The Best Places in the United States

The sidewinder fries alone explain a lot about this casual coastal restaurant in Pacific Beach, where smashburgers and clam chowder come out with the kind of care you'd expect somewhere far more serious. The seafood traces back to the nearby Quinault Indian Nation, cocktails are good, and the kids menu is apparently a hit with people who eat off the kids menu.

Wood-fired pizza in Key West, where the oven does the explaining: the crust comes out with that particular chew and char that only live fire produces. Roostica is a casual pizza spot running a full menu of red and white pies alongside antipasti, salads, and sandwiches, with Sicilian cannoli for anyone with room and Italian wines for everyone else. The 50 Top Pizza guide lists it among its USA Excellent Pizzerias.

Wine barrel, shaped booths fill a historic brick mill building that once housed some of Walla Walla's more reverent fine dining. Salted Mill is a casual bar and restaurant now, the kind where locals fill the counter after a long day of tasting and nobody speaks in hushed tones. The menu leans into the mood, with gochujang-glazed swordfish and duck fat fries that make no apologies for themselves.

A Neapolitan pizza and cucina spot on the Upper East Side with large windows that swing open in warm weather, a wine cellar visible from the dining room, and enough space between tables that a conversation stays your own. The crust runs thin and light, the kind that doesn't need a verdict. Croquettes, pasta, and calzones round out the menu, and the staff manages attentive without hovering, which in New York is its own achievement.

A pizzeria on Via Sant'Euplio where the dough is made with ancient Sicilian grains, giving the crust a nuttier, denser character than the Neapolitan style it otherwise follows. You can also order a "cartwheel" format if a standard round feels insufficiently theatrical. Fried starters and a short list of double-cooked fried pizzas fill out the menu, and the wine list pulls from Sicily, Campania, Piedmont, Tuscany, and France, which is serious range for a pizza joint.

Slightly oval pies, sliced into four and built on a crispy, well-balanced crust, are the whole philosophy here. Serious Pie is a wood-warmed pizza restaurant in Seattle's financial district, comfortable enough for a working lunch and relaxed enough for an evening with friends. Private rooms handle the business-event crowd without making the main room feel corporate. The wine list pulls its weight.

A noodle bar tucked into a Lopez Island alleyway, where the chef makes his own ramen and udon and also, apparently, throws his own ceramics, which explains why the bowls are so good-looking. The broth is rich and deeply savory, the eggs are that soft jammy orange that makes everything look intentional. Reserve ahead: the handful of outdoor counter seats and high-tops fill up even when the ferry crossing feels like a bad idea.

The open kitchen anchors the room at this Astoria Italian pizzeria and restaurant, where the vibe sits somewhere between a boisterous family dinner and a proper night out. The menu runs pizzas, pasta, and daily specials alongside a solid wine list, and the kitchen handles all of it without fuss. Dough that holds up under generous toppings, attentive service even when every table is full by six, and a crowd that comes back regularly.

A Redmond pizza shop doing something genuinely tricky: making a Neapolitan-leaning crust that doesn't alienate the kid who just wants pepperoni. The dough is airy and light, and the menu ranges from classics to specials to a Sunday-only New York style, a range designed so that nobody at the table has to negotiate. Named among 50 Top Pizza USA's excellent pizzerias, it draws the kind of crowd where everyone finds something and nobody feels like they compromised.

Long-fermented dough is the whole point at this casual Lincoln Park pizzeria, where the crust is meant to be light enough that a second slice doesn't feel like a moral failing. The round pies lean classic but wander happily, and the all-day format means sandwiches and salads fill out the menu for those not committed to pizza before noon. Relaxed neighborhood room, no dress code implied.

Six days a week it's a neighborhood bakery slinging coffee and doughnuts in South Philly. On Friday nights, The Bakery quietly pivots to "secret dinners," turning out a short, rotating menu of tall, square pizzas on soft, airy dough with a crackery undercarriage. Seats are few, the menu changes, and the whole operation feels more like eating at a friend's place than a restaurant. Arrive early, or just arrive flexible.

A sourdough pizza shop in a coal-mining hamlet so small that downtown is basically a dive bar, a coffee shop, and this place. The chef makes only so much crust each day, so on summer weekends the kitchen sells out within 90 minutes of opening, and the line forms knowing full well it might not matter. A brussels sprouts and bacon pie has been on the menu since day one and shows no signs of leaving.

