The Best Places in the United States

A fish tail peeking out of a metal pot at the next table sets the tone at this no-frills Filipino homestyle spot in Woodside's Little Manila. The kitchen has been around forever, and the cooking skips any fuss: eggplant sealed in pork-threaded omelet, ginger-bright chicken soup, and chicken adobo that The Infatuation called one of New York's defining dishes. The New York Times put it at number 68 on its 2026 list of the city's 100 best restaurants.

Saguaro Corners is a casual Southwestern restaurant and bar that's been around forever, parked at the edge of the Rincon Mountains where the saguaros outnumber the strip malls. Wood-beamed ceilings, big windows, and a misted patio with live music make it feel like old Tucson rather than a theme park version of it. Comfort food with a Southwestern lean, roadrunners possibly watching you eat, and the kind of room that pulls in families and date-nighters alike.

The Arcadia Burger, topped with grilled onions, guacamole, and the house sauce, is the one to order at this drive-thru-only burger shoppe with no indoor seating whatsoever. The double-stacked patties are properly juicy, the fries are the obvious companion, and the milkshakes invite mixing flavors in combinations you'll immediately claim were your idea. Phoenix New Times put it in the top ten burger joints in town, and the neighborhood regulars roll through like they know something.

A few steps from Union Square, Ribalta is a Neapolitan pizza spot that takes its dough seriously, the kind of light, well-leavened crust that makes the New York slice feel like a different food entirely. The room is spacious and lively without being loud, and the menu runs well beyond pizza into appetizers and mains. It landed at number eight on 50 Top Pizza USA, which the regulars packing the tables on a Tuesday probably already knew.

A wood-fired Neapolitan pizza spot on Cotton Row, where the oven does the heavy lifting and the pies come out soft enough to fold the way Naples intended. The chef behind it earned 50 Top Pizza's Pizza Maker of the Year, and the restaurant itself lands at number nine on their USA list. In the Mississippi Delta, that's a sentence you don't see coming. Regulars settle in like they own the place, which is more or less the point.

Roman-style pizza by the slice is the draw here, baked in rectangular trays with a crust that's crispy on the bottom and genuinely airy inside. This is a counter-service slice shop near a hospital complex in Mineola, so the crowd skews commuters and med students who know what they're doing. Toppings lean contemporary, burrata and mortadella among them. It ranks on both 50 Top Pizza Slice USA and 50 Top Pizza World, which for a Long Island strip-mall counter is a fun fact to drop.

A cash-only Vietnamese lunch spot in a Bellaire Boulevard strip center that sets a giant pitcher of fish sauce on every table before you've said a word, which tells you what the afternoon holds. The specialty is bánh cuốn, soft rice paper crepes folded around mushrooms, grilled pork, and dried shrimp. You add the bean sprouts yourself and dunk accordingly. Bring bills, a loose waistband, and zero concern about your shirt.

An old house in Tempe that may or may not be haunted, depending on how many drinks in you are. Casey Moore's is a seafood and oyster bar that's been around forever, and it draws the full cross-section of college town life, from freshmen to people who were freshmen here decades ago. The patio, the well-priced drinks, and the raw bar keep everyone coexisting peacefully, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.

A honky-tonk dive bar on the east side of Phoenix where the lineup might be line dancing one night and back-to-back rockabilly the next. The bar menu runs wings, burgers, and nachos, there's a daily food special, and happy hour runs weekday afternoons. Sports play on multiple screens for the crowd that isn't there for the boot-scootin'. An old-school institution that closed for a stretch and came back, which says something about how much the neighborhood wanted it back.

Karaoke spills out of this LGBTQ+ bar at Park Central before you even reach the door. Inside, Kobalt runs on the pleasant fiction that everyone already knows each other, with drag shows, RuPaul's watch parties, and trivia filling the calendar alongside the sing-alongs. Show tunes, '80s ballads, and early-aughts pop keep the room generous and loud. Cocktails hover around eleven dollars, which makes it easy to stay for one more song, then another.

Peticolas runs a split-level taproom out of an industrial building in West Dallas, with English, Irish, and Scottish-style ales brewed on-site. It's a semi-official FC Dallas supporters' bar, showing everything from Champions League to regional Mexican matches, which explains the noise level on a Tuesday. When there's nothing on the screens, the upstairs has foosball, ping pong, and shuffleboard to fill the gap.

A backyard in Park Slope and a margherita built on proper ingredients make Brooklyn DOP an easy neighborhood slice shop to fall into. The dough is treated with care, the format stays classic New York, and the beverage list is calibrated accordingly. The orange olive oil cake quietly outperforms every other decision you'll make that afternoon. It landed at number six on the 50 Top Pizza Slice USA list, which checks out.

