The Best Places in the United States

A former dairy farm turned village, with white-linen tables and intimate rooms that make every dinner feel slightly ceremonial. This fine dining room sits at the heart of Fearrington Village outside Pittsboro, and the kitchen leans into its pastoral surroundings with a seasonal menu that pulls from the property's own gardens. The chocolate soufflé has become the kind of thing regulars plan around. A Forbes Four Star property.

The fireplace and rough-hewn beams set the mood before the menu even arrives. This is fine dining inside a historic stone cottage on the San Ysidro Ranch grounds, where the kitchen leans hard on herbs, fruit, and vegetables grown on the property. Patio regulars tend to order the burger; others work through a prix-fixe that runs toward hamachi and Meyer lemon. The wine list is wide and considered, and the servers know it cold.

Chenin is a tiny wine bar tucked inside The Siren Hotel, pouring natural and biodynamic bottles to a room lit softly enough to forgive anyone's skin-contact experiments. Salty snacks and a mortadella sandwich piled onto focaccia keep the evening going longer than planned. Seats are scarce, so arrive when the doors open. It was a James Beard Award nominee for Best New Bar.

Rows of labeled spice jars line the walls, which tells you something about how seriously this contemporary Indian restaurant takes its pantry. The chef sources ingredients from his own farm and runs a tight menu that swings between fiery naan and delicate tuna bhel without losing focus. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and landed on the New York Times' Miami list. The suburban strip-mall setting is the only thing that doesn't match the ambition.

Chancho King started as a food truck wedged into Murray Hill block parties and now has a proper casual dining room serving Ecuadorian street food, which is rare enough in Jacksonville that people drive across town for the pork sandwich. The chef is a James Beard nominee for Best Chef: South. Birthdays get a steak with candles in it, a holdover from the oven-less years, and Sundays are for build-your-own ceviche.

Dolores is a bright blue Mexican restaurant on Hope Street, cooking dishes from Puebla and Oaxaca, which is a lot of sunshine to commit to in a New England February. The bar goes well past tequila and mezcal into sotol and Oaxacan rum, and the sangria arrives by the pitcher, so bring people. The chef was a James Beard Best Chef: Northeast nominee, and you can also just sit down for tostadas and a drink.

Mesa is a casual Indian restaurant where the chef still walks over to greet every table, which is rarer than the marigolds. The menu pairs South Indian cooking with Southern comfort, so shrimp and basmati grits share a page with something called naanchos. There's no liquor license, so the drinks lean on port, sake, and vermouth, and the saffron-and-jaggery Manhattan has no interest in apologizing for it. James Beard Best Chef: Southwest nominee, 2024.

The dining room is carved from an actual downtown warehouse boiler room, all industrial bones and art on the walls. It's a meat-forward restaurant with a serious wine list, where the kitchen cures its own charcuterie, makes its own sausages, and runs through a lot of wagyu. The chef earned a James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Midwest in 2024. The crudo is a quiet argument for not ignoring the seafood.

Bluefin maguro topped with a Georgian sauce of apricots and walnuts gives you the idea fast: this is an omakase counter where the chef treats Edomae sushi as a starting point rather than a finish line. The meal builds like a composed piece, lighter sashimi giving way to richer bites, before landing on A5 Wagyu and foie gras lacquered with chocolate balsamic. The New York Times named it among Boston's 25 best restaurants.

Exposed brick, polished concrete, and soft leather set the tone before a dish arrives at this osteria tucked into Palmer Alley. The chef trained under a Roman legend and keeps the cooking rooted in regional Italy, letting seasonality do the heavy lifting. The pastas in particular are the kind that make you rethink your standing dinner plans. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurant semifinalist, and one of the Washington Post's 40 best in the area.

A small, unfussy room on Observatory Hill where Italian fine dining quietly bends the rules, folding kimchi and fried garlic into ricotta-parsnip ravioli without making a scene about it. The chef, a James Beard Award nominee, keeps the menu tight and the flavors bolder than the room's modest size would suggest. This is the kind of Cambridge spot where the cooking is doing something genuinely odd and you're glad it is.

The annual menu at this downtown Phoenix cocktail bar arrives as a lavishly illustrated tome, and the bar takes its ice quality as seriously as its recipes. Ross Simon's self-stated motto is "whimsical as fuck," which coexists happily alongside one of the coldest martinis in the city, served in red-leather booths under tall ceilings. A Spirited Awards Regional Top 10 Honoree, it draws a queue worth joining online before you arrive.

This is the old-line Creole dining room on Royal Street where bananas foster was invented, and the servers still set it on fire at your table without losing track of your questions. It's fine dining in the jacket-and-good-posture sense, so you'll find yourself saying "powder room" without being asked. The bar program has James Beard attention of its own, and the Sazerac arrives the way it should.

