The Best Places in the United States

Park on Fremont is a gastropub just off the neon chaos of the Fremont Street Experience, serving burgers, wings, and chicken sandwiches with a cold local draft. The back patio is packed with cacti and shrubs in colorful pots, guarded by garden gnomes, and on weekends a DJ turns brunch into a small garden party. A breakfast shot of Jameson and bacon is available all day, for those committed to the bit.

A globe-hopping dinner spot in Old Town Scottsdale built as a love letter to Anthony Bourdain, which means handmade pasta shares the menu with egg yolk nigiri and bison ribeye without any of it feeling like a theme park. The warm, conversation-friendly room earns its vibe. The bar team applies something closer to lab technique to the cocktails, and the mocktail program picked up a Phoenix Magazine Best of the Valley nod, which is a sentence Bourdain would have found deeply funny.

At Sizzle, the servers run the grill, so you can just sit there looking relaxed and cosmopolitan while someone else does the work. This Korean barbecue spot builds its menu around pork or beef sampler platters, with different cuts arriving in waves alongside banchan, salad, and steamed egg. Soju cocktails filled with fresh fruit handle the drinks side. Phoenix New Times named it the top Korean barbecue in the area.

A wood-fired pizza spot set inside an actual house, backyard patio and all, in a neighborhood that otherwise runs on bottle service and valet queues. Chef Gio Osso, known for finer dining elsewhere in the Valley, keeps things loose here: simple salads, pies with charred, bubbled crusts, and toppings that lean toward chestnut honey and rapini pesto rather than the standard playbook. Bring a bottle and a friend who won't mind lingering.

White tiles, pastel trim, and a cartoon burger grinning at you from the wall set the tone at this retro counter-service burger joint on downtown Mesa's main drag. The team behind Tacos Chiwas and Espiritu kept things deliberately simple: a short menu of semi-smashed burgers, hot dogs, loaded fries, and aguas frescas. The Sonora burger, stacked with griddled cheese, chiltepin, and bacon, is the one people talk about.

The hotel cuts its lights at ten o'clock so guests can watch the Northern Lights from the dark, which tells you more about this place than any amenity list could. Aurora Villa is a Nordic-minimalist lodge half an hour outside Fairbanks, incongruously sleek among the usual rustic cabins, sitting at roughly the same latitude as Iceland. The surrounding area is quiet enough that when the lights go out, they really go out.

A boutique hotel two blocks from Penn State's campus, Graduate State College takes an old downtown property and rebuilds it as a love letter to the Nittany Lions, with blue-and-white livery and Penn State references tucked into every corner. The Graduate group does this at campuses across the country, selling a collegiate life more charming than the one most students actually lived. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Private balconies hang over Walloon Lake at this boutique lakeside hotel in northern Michigan, where Hemingway summered as a kid and the water hasn't gotten any less beautiful since. Rooms come with plush robes and bedding you can tailor to your preferences, and the on-site Barrel Back restaurant handles waterfront meals with house-smoked everything. It's the kind of place that earns its postcard setting without leaning too hard on the nostalgia.

A gear demo and rental center doubles as the lobby vibe at this outdoor-adventure hotel near the base of Mt. Shasta, where the Michelin Guide has taken notice. Rooms run from standard doubles to a "whole crew" option, the look is hip without fussing over itself, and nobody raises an eyebrow at muddy boots. Fire pits, a game room, and weekend movie nights handle the evenings after a day on the slopes or trails.

A vintage-inspired inn just off the Tunnel of Trees route near Harbor Springs, Otis sits close enough to town to feel connected but far enough to feel like the point is slowing down. Frette linens and custom furnishings give the rooms a considered feel without trying too hard, and the courtyard runs from pool to bocce court in a way that makes the afternoon disappear. The Fireplace Lounge handles the evenings.

A speakeasy, a rooftop lounge, a steakhouse, a bar and grill, and a café, all inside one hotel in Bakersfield, which is either ambitious or a cry for help, and somehow it works. The Padre is a mid-century-swank boutique hotel that's been around forever but reinvented recently, and standard rooms already come with California king beds and down duvets before the suites get genuinely excessive. The Michelin Guide has it on their Selected Hotels list.

The official list of activities at this Rogue River lodge includes "Do Nothing" at the top, which tells you everything about the vibe. It's a rustic riverside retreat, a few miles from Siskiyou National Forest, with rooms built around cedar beams and river rock fireplaces. Larger houses add hot tubs and wraparound decks. Dinner comes out family-style; kayaks go upriver whenever you're ready.

