The Best Places in the United States

A mural of Fillmore Street circa 1962 covers the wall, which makes sense given that the chef grew up in the neighborhood and spent years dreaming of bringing her soul food restaurant here. The rosemary fried chicken, fragrant with fresh herbs and marinated in housemade spices, is the reason people line up, though the butter cornbread and mac and cheese give it real competition. Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2025.

Peter Chang has quietly turned the D.C. suburbs into a Sichuan outpost, and Mama Chang is his tribute to the women of his family who actually did the cooking. The warm-wood dining room is upscale-casual Chinese, the kind where dry-fried cauliflower seems to land on every table without anyone admitting they ordered it. The New York Times and The Washington Post have both put it on their D.C. essentials lists, which for a Fairfax strip mall is a flex.

Pressed tin ceiling, globe lights, and worn wood floors set the mood at this seafood restaurant on South 20th, where the menu stays tight enough that everything on it feels deliberate. The raw bar anchors the room, oysters and scallops up front, while the gumbo pulls in lobster, crab, and Carolina gold rice. Grab a seat at the back bar if you can, the chefs are right there. A James Beard semifinalist in 2026.

Slow-roasted cochinita pibil is the anchor here, available as a plate with rice and beans or folded into tacos at this Mexican cafe and market in Houston's East End. Weekend brunch draws a crowd for chilaquiles and a loaded breakfast platter, while the daily agua frescas change with whatever fruit is in season. The chef behind it is a two-time James Beard semifinalist. Before you leave, the market sells frozen tamales and her cookbook.

CherCher is an Ethiopian spot that took over what was once a rowhouse living room, and the platters still arrive like someone's relatives are visiting. Expect injera for scooping, berbere-spiced meats, and a vegan combination so sprawling it could feed a small congregation. There are no reservations, so go on a weekday and bring friends who don't mind sharing from one big plate. It's casual, loud in the right way, and easy on the wallet.

Smoked brisket finished with awaze, an Ethiopian spice sauce, is the move that separates this casual Arlington barbecue joint from every other spot selling half-pounds off butcher paper. The team built it from a trailer smoker and weekend pop-ups into something the New York Times noticed and a James Beard semifinalist nod confirmed. Order a platter if you want range, and reach past the mac and cheese toward the lentil stews.

The wood-burning oven runs the show at this Italian restaurant tucked inside the Manhattan West development, where everything from onion torta to pasta passes through its heat. It's a Danny Meyer production, so the room is handsome and the service moves like it has somewhere to be. The chef keeps the menu generous and designed for sharing. The New York Times named it among the 100 best restaurants in the city.

Tucked behind a parking lot, Han Oak is the kind of Korean restaurant where you might have to step over a toy truck to reach the courtyard. The chef runs it next door to his own house, which tells you everything about the register: clamorous, buzzing, and genuinely homestyle. The seasonal menu leans into braised short ribs and bold pantry flavors, and the cocktail list throws gochujang into a mezcal drink without apologizing for it.

Lyons is a small river town north of Boulder where you wouldn't expect to find a contemporary French restaurant this precise, yet here it is. The menu shifts constantly, chasing whatever the chef is curious about, and the wine list leans into small Old World producers working with native grapes, which the floor staff navigate with you rather than at you. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mountain.

Carlo Lamagna built out much of this corner dining room himself, and that DIY spirit still reads in the space. Magna Kusina is a modern Filipino restaurant on a quiet Clinton Street block, with a bar program and chef's counter rounding out the room. The squid ink noodles with crab fat have become one of those Portland dishes people bring up unprompted. The chef was a James Beard nominee in 2022.

Marufuku is a ramen shop on the second floor of Japantown's Japan Center mall, and the line snaking out before they open tells you everything about how the neighborhood feels about it. The Hakata-style tonkotsu runs cloudy and deep, with thin noodles and slow-cooked pork belly. The chicken paitan is lighter but no less serious. Expect a wait, and consider using that time to decide whether you're ordering the deluxe.

Avery is a hotel brasserie up front, with cassoulet and the white-tablecloth French the genre promises, plus a British-style pub out back that does shepherd's pie and Guinness. Both rooms run on old Brunswick bars, and the pub's is reportedly the oldest in Boise, so it has seen things. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mountain, and Eater lists it among Boise's essentials.

Terroir is a bistro on Boise's 8th Street restaurant row, where steak frites and chicken Lyonnaise sit on the same menu as sablefish in miso broth, which is the French equivalent of a friend who studied abroad and came back with range. It began as a butchery, then a wine store supper club, then a winery food trailer, so a permanent address counts as settling down. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Mountain semifinalist.

