The menu mostly runs to foie gras and duck breast, the kind of order that goes with a reservation and a decent jacket. The signature lollies are the odd ones out, tiny bites on sticks or mini baguettes, which makes the room feel playful for people spending real money on dinner.

A coffee shop on Shaw that sources its beans from roasters in Tokyo, Busan, and Zurich, while somehow remaining entirely free of the usual lecture about it. The Kenyan espresso pulls fruity and smooth in a way that sounds like marketing until it doesn't, and the twice-baked pistachio croissant draws a weekend line that moves faster than it looks. Families, first dates, and people quietly spending fifty dollars on a single bag of beans all coexist here without incident.

Cosmo's is a casual wood-fired pizza spot in a former funeral home, which is the kind of backstory the name does nothing to prepare you for. You order at the counter, and the pies arrive stacked on a tomato can. The roasted vegetables, a whole cauliflower and harissa carrots, keep pace with the pizza, and the soft-serve flavor rotates monthly. Solo diners get the small bar, where a draft Negroni helps.

This is a Western saloon-turned-steakhouse on Sedona's main drag, where the barn wood walls and the fireplace look like a film set because, once upon a time, the neighbors were actually filming nearby. The menu leans into the theme with elk chops, bison pot roast, and a pecan-smoked prime rib on weekends. Expect tourists in new boots and locals who know to order the game. Eater lists it among Sedona's best restaurants.

White tablecloths and a room that doesn't announce itself as vegan, even a little. Crossroads Kitchen is a refined plant-based Mediterranean restaurant on Melrose where Tal Ronnen's cooking reads as fine dining first and a lifestyle statement never. The French onion soup arrives without beef broth and nobody at the table notices anything missing. A-list regulars treat the bar like a neighborhood spot, which is either aspirational or just Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Crudo is a Baja-leaning seafood spot on India Street where the counter is laid out like a sushi bar, except the fish is wearing lime instead of soy. Order a tower of oysters and clams, then work through the aguachiles and tostadas, or sit on the roomy patio and let the tacos arrive in their own time. Finish with guava cheesecake and a carajillo, which counts as dessert and a second wind.

The open kitchen here sits behind a glass floor with koi swimming beneath it, which sets the tone before the food even arrives. Crustacean is a Vietnamese restaurant that's been a Beverly Hills institution forever, known for garlic noodles and garlic-roasted Dungeness crab that regulars treat as non-negotiable. Chef Helene An works the dining room herself most nights, which is a genuinely rare thing at this price point. Note that the Beverly Hills location closes in late 2026.

Crying Tiger is a big, lavish Southeast Asian restaurant in River North, where the menu roams from Vietnam to Thailand to China, so clay pot lobster pad Thai and prawn toast share a table without apology. The plating is arranged with photography in mind, and the ladies' room has apparently become a selfie destination. It's a Lettuce Entertain You production, so expect dress-up energy and a check to match.

Da Prato is a Tuscan restaurant in a floor-level downtown loft, in a part of Los Angeles where most rooms are concrete and echo. The handwritten menu draws on ancient love poems, so expect mozzarella melted over fig leaves and a dish description that involves nymphs. It changes with the chef's whims, and the pasta stays simple, which is the sensible move when the menu is already doing the flirting.

The noodles come from Sapporo, which tells you something about how seriously this ramen counter takes its business. Downstairs, bowls of springy, custom-made noodles arrive in a long-simmered broth, with a vegetarian version that holds its own against the pork. Upstairs flips into a Japanese tavern pouring sake and yuzu cocktails alongside a full menu of drinking snacks. Two moods, one address, zero bad options on either floor.

This is a longtime Mexican restaurant on Las Vegas Boulevard that does tamales the old way, tucked into masa that stays soft, with sweet pineapple-and-raisin ones for anyone who wants dessert to count as breakfast. The menu runs from chilaquiles through mole and tortilla soup, and weekends bring a shrimp caldo that works as a hangover plan. Prices stay modest, and nobody dresses up for it.

Double Dragon is a Division Street lounge where the island-bar mood comes with a short, focused menu of burgers, banh mi, and rice bowls, plus well-made cocktails. Dinner here is bar-priced and nobody is dressed up. The potato salad is the side dish people bring up, creamy and funky with fish sauce and pickled mustard seed, and somehow vegan, which feels like a clerical error in the best way.

The buttermilk pancakes here have a firm, golden exterior with a pillowy interior, and the kitchen sends them out with salted clarified butter that makes the whole thing feel like a considered decision. Du-par's is a classic American diner, been around forever, tucked inside the Original Farmers Market on Fairfax. It serves breakfast into evening, which is the kind of flexibility a pancake this good earns.

A small espresso counter tucked into the side of a vintage clothing and furniture store, Earl serves coffee through a brick-inlaid window that connects the two spaces. Grab a seasonal flavored drink, then wander the racks next door, which is about as Nashville as an afternoon gets. The grab-and-go cooler stocks bites from a local caterer, worth checking before you leave.

Eatóri Market is a casual Italian-leaning cafe and grocery on Capitol Park, where the dining room grew into the old grocery space and the groceries moved next door into a former nail bar. The pours of wine are generous, the menu is the kind you can eat in a sweater, and the patio is built for watching Capitol Park go by. Reservations run through Resy, which feels fancy for a place that also sells you pantry staples.

El Moose is an all-day Mexican spot in Ballard where floral oilcloths and papel picado do the decorating and café de olla does the reviving. It's casual, priced like a place you'd go twice in a weekend, and the out-late-last-night crowd fills the room by mid-morning. The alambres come with cheese that melts on contact, and a fried egg on top is the sort of move the brunch gods tend to notice. Arrive early.

Extra Wavy is a seafood restaurant on Chouteau Ave where pink and green fishing nets hang from exposed brick and heavy wood beams, as if a New England dockhand had a very good decorator. The cocktails get most of the attention, including a cherry margarita with pistachio foam, and nearly every drink comes in a non-alcoholic version. Dinner runs to scallop crudo and fish and chips, and the bar suits a solo seat.

Fat Tuesday is a frozen-drink bar on the Strip, where the lines are made of sunburned tourists who have already started drinking. The machines churn out slushy cocktails, and a server runs between dispensers layering strawberry daiquiri over piña colada for the Miami Vice. You can add a floater of tequila served in a test tube, then carry the cup anywhere the Strip's open-container rules allow, which is nearly everywhere.

You walk through a working Italian grocery to reach the dining room, which is the first sign this isn't a place with a lot of interest in minimalism. Red-and-white checkered tablecloths, Chianti bottles overhead, and long family-style tables built for birthdays and rehearsal dinners. It's a red-sauce pizza and pasta joint with a cheap check, and the antipasto salad and garlic bread arrive like they were never optional.

Fine Company is a daytime restaurant in Downtown Summerlin that does breakfast and lunch in a semi-casual room, and it locks up at 5 p.m., so don't show up hungry for dinner. The morning pick is the soft brown butter French toast, and lunch leans toward light salads and grain bowls, with a bone broth borrowed from a steakhouse for the quietly virtuous. The founding chef's banana bread stuck around after he left.

A sandwich shop in Chinatown that stays open until 1:30 a.m. on weekends, which tells you most of what you need to know. The team behind it includes a Howlin' Ray's veteran, so the menu earns its confidence: a spicy Italian loaded with 'nduja and stracciatella crema sits next to a peanut butter and jelly, and nobody seems bothered by the range. A double hot dog is also available, for those keeping score at home.