Glamping, done with a straight face: safari-style tents with real beds and en-suite bathrooms, set in the redrock quiet between Lake Powell's marina and the vast, barely-charted Grand Staircase-Escalante. Under Canvas has built the same formula near national parks across the country, and it works because the surrounding landscape does most of the heavy lifting. A Michelin Selected Hotel, for anyone keeping score.

The telera rolls are baked fresh every morning at this Fruitvale panaderia and deli, which means the tortas built on them have a structural advantage before anything else is added. The chorizo con papas filling gets made a day ahead so the potato and spiced sausage can concentrate, then it's layered with avocado and a chile de arbol salsa that earns its reputation. Two indoor tables, a loyal crowd of regulars, and a sandwich that sells out early.

The curved brick entryway opens into an oblong room of deep green walls, gold candelabras, and picture frames, which is a lot to pull off inside a Tempe strip mall. Bar Capri is an Italian restaurant and bar with the bones of a big-city neighborhood spot: cocktails and a tight wine list from a back bar, lasagna and arancini coming through the kitchen window. Tiramisu closes things out, and nobody seems in a hurry to leave.

Barbusa is a family-run Southern Italian trattoria in Little Italy, where Sophia Loren and Pavarotti glare down from pop-art portraits like they're checking your reservation. You can drink Aperol-and-ginger-beer Sicilian Mules at the marble bar or settle into the dining room for handmade pasta, wood-fired pizza, and crudo. It carries AAA Three Diamonds, so wear something nicer than the shirt you wore to the farmers market.

Giada De Laurentiis's Strip restaurant is a sit-down Italian spot with California sunshine in its bones, the sort of place where the menu prints pronunciation guides so nobody has to fake-confidence their way through the bucatini. Servers pour Prosecco with Food Network energy, the lemon spaghetti arrives in a tidy tower, and it holds a AAA Three Diamond rating. Dinner here, then Lil Wayne upstairs.

Moonraker is a rooftop cocktail bar on the 14th floor of the Pendry Hotel, built around a circular bronze bar under glowing pendant lights. The windows are floor-to-ceiling and the Potomac does the rest, with boats and planes drifting past like extras. Japanese whiskeys, sushi rolls, and small plates keep the hands busy, and the patio fire pits suit a date or a solo drink. Dress like you meant to be here.

Ray's Cafe is the casual upstairs sibling of Ray's Boathouse, a seafood spot on Shilshole Bay where the view does a good share of the work. Expect grilled salmon, fish and chips, and the kind of plate that would also be at home at a gala, only with a lower dress code and a lower bill. It's the move for a sunset dessert, and it carries three AAA diamonds.

Tanta is a big, lively Peruvian restaurant in River North, where the menu treats Peru's Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish influences like a family reunion that went well. That means pork fried rice crowned with a shrimp omelet, and nigiri topped with wagyu and a quail egg, so sushi and steak finally stop pretending they don't know each other. Happy hour pulls in regulars with $10 drinks and similarly gentle food prices.

Mainlander is a Taiwanese tasting-menu spot dressed like a midcentury tiki den, all orange-tinted light, Polynesian-style art, and vintage furniture that clearly cost someone a lot of weekends. The menu changes monthly and borrows freely from German, Sichuan, and Missouri pantries. Esquire put it on its best new restaurants list, and reservations open on the first of the month at noon, so set an alarm.

This is a casual birrieria on North Broadway, and the menu is basically one idea: slow-cooked goat, served with handmade tortillas and the usual fixings. The Uptown spot took over after a fire shut the family's original Archer Heights location, and the recipe came along intact. It's lunch food that closes early, so plan around the goat, not the other way around. The Bear crew ate here while filming, which is its own kind of review.

This is a cafeteria-line Jewish deli where you grab a tray, slide it past the steam tables, and let a man pile corned beef onto rye until it stops resembling lunch and starts resembling a load-bearing wall. The walls are papered in old newspaper clippings and notes from Chicago big shots, a nod to when deals got brokered between bites. Prices are easy, the dress code is whatever you wore to work.

A food hall in RiNo that runs from morning espresso to late-night cocktails without ever really slowing down. Coffee and pastries open the day, a wood-fired pizza counter takes over by dinner, and the central bar keeps things moving in between. The kind of place where it's genuinely difficult to leave, mostly because you keep deciding one more stop counts as research.

The name comes from David Bowie's "Space Oddity," and the kitchen leans into the theme without going full theme-restaurant about it. This New American bar and restaurant on Larimer keeps things approachable, with a concise menu that rotates through tight, careful cooking. It shares a block with the tasting-menu sibling next door, so the crowd tends to know what they're doing, which keeps the energy easy without feeling sleepy.