Inside Chelsea Market, Filaga runs a counter-service slice shop where the tray pizza arrives crispy, well-seasoned, and loaded with ingredients imported from Italy. The kitchen, oven, and prep are all in plain sight, and the whole setup is designed for the market's constant foot traffic rather than a leisurely lunch. Seating is shared and wherever you find a spot. It ranked eighth on the 50 Top Pizza Slice USA list, which is the kind of thing that draws a line.

The wood-fired ovens at the back sit behind what regulars call "the cage," a signature touch from the Caserta-born pizzaiolo that followed him here to Wynwood. This is an upscale pizza restaurant with serious ambitions, dim lighting, designer furniture, and a wine cellar built vertically into the wall, scenic if a little unkind to whoever has to fetch the bottle. The menu runs from straightforward a la carte to a full tasting format. Ranked fifth in 50 Top Pizza USA.

Inside Chelsea Market, this Italian pasta restaurant is built around a dramatic oval table that frames an open kitchen at its center. The format isn't casual folklore but something more deliberate: the menu treats pasta as the whole point, cycling through seasonal and traditional preparations with the focus of a tasting menu. The wine list leans into Campanian producers. It landed at #16 on the 50 Top Italy world list.

Oak Cliff locals have been calling it "Barb's" for decades, which tells you everything about what kind of place this is. A low-key dive bar with a retro-cool vibe, it runs karaoke on Thursdays and Sundays and burlesque on the third Wednesday of every month, so there's always a reason the room is full. Between sets, the jukebox swings from disco to hip-hop without apology. Your bartender probably drinks here on their nights off.

A U-shaped bar, gold touches, and pink drapery tucked inside a Highland Park strip mall, which is either charming or deeply on-brand depending on your feelings about Highland Park. Coupes is a Champagne and wine bar with a serious poured-glass selection covering French bottles, Crémant, Blanc de Noirs, and Texas pours alongside cocktails for anyone not yet ready to commit to bubbles entirely.

Wood-paneled walls and old neon beer signs set the tone at Lee Harvey's, a classic Dallas dive bar that's been knocking the edge off long weeks for as long as anyone can remember. The patio is roomy enough to bring the dog, and the onion rings with chipotle aioli are the kind of thing you eat standing up and then immediately order again. Cold beer, no pretense, no dress code.

Pool tables in the back, a fireplace den up front, and a patio pulling double duty as meeting spot for both SMU students and regulars who've been coming since the place was one of Dallas' oldest bars. Under new ownership with a fresh look, Milo Butterfingers is a sports bar and neighborhood hangout that hasn't lost its original ease. Homestyle daily specials run cheap, and the booths are big enough that nobody has to go home.

Perched above the old Lakewood Theater, this dimly lit jazz bar has the kind of second-floor intimacy that makes the rest of Dallas feel very far away. The dance floor leaves just enough room for cheek-to-cheek, which is either charming or a fire hazard depending on your mood. Bring someone you want to know better, because the room will do the rest of the work. D Magazine named it the city's top jazz bar in 2025.

Frosted mugs pulled straight from a freezer behind a bar draped in kitschy tchotchkes: this Grand Avenue tiki dive bar has been an institution since truckers were rolling through on Route 60. Wood paneling, tiki-style tables, a pool table, and a patio where the smoking happens. On Tuesdays a DJ spins vinyl, playing what the regulars call "funky mutant dance music," and somehow the night outlasts your intentions. Cash only, so plan accordingly.

The taco truck parked out front sets the tone before you even get inside. Charlie's is an old-school gay bar and dance hall on Camelback with a big outdoor patio, bleacher seating, two bars, and a dance floor that earns its own reputation after midnight on weekends. The calendar runs from drag nights and karaoke to Latin and country two-stepping, so the crowd varies wildly depending on when you show up, which is most of the fun.

A seven-foot plaster rooster presides over the bar, and a miniature Eiffel Tower tops the roof, and somehow neither feels out of place. Nutowne Saloon is an old-school gay bar in east Phoenix that has been around forever, surviving a fire that gutted the place and still coming back kitschier than before. Pool tables, a Merlin fortune-telling machine, and a patio covered for the crowds round out a room that grandma's attic would recognize immediately.

A hanging mobile about Phoenix's infamous trunk murderess sets the tone before you've even ordered a drink. Valley Bar is a basement dive, reached through an alley off Central Avenue that will make you question your life choices right up until you hit the stairs and descend into genuinely good energy. Cheap beers, cocktails named after Arizona politicians, skeeball, shuffleboard, and live DJs on weekends round out a room that has no interest in taking itself seriously.

You reach this cocktail bar and pinball arcade by yanking open a fake freezer door inside Ziggy's Magic Pizza Shop, which is either the best or worst way to start a night depending on how you feel about commitment. Inside: a glowing dance floor, a disco ball, pinball machines, and a full bar. Post-show crowds spill in from the Van Buren next door, so on any given night the room holds goths, burners, and Disney adults in rough harmony.