The wall murals were painted by Ludwig Bemelmans, the man behind Madeline, and he never paid rent, trading the art for a year's lodging instead. This Carlyle hotel cocktail bar has been a stronghold of old-money Manhattan for decades, all leather banquettes and low piano notes, the martinis notoriously strong. The crowd runs toward people who have a lot to lose and dress accordingly.

The chandelier alone is worth pausing on, a sprawling coral-reef of a thing hanging over one of Seattle's most coveted oyster bar stools. This lively Ballard neighborhood spot runs on meticulously sourced oysters and a short, focused seafood menu, and the wait for a table is long enough that the tile-clad bar next door exists partly as a waiting room. A James Beard nominee for Outstanding Restaurant, it's the place locals bring visitors who ask where to eat in Seattle.

ChopnBlok is a casual, order-at-the-counter West African spot that outgrew its food hall stall and settled into Montrose. Lunch means rice bowls with braised short rib or suya-spiced steak, plus a red stew rooted in the chef-owner's childhood. The cocktail list leans on West African ingredients, so a midday meal can slide into happy hour without anyone filing a complaint. The chef is a James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Texas.

Past the vintage movie posters and through the double doors is an interior courtyard with a back wall that doubles as a 35mm projection screen, metal drive-in speakers lining the walls. It's a Californian restaurant where you can turn the sound up for dinner-and-a-movie or down to coo over anchovy-stuffed olives. Outdoor heaters handle the Mission fog. A James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurant.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler, one of Portland's bartending legends, helped set up this cocktail bar in the lobby of the Kex Hotel as an unabashed love letter to the Pacific Northwest. The space feels like a well-appointed living room, and the menu lists alcohol percentages alongside each drink, which sounds nerdy until you're grateful for it. The range runs from zero-proof options to a 39% Old Fashioned over a single oversized ice cube.

Oysters and crab claws on ice set the tone at this bright seafood restaurant in Los Olivos, where the team behind Bell's in Los Alamos turned their attention to things that swim. Slide into a booth, order the shared plates, and let the wine list run deep, including their own label. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and Esquire put it on their Best New Restaurants list. Santa Barbara County has an embarrassment of riches, and this is one of them.

Rice Vice is the taproom for Proper Sake, a casual sake bar where the menu describes each pour in flavor notes so specific they border on a confession ("bubblegum funk" is a real category here). Order the citrusy nigori if you're new, or something earthier if you're not. Food means snacks, with the occasional pop-up out front. Esquire put it on its best bars in America list, and sake fans fill the room.

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.

High ceilings, glowing brass, leather banquettes, and enough wood detailing to make you feel like you're boarding the Orient Express: Costa is a coastal Italian restaurant inside The Jasper that reads as genuinely grand without trying too hard. The kitchen leans into housemade pasta and raw preparations, pairing classic Italian technique with unexpected flavor combinations that shouldn't work on paper but land cleanly on the plate.

Canard is a loose, loud French-ish diner on East Burnside, next door to Le Pigeon, where fast food gets a sommelier. Steam burgers, garlic fries, and tartare scooped with fried saltines share the table with serious Burgundy, and the whole thing costs less than you'd fear. Eater named it one of the best new restaurants in America, which the cheeseburger-and-foie crowd seems to have taken in stride.

The team behind Oxalis opened this Clinton Hill wine bar as a casual second act, and the kitchen takes it as seriously as the cellar. Both lean Spanish: natural wines from small producers, simple seafood, grilled toast, and vegetable plates that hold their own. The bar and open kitchen anchor a cozy room that fills up fast, so arrive early or embrace the wait with a glass of something zippy.

A tiny New American tasting menu spot on Massachusetts Ave with a four-seat bar and just a handful of tables, which means snagging a reservation feels like winning something. The chef, a James Beard Award nominee, runs a hyper-seasonal kitchen where foraged ingredients and New England farms do most of the talking. The Michelin Guide has taken notice, and the room earns its intimacy.

The wood-fired oven in this Ravenswood Neapolitan pizzeria burns through dough the way it's done in Naples, leaving a soft, charred crust that folds without argument. The chef trained in Italy and the obsession shows, with many ingredients sourced from there directly. The menu stays traditional, appetizers and desserts rounding out the pizza, and the room has an easy warmth that makes an hour feel like twenty minutes.

A speakeasy above a pho shop is a concept that earns its own zip code, and Phocific Standard Time delivers on the premise. The Vietnamese coffee martini has become a reason people climb the stairs specifically, but the bar snacks, caramelized crab dip with sesame saltines among them, make lingering easy. Named one of The Infatuation's most fun Seattle bars, it's a cocktail bar that happens to pair very well with whatever you just had downstairs.

