The Best Places in the United States

Officina is a multi-story Italian restaurant on the Wharf, and the second-floor dining room looks like a Campari ad, all art deco light fixtures and golden-green everything. The menu roams the whole country with a strong lean toward seafood, plus housemade pastas for when you want a linguine that stays on message. Upstairs, a plant-filled terrace gets a lovely view south and a less lovely one of the overpass north. Dress like you're in Milan.

One Roast is a Cantonese-style roast meat counter on Bellaire Blvd that, unlike most of its takeout-only neighbors, has actual diner seating, so you can eat the duck before it cools in a bag. The three-meat plate is the move, with portions generous and prices modest. The good stuff sells out before closing, so treat 6pm as a deadline. The pineapple slushie is for people who finish early.

Zaba's is a Vegas-born mini chain in Downtown Summerlin, the kind of counter-service Mexican grill where you build a bowl, burrito, or quesadilla by choosing a protein and pointing at things. Grilled shrimp, shredded beef, and battered fish all get a turn. The Valencia heat tacos toss orange slices in chile powder, which sounds like a dare and eats like a plan. Wear whatever you wore to the farmers market, and expect to be out in twenty minutes.

A Turkish American tech worker turned pitmaster drives an hour a day just to source the right bread for his chopped beef sandwiches, which tells you everything about the commitment level here. This is a Texas-style BBQ beer bar in Fremont where the brisket, salt-and-pepper only, runs through the smoker for upward of twelve hours and comes out glossy and dark-edged. The sweet pickles in the potato salad are made in-house purely to be an ingredient, not a garnish.

Pachi-Pachi is an izakaya-style lounge near Fremont East, which means the drinks and the snacks get equal billing and nobody pretends to be there for just one. Hand rolls, katsu sandos, and fried deviled eggs you can spike with wasabi sit alongside highballs and a martini infused with kimchi and nori. The pub burger arrives under molten Japanese beer cheese, a combination that sounds like a dare and eats like a plan.

Pal's is a seafood restaurant tucked against a yacht club at the far end of Hayden Island, which means you get the marina views without the dock fees or the mildew. Oyster platters and seafood towers sit alongside calamari nachos, a combination that sounds like a dare and goes down easily. It's a casual, convivial spot, best timed so the sun drops into the Columbia while a paloma is in your hand.

Pancho's is a Mexican restaurant that came to Summerlin from Southern California, and it brought the margarita list with it. More than forty tequilas sit behind the bar, plus a Cadillac or two, and the decor is lush enough that you'll feel overdressed in a ball cap. Daily happy hour covers the chicken-and-cheese egg rolls, and the combination plates of enchiladas and tamales arrive without any reinvention.

Papa Noodle is a fast, casual Chinese noodle shop a short walk from a good chunk of SoMa's office towers, which explains the lunch-hour line of people holding badges. The menu is a handful of bowls, including pork or chicken noodles, beef noodle soup, and a vegan option, with noodles made daily. Every order comes with a White Rabbit candy, the closest thing to a dessert menu or a raise.

Peaches HotHouse is a casual Bed-Stuy counter-service spot for Nashville hot chicken, back when that was a rare find in the city and long before the chains with celebrity backing showed up. You pick your heat (regular, hot, extra hot) and your bird, shrimp, or catfish, then add grits and collards. Dress for a paper-lined basket and a mild sweat. Eater lists it among the best places to eat in the neighborhood.

Perenn is a bakery-cafe in a farmhouse-styled outdoor plaza, where the wifi password is "glutenlover" and the pastry case is clearly the main event. Everyone orders at one counter, so the line doubles as browsing time, with croissants, griddled banana bread, and cakes to stare at while your patience gets tested. The Turkish eggs and a salmon cooked just past rare cover the savory side, and it's come-hungry, order-at-the-counter casual.

Petite Edith is a French bistro on the ground floor of a luxury apartment building, which means the neighbors can claim it without ever putting on a coat. The big U-shaped bar seats solo diners comfortably, and the banquettes in back suit a quiet dinner for two. The kitchen takes French classics through a Midwestern filter, so you get two kinds of bread, and brunch brings duck fat hash browns.