Heather Earnhardt's Southern-inflected restaurant now lives inside a historic coastal hotel in Tokeland, having migrated from its Capitol Hill origins. Cozy breakfast anchors the day, surrounded by farmhouse antiques and tchotchkes that feel genuinely accumulated rather than styled. Big buttery biscuits and fried chicken carried over from the original, joined by fried oysters from nearby Willapa Bay and local fish gone cornmeal-and-grits.

Tile walls and an open loft in a converted beauty school bounce noise around a room that stays open later than most of its neighbors on this stretch of Riverside. Wooden City is a casual restaurant with pizza on the menu, though the beet ravioli with goat cheese and pistachio has apparently been converting skeptics, and the blistered peppers with sausage tend to outshine the pies. Seattle Met named it among Washington's best restaurants.

Terracotta details nod to Naples in an otherwise contemporary dining room, which sets the tone for a Neapolitan-leaning pizza shop that takes its craft seriously without taking itself too seriously. The dough is airy and well-cooked, the toppings paired with real intention, and the fried montanarine are quietly worth the detour on their own. Listed among 50 Top Pizza Italy's Excellent Pizzerias, this is Carpi's most convincing argument for staying local.

The menu lists a spicy margarita riff called The Party Lobster, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Mister Paradise is a cocktail bar in the East Village where the drinks are built with serious technique, clarification, sous-vide, the works, but presented with enough wit and noise that you'd never call it stuffy. Locals land here and stop leaving, which is either a warning or a recommendation depending on your Thursday.

This is a counter-service breakfast sandwich shop that came up from Los Angeles and now collects sleepy tourists in a line that wraps around the building from early morning until noon. The sandwiches are warm, built to be carried, and priced like a sensible meal in a town that prefers otherwise. Eggs go on brioche or baguette, sometimes with steak, and nobody inside is dressed for anything beyond the walk back to the Strip.

The floor-to-ceiling windows face the Bay, and if you time it right you'll be watching the sunset over the Golden Gate while eating wild mushroom gumbo. This old-school vegetarian restaurant at Fort Mason has been around forever, loosely affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center, which explains why the dining room feels so unusually calm. The menu takes a global approach, and a vegetarian can order anything on it without scanning for fine print.

The dining room is painted red, yellow, and blue, Colombia's flag colors, which tells you something about what's coming. Mägo is a fine dining tasting menu spot in Oakland where the vibe skews deceptively loose, Latin pop drifts through the room, and the cooking traces the chef's Colombian roots through arepas, fried yuca, and corn pancakes, all finished over a wood-burning hearth with a steering-wheel crank. Pretension-free tasting menus are rarer than they should be.

A seafood truck parked at a gas station on Alum Rock, and the San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top Mexican and seafood spots. The heat runs twelve levels deep, and the team quietly suggests you stop at three. There's no menu, just a base of shrimp that grows as you add octopus, scallops, and sea snails. The aguachile will make your eyes water in a way that somehow doesn't make you stop eating it.

Hammered metal tiles line the ceiling and cookbooks fill the shelves at this daytime cafe on Petaluma's waterfront, where the menu runs through Eastern Mediterranean breakfast and lunch that shifts with the seasons. The Jerusalem-style bagels, looped long and chewy, are made in-house. Turkish coffee comes spiced with cardamom and cinnamon. Gratuity is built into the prices, which saves you the math and explains the sticker shock.

Cash only, no website, a line down Polk Street, and they open at eight in the morning if you'd rather eat crab than sleep. Swan is an old-school seafood counter, marble-topped and tight on stools, where the Dungeness arrives cracked and the raw bar runs to sea urchin when they have it. The noise is mostly shells and sourdough. San Francisco Chronicle calls it a classic for a reason, but the line will convince you faster.

The snap and sizzle of turmeric-stained fish on tabletop grills greets you the moment you walk into this bustling Vietnamese restaurant. The chả cá is the move: thick fillets over dill and scallions, smoky from the grill, served with rice paper and fixings for a roll-your-own situation at the table. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top Vietnamese spots, and the room full of families who never need a menu makes the case quietly but firmly.