Wood paneling, vintage platters, and a Nordic-inflected seafood menu that's refined without being precious: Fet-Fisk reads like it's been on Liberty Ave forever, even if it hasn't. The cooking moves between delicate and rustic without blinking. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant in 2025, and on the New York Times Restaurant List in 2024. The room is the kind of comfortable that makes a long dinner feel like a reasonable idea.

A hand-cranked rotisserie sits at the center of the open kitchen, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Italian restaurant on Beverly. The room has the warm, dark energy of a place that knows it's good, with backlit booths and a crowd that books early. Hearty pastas, big proteins, and vegetables that actually want to be there. The New York Times put it on their LA list, and the Los Angeles Times ranked it in their top ten statewide.

A farm-to-table restaurant inside a historic home in Marshall, where the prix fixe menu extends to dogs, because of course it does. You can go deep into the multicourse tasting or just order the smash burger on a potato roll with bacon jam, and the kitchen won't judge you either way. The menu shifts with the seasons and what's local, so regulars come back to see what changed. Cabanas out back, thoughtful service throughout.

Melba Wilson, a born-and-bred Harlemite, named this Southern comfort restaurant after herself, which sets the tone immediately. Fried chicken with eggnog waffles is the move, and a fruit cobbler that has no business being that good closes things out. The room feels like a gathering spot rather than a destination, warm and unhurried in a way that explains the James Beard nominations for Outstanding Hospitality two years running.

A cooler of free beer greets the line outside this Saturday-only BBQ shop, which tells you almost everything about the vibe. The chef, a 2025 James Beard nominee who landed on the New York Times Restaurant List, does South Carolina chopped pork with cracklings folded in, plus Hill Country sausages and beef ribs that disappear before noon. Show up early or recalibrate your weekend plans accordingly.

Dry-aged swordfish is not something most seafood restaurants attempt, but it's the kind of move that tells you exactly what kind of place GW Fins is. This upscale French Quarter dining room goes deep on seasonal fish, running cuts like sheepshead and fish collars alongside the more expected. The chef's been a James Beard semifinalist, and the room draws people who came prepared to order carefully and stay a while.

Magnums of natural wine lean toward empty glasses and conversations bounce off metallic high-tops in a low-ceilinged room that feels more like someone's dinner party than a restaurant. This Lower East Side wine bar runs on eclectic small plates and a list that skews biodynamic and organic, with a vibe that's deliberately, unapologetically Parisian. The New York Times gave it two stars, and Wine Enthusiast put it on its Forward 50 list.

Calvin Eng's Cantonese restaurant and bar sits on a nondescript east Williamsburg corner, close enough to the BQE that you'll feel the trucks. Inside, it reads like a retro Hong Kong diner, but the kitchen runs modern interpretations of regional Cantonese food, and the MSG Martini earned a spot on Esquire's national list. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and the James Beard Foundation named Eng an Emerging Chef nominee.

The abacus-inspired light fixtures alone could convince you this is a design hotel lobby, but Mott 32 is a fine dining room doing serious contemporary Chinese food inside The Palazzo. The menu pulls from Cantonese and Sichuanese traditions, and the applewood-roasted Peking duck has a following of its own. The dim sum spreads run all-you-can-eat without feeling like a cafeteria, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

Dark wood paneling, deep leather chairs, and a fireplace that makes every barstool feel like the reading room of someone you'd like to know: The Manor Bar is a cocktail bar inside Rosewood Miramar Beach, and it leans hard into a literary conceit, pulling drink ideas from novels, lyrics, and screenplays. The result is exactly as charming as it sounds and only slightly precious. A Spirited Awards Top 10 nominee for Best U.S. Hotel Bar.

A long bar on one side, black marble banquettes on the other, and manchego herb biscuits coming out of the oven warm enough to ruin your appetite for everything else, except you won't let them. This is a neighborhood New American restaurant that happens to read upscale without much effort. The menu stays short and seasonal, which in Oakwood apparently includes a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Hospitality.

The British steakhouse import near Gramercy that made New York carnivores feel slightly underdressed. The room leans into a warm, vintage-century-club atmosphere, and the menu runs from serious cuts to the kind of British comfort food that sneaks up on you. The bar program is no afterthought, landing a regional Spirited Award and a James Beard semifinalist nod for beverages. A New York Times Critic's Pick, and reliably easier to love than the places that take themselves more seriously.

A neon fish glows over the door in Asheville's South Slope brewery district, and the vibe inside this seafood counter is as no-nonsense as the name. Chef Ashleigh Shanti runs a fish fry built around North Carolina catfish and dayboat shrimp, with the fish sandwich, dredged in locally milled cornmeal and finished with spiced buttermilk tartar sauce, drawing the most attention. The New York Times put it on their 2024 Restaurant List, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.

Colorful walls hung with aso oke fabric and Nigerian celebration paintings set the mood before the food even arrives. ChòpnBlọk is a West African bowl-and-bites spot that grew from a food hall stall into a full-service restaurant, and the menu stayed short on purpose: a handful of bowls, salads, and snacks, plus frozen drinks that earn their place on the menu. The New York Times put it on their 2025 Restaurant List, which makes sense for a room this precise and this cheerful.