The broth at this Chinatown pho shop has been going since 1987, and regulars treat it accordingly, never opening a menu. A sprawling Southern Vietnamese lineup covers nearly 60 dishes, but the namesake bowl, available in more than two dozen variations, is the reason most people brave the line. The imperial egg rolls, crisp and stuffed with pork and wood ear mushrooms, make a strong case for arriving hungry enough to order both.

Fruit tarts are the whole point at this Taiwanese bakery in Alhambra, where the crusts are milled from Tehachapi Sonora wheat and the fillings lean on local farms, including strawberries from Harry's Berries. The chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu and did time at Milo and Olive, and the drinks menu runs single-origin espresso, hojicha, and seasonal sparkling sodas alongside. A focused, careful little shop doing one thing with very deliberate ingredients.

Pink Tiger is a Wharf cocktail bar and restaurant where everything arrives in some shade of rose, from the patio umbrellas to the drinks, which seem to have been color-matched to the walls. The menu wanders between Southeast Asian, American, and Mediterranean ideas, so go in with a loose itinerary. Expect a dressed-up, mildly flamingo crowd and a tab that matches the waterfront address.

Pizzana is a Neapolitan-leaning pizzeria on West Gray, a Los Angeles import that gave Houston its own Tex-Mex pie with spiced porchetta and a chipotle salsa. The cacio e pepe pizza made the trip too, along with a Negroni di Napoli and a ranch water that knows where it is. You can also buy the dough to go for $5, in case River Oaks wants to pretend it made dinner.

PJ & Company is a diner-style breakfast spot dressed as a Route 99 saloon, with mismatched dining rooms, neon signs, and racing memorabilia on the walls. Eggs Benedict is the main event, and most versions arrive under a cream cheese sherry sauce whether the menu mentions it or not. Breakfast runs until 11:30 on weekdays and 1 on weekends, and after 5 a separate Tex-Mex menu takes over. It's listed among Eater's best Reno restaurants and bars.

Planta Queen is an upscale vegan restaurant on North Clark, part of a chain that dresses its plant-based menu in design-forward rooms. The sushi stands in for fish with eggplant, watermelon, and carrots, which is a lot of faith in a carrot. Monday brings unlimited maki for $35, and lunch has a two-course special. Expect a polished crowd that came for dinner, not a lecture.

POST Market is a food hall under one very cool roof, where deciding what to eat becomes a group negotiation with dozens of vendors. Suya beef skewers, pad Thai, Filipino barbecue, hand rolls, and hot chicken all share the same neighborhood, so nobody has to lose the argument. Order at the stalls, grab a drink at one of the bars, and carry it up to Skylawn for a Downtown skyline view.

This is a small oyster bar with an outsized patio, parked a few steps from the Wharf's fish market, where the barge bobs and the air does some of the marketing. It's run by the oyster growers whose name is on the door, so the bivalves have a short commute. Weekday happy hour from 4 to 6 puts oysters at $2 and clams at $1.50, which tourists and locals both do the math on.

Reggies is a heavy metal bar and live music venue that happens to serve jumbo, crispy, sauce-soaked chicken wings, which is a sentence you don't often get to write. Rock, rap, and metal shows fill the stage, with the odd cover band, and the rooftop deck runs on heat lamps once the weather turns. Expect fried pickles, sandwiches, and a respectable beer list, plus a dress code best described as band shirt.

Duck fesenjoon with pomegranate and walnuts is the kind of dish that makes you wonder why Persian food doesn't get more attention in this city. Rumi's Kitchen is a full-service Persian restaurant that started in Atlanta and has landed at Westfield Century City, bringing herb-heavy stews, saffron-marinated kebabs, and a menu that reads like a very convincing argument for going somewhere other than the food court upstairs.

Rustic Root is a Gaslamp Quarter restaurant built around fried chicken and waffles, chicken pot pie with a biscuit on the side, and a dessert cart that rolls up before you've admitted you want dessert. The rooftop tables overlook the neighborhood, so book one. Weekend brunch comes with a Champagne-and-berries setup, where you build your own mimosa and everyone at the table briefly becomes a bartender.

Saint James is a French bistro that dresses like an American diner, or the reverse, and the blue-and-beige checkered floor will not settle the argument. The menu runs croquettes, steak frites, and a bouillabaisse loaded with snow crab and sausage, while weekend brunch brings bottomless mimosas and a Comté omelet. Sit in a booth or on the patio, which exists largely so people can be seen on it.