An Alsatian-style cottage tucked into the woods of Great Falls that has been on the Washingtonian's 100 Very Best Restaurants list longer than most of its readers have been alive. The upstairs dining room runs classic French, foie gras and Grand Marnier soufflé and all, while downstairs at Jacques' the mood loosens around a proper choucroute garni. Folksy French knickknacks everywhere, zero apologies for any of it.

The dining room is swathed in impressionist pastels and fresh florals, which sets expectations that the kitchen then quietly meets. This is a modern Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church serving dishes that take the cuisine somewhere more composed, think pho-spiced chicken-liver mousse or handmade pappardelle with a lemongrass short-rib ragu that borrows from Vietnamese beef stew. The cocktails lean dramatic and photogenic, and the crowd arrives dressed accordingly.

Yucca Tap Room is an old-school dive bar and live music venue where cheap drinks and a no-fuss atmosphere have kept generations of Tempe regulars coming back. The punk shows are a fixture, and moshers in Halloween costumes remain a perfectly normal Tuesday-in-October situation. Half the space now belongs to Electric Bat Arcade, a pinball room that on some nights draws a bigger crowd than the bar itself.

Exposed brick and vintage touches give this downtown Tucson restaurant a warm, slightly polished feel, the kind of room that works for a date or a slow weekday lunch with too much mezcal. The menu leans into Central Mexican cooking, where the chiles rellenos have earned a following of their own and roasted bone marrow arrives with epazote chimichurri and flour tortillas. A sidewalk patio handles the evenings when the desert air cooperates.

The steaks arrive already drenched in butter, with truffle butter on standby if you feel that wasn't enough of a statement. Steak 44 is a high-end steakhouse on the north side of Phoenix that somehow sidesteps the usual corporate-vault atmosphere, landing closer to a neighborhood spot where the bar fills with regulars and families stake out booths for birthdays. The menu wanders past its brief with soft-shell crab in vanilla tempura alongside the expected shrimp cocktail.

The name is shorthand for Design District, in case you were wondering. This cocktail bar and late-night dancehall is dressed like your coolest grandmother's basement, all shag rugs, old couches, and polished brass knickknacks. Cocktails are taken seriously, and local DJs eventually take over, turning the lounge crowd into a dance floor. Dallas Observer named it the city's best nightclub in 2025.

The hardwood dance floor in the center of the main room is the whole argument here. This sprawling gay bar on Cedar Springs has multiple bars, several rooms, and a two-story outdoor patio, all draped in western kitsch and framed cowboys doing cowboy things. Two-stepping lessons run weekly, alongside karaoke, trivia, and drag shows. The crowd skews as welcoming as the staff will tell you: everyone's invited to the boot-scootin'.

The lamb shank arrives bone-in so you can pull it apart and build your own tacos, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Jalisco Highlands restaurant on Clayton Street. Chef Johnny Curiel draws on the rustic cooking of Los Altos de Jalisco, running from aguachile and kanpachi tostada through soulful mains meant for the table to share. Moody lighting, a lively room, and a Michelin Guide selection.

Don's Prime is a white-marble, gold-trimmed steakhouse inside Fontainebleau, where the staff in velvet tuxedos treat service like a stage production. Raw steaks are presented on a board for your approval, Old Fashioneds get mixed on a rolling cart, and dessert arrives with its own trolley. Dress like someone who expects to be looked at, since the circular bar is that kind of seat. Eater named it the best new steakhouse.

You book by phone, get buzzed through the door, and receive a handwritten menu, which either sounds precious or exactly right depending on your mood. Eulalie is a cozy, French-leaning prix-fixe spot in Tribeca where the formality is purely theatrical, the cooking is warm and assured, and the Named by the Times one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024, it feels less like a debut than a place that's been waiting for you to find it.

A bar anchors the narrow room at this buzzy south Indian restaurant named for the city at the tip of the subcontinent, which tells you where the kitchen's loyalties lie: seafood, regional spice, and coastal flavors that don't pull punches. The slow-cooked beef short rib, draped in Madras onion rings and crispy curry leaves, has become something people keep coming back to mention. The Michelin Guide has it selected.

The chicken bastilla arrives dusted with powdered sugar and rose petals, which sounds precious until you taste it and understand why the New York Times critic put it on her favorites list. This is a modest, neighborhood Moroccan cafe in Astoria where the cooking is traditional and the prices are gentle. The pastry crackles, the filling runs sweet then savory, and the two never quite separate. A $12 dish that requires a hundred paper-thin layers to pull off.

A sign above the bathroom explicitly bans cocaine, which tells you most of what you need to know about The Grapevine's charms. This sprawling neighborhood bar and kitchen moved from its beloved pink adobe on Maple Avenue a couple years back, and the regulars followed, along with most of the staff. Strong drinks, plenty of outdoor space, boudin balls from the new kitchen, basketball on screens, and karaoke when the mood strikes.