The kitchen opens by warning you it's not a chips-and-salsa situation, which either excites you or sends you down the road. This modern Mexican restaurant inside the Camptown Hotel takes its cues from regional Mexican cooking, turning out tetelas stuffed with seasonal fillings, pig's head barbacoa with fresh tortillas, and a blood sausage tamale that regulars order at both brunch and dinner. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2026.

The view from the top of Reunion Tower has been making Dallas look good for years, and the steakhouse that lives up there now leans into it hard, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a dress code keeping things appropriately sharp. Sushi shares the menu with steaks from local farms, and the triple-cooked fries are the kind of side you order again before the first plate is cleared. Book well ahead; 200 seats fill faster than you'd expect.

Sitting inside the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale, this modern Mediterranean restaurant earns its own reason to show up, with a menu that pulls from Levantine cooking and slips in Floridian touches along the way. The room faces the pool and the Atlantic beyond it, which is either inspiring or distracting depending on your dining companion. The kitchen leans into spreads, skewers, and the kind of food that makes a long dinner feel easy.

The dining room is built to look like a Soviet dacha, complete with turquoise shutters and diagonal wood paneling modeled on the owner's great-grandparents' cottage. Kachka is a full-service Eastern European restaurant where the menu runs from happy-hour zakuski and herring salads to Siberian pelmeni and rabbit braised in a clay pot. Horseradish-infused vodka from the team's own distillery handles the rest. The New York Times named it among Portland's best.

Open-flame cooking runs through everything at this cozy Levantine restaurant in Redwood City, from spiced chicken to cauliflower roasted until it's tender inside and crisped at the edges. The menu leans into Jordanian-style street food, with falafel, baba ghanoush, and shawarma slicked in garlicky toum alongside larger sharing plates. A James Beard semifinalist in 2025, it draws families into a plant-filled dining room where the light comes in from above.

The open kitchen takes up half the dining room at this cozy vegan restaurant in Northern Liberties, which runs on foraged produce, small local suppliers, and the chef's own ferments and preserves. The menu is shareable Italian-inflected plates, around three per person, with a casual Northern Liberties crowd that books the place solid most nights. A James Beard semifinalist, and one of those spots that makes vegetable-forward feel like a choice rather than a compromise.

Two million crystals drape from floor to ceiling across three floors, which is either maximalist or just correct for Las Vegas. The Chandelier is a cocktail lounge inside the Cosmopolitan, and each level is technically its own bar, from the casino-facing ground floor up to the quieter top lounge. Ask for the Verbena, an off-menu drink with a buzz button flower that momentarily numbs your mouth before the cocktail lands.

Counter-service seafood in Fremont, where the chef sources directly from local fisheries, a supply-chain headache most spots at this price point don't bother with. The menu reads like Pacific Northwest bar food done with actual conviction: rockfish banh mi, salmon teriyaki, home fries tangled with smoked cod. The crab roll on a split-top bun comes out only on weekends, so plan accordingly. The New York Times put it on their Seattle list, which tracks.

A former marine fueling station and lobster pound on the Mystic River, Haring's operates in two modes: feet on the wooden railing, smoked bluefish on Ritz crackers, cold drinks delivered from the package store next door, or retreat into the clapboard dining room for seared tuna and squash curry. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and Yankee named it Waterfront Restaurant of the Year. Both outcomes make complete sense once you're sitting there.

This is a downtown all-day diner that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the menu has a sense of humor about itself. A full Irish breakfast shares space with Korean-style chicken and waffles, as if the kitchen refused to pick a side. Exposed brick and diner furniture keep things unfussy, and two patios handle the overflow. Prices stay casual, so jeans are fine and nobody will check your shoes.

Carson Kitchen is a downtown Las Vegas restaurant with one of the few rooftop patios in the neighborhood, a string-lit second-story perch for people who want a view that isn't a slot machine. Inside, communal tables seat you elbow to elbow with strangers, which suits comfort food that keeps showing up in fancier clothes, like deviled eggs wearing caviar. There's a non-alcoholic list too, and a happy hour worth the bar stool.

ReBAR is a dive bar on South Main dressed as an antique shop, and everything in it, from the mismatched furniture to the art on the walls, is for sale, so you could drink your way into a new sofa. The food runs to a Cuban sandwich, spicy chicken nachos, and pizzas with a dill pickle sauce. Beers start at $3 and top out at $7, with Yahtzee and Jenga standing by.

The salmon here gets cured and smoked in-house, which tells you most of what you need to know about how seriously this bagel shop takes itself. Schlok's sits just off the Panhandle, turning out traditional malty bagels with a thin, crisp crust and a caper schmear that leans hard into brine. Co-founded by a chef with Michelin-starred kitchen time, it punches well above the cream-cheese-from-a-tub competition.