The fish is in there somewhere, buried under a brick-red avalanche of dried chiles you have to ladle aside to find it. This Chinatown Sichuan restaurant is famous for that má-là one-two punch, the numbing tingle of peppercorns chasing the heat of the peppers, and the hour-long wait out front suggests the neighborhood has opinions about it. When Dungeness crab is in season, it arrives stir-fried with salted egg yolk.

A worker-owned collective in the Gourmet Ghetto, Cheese Board bakes one vegetarian sourdough pizza per day, rotating with the seasons, and you either want it or you don't. You probably want it. The line wraps around the block most days, but it moves fast, and the green sauce, herby and quietly ferocious, is non-negotiable. Grab a slice, claim a parklet table, and settle into the reliably frenetic sidewalk energy Berkeley does so well.

A family-run taqueria that operates out of an actual home and specializes in tacos al vapor, steamed beef head tacos in five cuts, from cachete to the gloriously fatty labio. The consomé, simmered from cow skull, arrives velvety and shimmering and pulls double duty as a dipper or a hangover cure. Weekend mornings bring goat birria and menudo. Cash, counter service, no fuss.

A French bistro tucked into a working Sausalito shipyard, where the servers wear mechanic coveralls and the menu runs to escargot, frisée with lardons, and quiche. The theme commitment is complete enough to feel charming rather than corny. Patio tables face the water and fill fast, which is the whole point, so book ahead if you're coming with a group and hoping to eat outside.

A cilantro aioli that the team describes as the shop's green sauce equivalent ties together every bánh mì on the menu here, a small downtown San Jose sandwich counter with house-made bread and a thing for Italian porchetta as a filling. String lights are about the extent of the decor, which is fine, because the room is easygoing and the sandwiches are doing the decorating. The San Francisco Chronicle has flagged it among the top Vietnamese spots in the Bay Area.

The menu changes every week at this small Vietnamese deli in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood, which keeps regulars coming back to see what chef Paulette Tran is up to. Banh mi are a constant, stuffed differently each time, and a beef rice porridge with ginger and green onions turns up often enough to be considered a regular. The room has plants, local embroidery, and a TV looping Vietnamese street vendors on infinite repeat.

Hand-pulled noodles in every thickness the kitchen can justify anchor the menu at this spacious Uyghur restaurant in downtown Menlo Park, the kind of place where pots of mint tea and flaky meat pastries share the table before you've made up your mind. The cuisine comes from Xinjiang, sitting somewhere between Central Asian and Chinese, and the room fills with long communal tables that make it feel like a feast even on a Tuesday.

Rows of cloudy jars exhaling tiny bubbles line the production kitchen at this small-batch pickle shop and weekend rice-bowl counter in Berkeley. Saturday and Sunday bring a three-course menu built around a maximalist rice bowl piled with the shop's latest ferments: kimchis, citrusy pickles, miso-braised greens. Drinks run to yuzu kombucha or warm ginger amazake. It may be the most Berkeley restaurant of all time, which is saying something.

Dimmi Dimmi is a corner Italian spot in Lincoln Park that took over a three-decade neighborhood fixture and somehow kept the regulars from rioting. The tavern-style pizzas have crackly edges and come cut in squares, and the handmade pastas hold their own beside them. It's a sit-down dinner, so book ahead, or try your luck at a weekday lunch, which is when the people who know things tend to walk in.

A Mexican café tucked into a shopping center that most people would drive past without a second look, though the tables spilling outside on weekends suggest others have figured it out. Pan dulce comes straight from the display case, the migas and huevos rancheros are the kind of thing you come back for on a bad Tuesday, and the cinnamon coffee is its own reason to show up. Cash-register Spanish, homey enough to linger.

Original Joe's is an old-school Italian-American red-sauce house in North Beach, all leather booths and portions sized for people who plan to eat leftovers tomorrow. The menu runs from pasta to steaks to burgers, so a table of eight with eight different moods can all find something. It has been family-run forever, which explains why a preteen sulking in the corner booth barely draws a glance. Prices are fair, and no one dresses up.

Sam Wo has been around forever, which in San Francisco's Chinatown means it has survived earthquakes, closures, new ownership, and the slow creep of chow mein tourists. It's an old-school Cantonese noodle house where the move is the steamed rice rolls stuffed with char siu, served with a swipe of hot mustard that will clear your sinuses immediately. The tea program has gotten an upgrade, with oolongs and pu-erhs now on offer, though the rice porridge with fried doughnut remains unchanged and deeply comforting.