A wood-fired Neapolitan pizzeria tucked inside an old downtown bungalow, with exposed brick, creaky hardwood floors, and a garden patio strung with lights that makes a Phoenix evening feel almost unfair. The team also turns out house-made pasta, burrata, and limoncello from a family recipe. Weekends book up fast, which tells you something without anyone having to say it.

A tamale shop that sells exactly one thing, in more than twenty flavors. The family operation skips lard, gluten, and preservatives, and the masa shows it. Standards like beef red chile sit alongside spinach and cream cheese, a rotating monthly special, and dessert tamales for when you've already committed. Find them at the North Phoenix storefront on Cave Creek Road or at area farmers markets if the drive feels ambitious.

A sprawling patio bar right off the Katy Trail, the kind of place cyclists arrive at with good intentions and leave an hour later than planned. Nearly thirty Texas beers on draft and a solid lineup of Texas whiskeys keep things local, while the kitchen handles dark-beer venison chili for anyone who needs ballast. The patio is large and loud in the best communal way. Exactly what Dallas was missing before it existed.

The green chile burro is why people line up out the door at this to-go-only counter in the Garfield District, and it's been that way for a long time. Rito's is a family-run spot with no frills and no seating, just a window, a menu of Mexican staples, and the option to get anything made chimichanga-enchilada style, deep-fried and buried in red sauce. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top burrito in 2025.

This is a small, counter-service Hawaiian spot in LoHi, built around poke bowls and griddled spam musubi, the kind of lunch that fits in one hand while the other holds a phone. Seating is a handful of painted picnic benches inside that fill up quickly, so plenty of people carry their food across to Hirshorn Park. It's a cheap, easy, solo-friendly stop, and the sort of room where nobody asks what you do for work.

Arched windows and red leather chairs frame a view of the Catalina Foothills at this upscale Italian restaurant in the foothills of Tucson. The room pulls off Tuscan-inspired warmth without sliding into theme-park territory, and the patio is the kind of place people book for anniversaries they've been planning since January. Service is attentive in the way that actually helps rather than hovers.

The smoked meatloaf plate, with house-ground beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese, tells you everything about what this downtown Dallas dive bar is up to. Hockey on the TVs, whiskey and craft beer behind the bar, and a menu that takes bar food more seriously than its gritty room suggests it will. The fancy bologna sandwich is a standing option; the pork tenderloin shows up Friday through Sunday for those who plan ahead.

Two weathered smokers parked out front do most of the explaining at this Las Vegas Arts District BBQ shop. Bruce Kalman, better known for fine dining, runs the pits here, pulling from central Texas brisket to Carolina pulled pork to St. Louis ribs without the whole thing feeling like a textbook. Live music fills the room most nights, giving the place the energy of a honky-tonk that happens to take smoke seriously. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

The green chile burro is what people are actually here for, and on busy days the line confirms it. Rito's is an old-school Mexican counter-service spot, been around forever, run by the same family across a handful of Valley locations. The move if you're feeling committed is to get any order done chimichanga-enchilada style, deep-fried and drowned in red sauce with cheese, lettuce, and tomato piled on top.

The lines at this Mesa plate lunch counter are long because the menu is short and the food moves. Hapa is one of the few independent Hawaiian spots holding its own against the chains in Phoenix, and it earned a Phoenix New Times Best Hawaiian Restaurant nod for the effort. Check their Instagram before you go since daily specials rotate fast. Save room for the malasadas, fried to order and stuffed with vanilla custard or ube cream.

The chef here trained at Tsuji Culinary Institute and cooked at Nobu before settling into a ramen shop in Ahwatukee, which is either a surprise or exactly what someone like that would do. The menu runs classic: tonkotsu, miso blended from Hokkaido pastes, rice bowls, takoyaki. The broth is unhurried and clear in its intentions, the kind of ramen that makes the fast-food versions feel a little embarrassed about themselves.

The iced coffee uses frozen coffee cubes so nothing gets diluted, which tells you everything about how this patisserie operates. The rotating case runs to laminated croissants, delicate tarts, and entremets that look like small architecture projects, alongside a daily sandwich on old-world bread milled locally. The team came up through fine dining, and it shows, even if the room feels more suburban café than Parisian. A James Beard Outstanding Bakery semifinalist in 2024.

A red light over an unmarked alley door is the only sign you've found the right place. The Branca Room is a speakeasy-style Argentine cocktail bar tucked behind Chimichurri Bistro in Bishop Arts, lit by crystal chandeliers and hung with Argentine art. The drinks lean into amaro and vermouth, and the cocktail menu has a sense of theater, one arrives in an IV bag.