Sam's Place is a wine bar in a Highland Park bungalow with no website, no social media, and apparently no interest in either. Locals arrive with their dogs and split a platter of sausage, crusty bread, and cornichon butter alongside natural or Old World pours. Wood paneling keeps things cozy, weekends fill up without turning rowdy, and the bar steak is there if a snack plate doesn't count as dinner.

Enrique Olvera's Casamata group opened this seafood-forward Mexican restaurant in a space that has been an Olvera address before, which is either poetic or just convenient real estate. Chef Chuy Cervantes runs the kitchen, sending out mariscos that make a strong case for the coastal zip code: local rockfish ceviche, Dungeness crab tostada with furikake, oysters with turnip salsa. Wine, beer, and cocktails round it out.

This is a family-run Mexican spot on the Tigard stretch of Pacific Highway, a counter-service taqueria with a panaderia attached and a price tag that won't make you check your balance. The burritos arrive at roughly the size of a throw pillow, and the rice and beans migrate across the plate like they're settling new territory. A glass wall of pan dulce guards the door, which makes leaving without a bag nearly impossible. Eater has it on its list of the best restaurants and food carts in Portland.

Schneider Deli is a counter-service Jewish deli tucked into the old Ohio House Motel diner, where the midcentury bones survived the renovation and so did the booths. Breakfast runs from corned beef hash to bagels with lox, then lunch turns to pastrami, brisket, and turkey sliced to order while you watch. Casual, quick, and priced like a sandwich shop, which is the correct amount of money for a deli.

Seia is a contemporary Italian restaurant on the 54th floor of a Brickell skyscraper, where floor-to-ceiling windows frame the skyline, Biscayne Bay, and the Atlantic beyond. The menu leans on handmade pastas and seafood, with an Italian wine list and cocktails to match. Expect a dressed-up room of date nights, anniversaries, and people whose phones come out before the bread does. Eater lists it among the best restaurants in Brickell.

Seville is a rooftop Mediterranean restaurant on top of a Hilton, which sounds like a warning and mostly isn't. The menu leans on tapas, pasta, fish, and pinsa, all sized for splitting, so it suits coworkers on the company card and out-of-town friends who just got talked into the Skydeck. The big patio gets you the Loop skyline without pressing your face against glass. The Infatuation lists it among the Loop's best.

Sexy Steak lives in the old Grand Army of the Republic Building downtown, where you pick your own cut from a case lined with Himalayan salt, like choosing a lobster, but for people who'd rather not. Everything is halal, the wagyu runs Japanese and American, and the menu also wanders into Italian dishes, seafood, and oysters. Expect a steakhouse bill and a lounge upstairs, plus a wine list built for the Napa cabs and Bordeaux.

The menu calls them "Sichuan ravioli," which tells you everything about the vibe here. This old-school International District Chinese restaurant has been serving homestyle Sichuan long before hot pot chains made the cuisine trendy in Seattle, and the approach hasn't changed much: big plates, ropy noodles, a pepper-reddened boiled fish that sounds mild and isn't, and portions sized like someone's grandmother is worried you look thin.

This is the diner tucked inside the El Cortez, an old Fremont Street casino hotel, with a menu long enough to need its own table of contents. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and a late-night run all share the pages, and prime rib is the house specialty at any hour. It's a proper diner, so nobody dresses up, and weekends it keeps going until 7 a.m. for people whose night has outlasted their plans.

A tea room and cafe on the second floor of a Bowery building, reached by buzzing an unmarked door and climbing an industrial staircase. Neon gramophones, Togo couches, a vinyl listening room, and a DJ who drops in twice daily to play something like Boards of Canada on a sound system that did not come cheap. The MacBook presence is significant, but the Japanese teas and pastries give everyone a reasonable excuse to stay.

A rooftop restaurant perched atop the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Skywalker Grill pulls its ingredients from George Lucas's own Skywalker Ranch, which is either a charming farm-to-table story or the most elaborate movie tie-in you've ever paid for, depending on your mood. The modern American menu runs from wagyu burgers and lobster corn dogs to chicken tenders served, with a straight face, alongside caviar ranch.