A colorful bar anchors the pale, airy room on Geary, where Mourad Lahlou's Moroccan-California restaurant has been back and quietly owning the Richmond for a few years now. The menu folds California ingredients into North African tradition, and the basteeya, golden phyllo packed with chicken and spiced almonds, has made the trip back too. Service runs warm and knowing. The New York Times named it among the top restaurants in San Francisco.

The chef behind Lola's spent years doing refined seasonal cooking at a museum restaurant before deciding she'd rather cook food people want on a Tuesday. The result is a Southern-inflected neighborhood dinner spot on 28th Street where the cooking is casual without being simple, and local produce keeps showing up in places you didn't expect. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024.

Sichuan restaurant in a Pittsburgh strip mall where the dan dan noodles arrive loaded with minced pork and the cucumbers come in a garlicky dressing you will spend a week trying to reverse-engineer at home. The kitchen leans hard into Chengdu, and the family-style format makes it easy to cover the table. It's BYOB, which the regulars clearly know, since they tend to arrive with wine already in hand.

A converted meatpacking warehouse in the Westside gives Miller Union its bones, and the kitchen fills them out with seasonal Southern cooking that changes with whatever Georgia is growing. The room is casually upscale, the kind of place you'd take someone you're trying to impress without making it obvious that's what you're doing. The New York Times named it among Atlanta's 25 best, and the pastry program drew a James Beard nomination.

Seng Luangrath more or less put Laotian food on the DC map, and her Columbia Heights dining room is where it started. The menu swings wide, from crispy coconut rice salad to warming soups and curries, and the "jungle menu" keeps things interesting with grilled chicken hearts and rice-fermented pork belly. Sticky rice is non-negotiable. Dinner only, casual, and built for sharing, meaning the more people you bring, the better your night goes.

The rice alone explains why the New York Times put this upscale Persian restaurant on its 2024 restaurant list: the tadig comes out with a shattering crust, and the fluffy sour-cherry version beside it is its own argument. Classic stews anchor the menu, with duck fessenjoon and beef with dried lime doing the heavy lifting. The room is relaxed enough for families, polished enough for a proper date.

Korean fried chicken available in three glazes is the kind of menu decision that tells you exactly where a chef's head is at. Miss Kim is a cozy, modern Korean restaurant from Ji Hye Kim, a James Beard semifinalist whose cooking draws a faithful Ann Arbor crowd and the occasional pilgrim from further afield. Reservations go through Resy, and there's a to-go option for nights when you'd rather eat this at home in peace.

The khao soi here arrives in a shade of marigold so vivid it looks like a color swatch, topped with a tangle of fried noodles over chicken that's been cooked into submission. This Northern Thai restaurant in Mount Vernon Square skips the pad see ew and the crowd-pleasing standards entirely, leaning into the regional cooking the chef built her reputation on. The New York Times put it on their D.C. list, and the room fills up accordingly.

Tetsuya Wakuda made Las Vegas his US debut, reportedly because the Strip's energy reminded him of Shinjuku, which is either a compliment or a warning depending on your tolerance for spectacle. This fine dining room inside The Venetian pulls Japanese seafood, Canadian lobster, and Tasmanian oysters into a menu that moves between traditional and contemporary Japanese cooking. A hidden omakase room exists for those who know to ask, with rare whisky alongside the meal.

Latha means "flavor" in Swahili, which the kitchen takes as a brief. Housed in the bungalow-style Silva House in Heritage Square, this downtown Phoenix restaurant traces the food of the African diaspora through Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South, on both prix fixe and à la carte menus. The cooking has range, from piri piri chicken over jollof rice to Southern pound cake finished with tropical marmalade. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

Marvin is a pizzeria on Wickenden Street that dresses like the slice joint of your childhood, checkered paper and bar stools included, then quietly gets weird with the menu. There's a pepperoni negroni, a house pizza wine, and frozen custard waiting by the door for anyone with room left. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast, which the high tops do a good job of hiding.

Pink roses painted floor to ceiling and a Turkish coffee set mounted overhead set the tone before the food arrives. Beit Rima is a casual Middle Eastern small-plates spot where the Lebanese, Palestinian, and Jordanian menu is designed for sharing a little of everything: baked halloumi spiked with jalapeño, flatbread scented with nigella, crispy spiced potatoes. The New York Times named it one of San Francisco's 25 best restaurants right now, and the room makes a convincing case on its own.