The twice-fried bacon has its own reputation in this city, which tells you something about how long the Avila family has been getting things right on East 7th. Joe's is an all-day breakfast shop and Tex-Mex bakery, built-in booths and no pretension, with migas tacos on house-made flour tortillas and a bakery case full of conchas. A 2023 James Beard America's Classics winner, which is the kind of honor a place earns by being itself for decades.

The old bus depot downtown is now a Spanish tapas bar warm enough to make you forget you had anywhere else to be. Jamón hangs over a dedicated carving station, croquettes and patatas bravas fill the table, and a bottle of something Iberian seems to materialize on its own. The team took home a James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality, which tracks: the room pulls you in and the staff keeps you there.

A subterranean New England seafood joint in the East Village where the menu runs heavily toward the ocean and the wine list follows suit, mostly whites chosen to keep pace with it. The New York Times named it among the city's best new restaurants, and the sommelier took a Next Wave Award. The celery root float has become something of a minor cult object, which tells you something about the kitchen's sense of humor.

Parachute HiFi is a Korean listening bar from the Parachute team, built for people who'd rather hear a record than their own thoughts. Vinyl spins while the menu runs street-food mashups, like a burger drowned in Comté fondue and tteokbokki in a pad Thai situation, alongside cocktails. It's casual and dressy-ish in the way a good record collection is, and it takes reservations but still keeps room for walk-ins.

The chef still works the line most nights, which tells you something about a creative restaurant that's been an Old Town Scottsdale fixture long enough to feel inevitable. Vegetables are taken seriously here, pulled from Arizona farms and steered through a menu that drifts from the Sonoran Desert to the Levant without announcing itself. The wine list leans hard into Arizona producers, and the tucked-away bar is a fine place to work through both.

The cocktail menu changes every time the gallery does, which tells you most of what you need to know about Papercut. It's a minimalist East Austin cocktail bar where the drinks are keyed to whatever paintings are currently on the walls, so ordering becomes a little like picking a favorite piece. A back bar called Konbini serves Mexican-Japanese sushi when you need something to eat. The team came up from San Francisco, and the room feels it.

Dim sum from a chef who treats borders as loose suggestions, set inside a ground-floor office building in Coral Gables that looks like it should house a dentist. The dumplings started as a pop-up and earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod before finding a permanent home here. The cooking pulls from China, Japan, and Italy in the same breath, and somehow it coheres. A Niman Ranch short rib filling alongside charred cabbage in chili butter will tell you more than any summary.

Dum biryani folded with lamb barbacoa is a reasonable sign that this Bucktown restaurant is not picking a lane between Mexican and Indian, and has no intention of starting. The kitchen weaves the two cuisines into a menu that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand and an Eater Chefs of the Year nod. Exposed brick, a long banquette, an open kitchen, and a crowd that arrives loud and leaves louder. Share everything.

This is a José Andrés steakhouse inside The Venetian, and the open kitchen is basically a stage for a very large fire. Bone-in wagyu ribeyes get charred there, while the menu also stocks Ibérico ham and an aged-cow beef most steakhouses skip. Caviar comes in single-bite cones, which tells you about the tax bracket. Dress like you're celebrating something, since most tables are.

The 2025 U.S. Brewers Cup champion works the bar here, which tells you something about the coffee before you've tasted it. Helm is a roastery cafe selling small-batch microlots in 100-gram bags, roasted on site and pulled toward clarity over comfort. Gesha varieties, floral aromas, lightly roasted. It's also, somehow, the official coffee sponsor of Gen Con, which means the tabletop gaming crowd found good taste before the coffee crowd found them.

The wood-fired oven sits open to the room in a space that feels more like a late-night bar than a pizza parlor, which tells you something about the crowd. This is a Neapolitan pizza spot with a serious reputation, ranked in the 50 Top Pizza USA and a James Beard semifinalist. The dough is the whole argument here, and the team has been refining it long enough that regulars tend to skip the menu.

The line forms before the doors open, which has been the rhythm at this Seguin BBQ shop since Ernest Servantes and Dave Kirkland, both decorated in the competition circuit, opened together. The industrial room with iron beams and exposed brick fills fast. Brisket, ribs, and sausage lean toward tender and lightly smoked rather than aggressively bark-forward. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard nomination keep the queue honest.

A Taiwanese restaurant in Denver's Capitol Hill where jellyfish and pickled mustard stems show up on the menu but somehow feel like comfort food by the time they reach the table. The cocktails lean into it too, with an Old Fashioned built around rose jam and black tea. Eater named it one of Denver's best restaurants, and Westword gave it Best New Restaurant honors.