The Coco Puffs in the bakery case are cream puffs frosted on top, not cereal, and locals have been devoted to them for generations. This outpost of a Honolulu institution sits in a bright, open-air space at the top of International Market Place, which feels a little glossy for a diner that trades in pancakes, Denver omelets, and mochi donuts. The food is the same as the original, which is exactly the point.

Dark walls, checkerboard tile, and a four-course French tasting menu in a Gilbert strip suite, which is not a sentence anyone expected to write. Maeva runs all day, so you can stop in for a lavender latte in the morning and then come back dressed up for dinner. The kitchen does a la carte too, but the tasting menu is the main event, with servers who steer the pairings and explain each plate without making you feel like you're being graded.

A palm-sized guava tart with finger limes that pop against smooth guava cream put this bakery on the New York Times list of the year's best desserts across the country. Sol Bakery is a neighborhood bakery on Hayes Street where the pastry work tilts toward barely sweet, bright, and texturally alive. The guava tart alone has earned a following before the permanent doors were barely open.

Cadinho is a sunny Portuguese bakery and cafe in McKinley Park, and the tarts are the whole conversation. There's the pastel de nata, vanilla-scented custard in flaky pastry, sometimes wearing a little chocolate shell like a tiny hat. There are also palm-sized passionfruit pies with a crust that gives up immediately. The other baked goods are perfectly pleasant, but you'll see people leave carrying a box of tarts and nothing else.

Good Ambler is a Fulton Market bakery tucked into the lobby of a snack-food conglomerate's headquarters, and the pastry case has the good manners not to mention it. Macarons, kouign-amann, petit gateau and handmade chocolates line up behind the glass, but the plain croissant is the one doing the heavy lifting. It's a counter-service stop, so nobody needs a reservation or a dress code.

Blue corn tortillas packed with saucy, warm-spiced beef birria is the move at this Mission District taqueria, which calls its style Chicano rather than the more tomato-forward versions you'll find elsewhere. The asada and adobo chicken are there for the uncommitted, both lifted considerably by the creamy salsa verde. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best tacos in the Bay Area, which the line out front suggests locals have known for a while.

Tastykake wrappers, scrapple company pennants, and Philly sports ephemera cover every wall at this Fishtown diner, where the decorating philosophy appears to be "yes, and." Omelets come loaded with local kielbasa sourced from an old-school Port Richmond butcher, hash browns arrive properly shattered on the outside, and the scrapple takes a left turn with spicy whitefish and pickled peppers. Daytime only, cheerful, and very much a neighborhood fixture.

Metal skewers pulled from an open flame and left to rest on the grill's upper rack, that's the move at this Indian barbecue spot in Fremont. The menu is deliberately short: paneer, chicken, and mutton skewers, plus rice and biryani. The grilled chicken comes drenched in a creamy, smoke-kissed white sauce that doubles as a biryani condiment if you're paying attention. The San Francisco Chronicle put it on their Top 100 list.

String lights stretch across a patio hung with art made from repurposed tools, which sets the tone for Spread Kitchen, a Lebanese-inspired restaurant on the Sonoma Highway where lemons show up in nearly everything. The chef's citrus fixation runs from the whipped feta and beet dip through the fried cauliflower to the tahini drizzled over the za'atar fries. The San Francisco Chronicle put it in their Bay Area Top 100.

Flour tortillas, not corn, are the whole argument here. This Sonoran taqueria brings the traditions of San Luis Río Colorado to Los Angeles, where the lard-rich, hand-made tortillas get charred on a griddle and wrapped around mesquite-grilled asada or slow-cooked cabeza. The caramelo and the oversized burritos draw regulars who already know their order before they reach the counter. A casual, counter-service spot where eating light is genuinely hard.

Every log in the hearth is Michigan oak, cherry, or applewood, and the smoke threads through a Basque and Catalan menu that sprawls from pintxos to proper entrees. This is a sit-down dinner spot in Brush Park where sharing is assumed and the wine list leans Spanish throughout. A specialty gin and tonic section and a sherry-forward low-alcohol program round out what is, by any measure, a well-considered room to spend money in on a Friday night.

A soju distillery in Doraville that also makes its own makgeolli, a Korean rice wine brewed in-house, Minhwa Spirits is a cocktail bar where the spirits on the menu began a few feet away. Food pop-ups and a coffee counter share the space. The bar program draws on serious talent, and the cocktails lean toward floral and aromatic rather than punishing. Small, unpretentious, and a long way from Midtown's usual scene.