Specials scrawled on brown paper rolls and a pastry case worth a long look set the tone at this low-key bakery and brunch cafe on McDowell Road. The kitchen leans on local ingredients, and the menu changes with what's good, so regulars learn to check the case before committing. Patio seating in the Phoenix sunshine makes the wait easier. Easy to miss from the street, which keeps it mercifully manageable on a weekend morning.

The forest-meets-island room on Greenville Avenue hints at the chef's New Zealand upbringing before a single plate arrives. Quarter Acre is an intimate fine dining spot offering both à la carte and a multicourse tasting menu that moves from delicate raw and seafood preparations toward bolder, fire-driven dishes. Classical European technique runs underneath cooking that roams pretty freely across the globe. A Michelin Selected Restaurant, and the kind of room that makes a Tuesday feel like an occasion.

Halal Texas-style barbecue and Indonesian cooking share a menu here, which sounds like a provocation until you taste it. The team built a following through pandemic-era pop-ups before settling into a brick storefront in Alameda, where brisket and smoked ribs coexist with Sumatran noodle soup and smoked fried chicken in balado sauce. The New York Times and Eater both took notice in 2024, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed. The wait can stretch to two hours, so plan accordingly.

The hollow bread comes with honey butter, and if that sounds simple for a Capitol Hill restaurant pulling Vietnamese flavors through a global filter, the rest of the menu will readjust your expectations fast. This is a contemporary dinner spot where risotto gets a Southeast Asian pesto and carpaccio arrives bright with nuoc cham. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, and the cocktails have their own following.

The steam table at lunch, loaded with curries and fried rice, is a direct line to the original spot Patti Myint opened decades ago. Her children relaunched this Belmont Thai restaurant with two of the original cooks still behind the stove, so the continuity is not a marketing pitch. Evenings shift to full-service with cocktails and a more creative menu. The New York Times named it among Nashville's 25 best, and it landed a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2024.

A wood-fired pizza and pasta spot a couple of blocks from the Sullivan's Island beach, up on a second floor where the pale blue seating and bleached wood manage to feel coastal without a single pelican painting in sight. The kitchen pulls from Italian, French, and Spanish influences alongside Lowcountry ones, and the vegetables from local farms make the salads genuinely competitive with the pizza. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2024.

One communal table, four kitchen seats, and a tasting menu that runs three hours minimum, because the team is not in a hurry and neither should you be. Ambra is high-end Italian tasting, with house-made pasta, warm focaccia, and a beverage pairing that isn't optional. The New York Times named it among Philly's 25 best, and Philadelphia Magazine put it at number four on their annual list.

A Church Hill dining room in a building old enough to have opinions, the Roosevelt runs Modern Southern cooking through a genuinely soulful lens. The chef, a 2026 James Beard semifinalist, draws on food-anthropologist sources and old family recipes, so the menu feels more inherited than invented. Virginia bottles anchor the drinks list, with regional beers and inventive cocktails filling out what's become a quietly serious beverage program.

A cow-shaped cast iron skillet arrives sizzling, and it has horns. This food court stall in east San Jose's Lion Plaza does one thing above all else: bo ne, the Franco-Vietnamese steak and eggs that bears little resemblance to any diner plate. Filet mignon, sunny-side up eggs, pork meatball, and pate come with a crusty roll built for dragging through yolk and beef drippings. Grab a seat the moment you order; the room moves fast.

Thomas Keller's most laid-back Yountville spot is a family-style American restaurant in a wood-paneled room with a blue awning that looks like it belongs to someone's very well-fed aunt. The menu reads straightforward, fried chicken and onion dip with kettle chips, but the execution is anything but casual. Make a reservation, or the engaging staff will be charming you from a long wait.

Olive trees planted between the tables are doing a lot of heavy lifting, but this roomy Greek restaurant on N Street sells the Aegean fantasy well enough that you forget you're in Dupont Circle. The menu runs through the classics, spanakopita, souvlaki, avgolemono, fish grilled with capers flown in from Greece, and the fries have a devoted following. Baklava with iced Greek yogurt closes things out the only sensible way.

The wood-burning oven at the center of the open kitchen is roughly the size of a studio apartment, and it sets the agenda here. Blue Duck Tavern is an upscale American restaurant inside the Park Hyatt, with soaring windows, walnut seating, and glass-enclosed booths that regulars treat as personal property. The menu leans into farms and purveyors, and the dessert station and near-30-tea list reward anyone who lingers.

Named for a fish stew from the Adriatic coast, this Italian-Croatian restaurant sets up in Raleigh Iron Works alongside a cluster of eateries and offices. The menu moves from crudo and pasta through wood-fired fish to peka, a slow-cooked Croatian dish of octopus and potatoes over fire. The wine list takes Italy region by region, with particular growers called out. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur semifinalist in 2025, and in the Michelin Guide.