The Best Places in the United States

The owner built this wood-fired pizza spot himself from recycled materials, made the stools, maintains a chicken coop out back, and processes rainwater on site. If that sounds like a lot, the thin-crusted, springy pizzas are doing their part too. Mostly outdoor seating means summer is the sweet spot, but the boutique brews, rotating ciders, and the easy International District energy make a case for showing up in a jacket anyway.

Huntress is a multi-level steakhouse in the Gaslamp, where dinner comes with a soundtrack and the nightlife seems to have been invited to the table. The menu runs from dry-aged porterhouse to tomahawks and Japanese A5 wagyu, with a seafood side for the one person who doesn't want steak. The bar pours whiskey flights from around the world, and the mushroom-shaped dessert is built for two, so plan accordingly.

Il Culaccino is a sit-down Italian American restaurant across from Wintrust Arena, which explains the pre-game crowd and the chicken Vesuvio. The menu runs red-sauce classics, prime steaks, and lighter pastas, all under burgundy leather banquettes that look like they've heard a few secrets. A wine bar spills onto a covered patio for warmer nights, and the owners also run Franco's in Bridgeport.

Ilili is a Lebanese dinner-and-brunch spot at the Wharf, where hanging vines, cages of light-up birds, and a trickling stone fountain make the dining room look like a very well-funded aviary. Hand-painted tiles cover the floor, and graduation parties and promotion dinners show up in their Sunday best. Skip the small plates for the mixed grill, a charred platter built for sharing.

Sit-down wine bar and all-day cafe in the Royal Hawaiian Center, where the menu wanders happily from breakfast plates to burrata to garlic shrimp without apologizing for any of it. The move many regulars make is the fried breadfruit, served with brown sugar and coconut cream in a way that makes you wonder why breakfast potatoes ever went another direction. Steamed clams and acai bowls from the adjacent cafe round out the options nicely.

Japaneiro's is a sushi-and-more restaurant in Sugar Land where Japan and South America share a menu and refuse to pick a side. Rolls arrive wearing chimichurri and caramelized onions, and the salmon tostada stacks itself on wontons like a Tokyo-Lima summit. It's been a suburban fixture for a long while, the kind of place where a birthday dinner and a rolled-up-sleeves sushi night happen at neighboring tables.

A sandwich counter tucked inside a Highland Park liquor store, run by a guy who left television writing and producing to make Reubens, which sounds like a premise for a sitcom he'd have rejected. The pastrami comes piled under melted Comte, sauerkraut, and house Russian on griddled seeded rye, with a Gruyere crisp. You order at the register, then claim one of the yellow tables on the sidewalk, ideally while the weather behaves.

Claypot dishes and lacquered roasted meats are the draw at this polished but casual Cantonese spot, where most of the menu stays under $15 and the lunch crowd moves fast. It shares a building with the much larger Diamond Bay, which means dim sum from that sprawling menu is also on offer, a dangerous development for anyone who came in planning to keep it simple. New York restaurant group, Seattle address, Chinatown, International District building with history.

Blue gingham tablecloths and a line out the door on weekends tell you everything before you sit down. John O'Groats is a daytime diner on West Pico that has been around forever, and its pancakes are the reason people keep coming back, big enough that the kids' plate could embarrass most adults. Gluten-free versions are available on request, which for a place this old-school is a thoughtful touch.

Jupiter is a casual counter-service spot in City Walk that commits fully to its name, running a pizza menu and an even longer waffle menu with no apparent fear of the combination. Wings come with waffle triangles and maple cream, a pulled-pork pizza borrows from a Vietnamese sandwich, and dessert is a churro-style waffle. It's an easy, inexpensive call for a family with undecided kids, or adults who admit they are too. Eater lists it among Sugar Land's best.

The pork hits the grill frozen, just as it would in Seoul, and that detail tells you everything about where K Team's priorities lie. This is a Korean barbecue restaurant on Vermont with a pork-forward menu, thick collar and belly cuts caramelizing over tallow-slicked grates. The beef tongue curls beautifully too, and the pollack roe paste alongside is the move. Named to Eater's 38 best restaurants in Los Angeles.

Kar Son is a sit-down Chinese restaurant in Row DTLA, a spot that sounds like a skeptic's punchline until you're inside it. The menu wanders the whole country, from Sichuan to Yunnan, and keeps a straight face doing it. Floor-to-ceiling windows and wide booths suit a solo noodle soup lunch, and at night the candles and 90s Cantopop make it a group-dinner room. Expect real-restaurant prices, not a lunch counter's.

This is a casual Mexican cantina in the middle of the Gaslamp, where the house ceviche arrives with shrimp, cucumber, and avocado in a spicy serrano sauce. The rest of the menu runs the familiar route of tacos, enchiladas, and carne asada, with a mojito that comes in spicy mango. Happy hour covers every Monday and the afternoons after that, which suits a neighborhood where nobody pays full price for a margarita on purpose.

Wine carafes priced the way carafes should be priced, and octopus skewers landing on paper-covered tables beside tzatziki and spanakopita, all of it meant for sharing. Kiki's is a neighborhood Greek taverna on the Lower East Side that got so popular the team opened an identical spot across the street for overflow, which is either very practical or very on-brand for the neighborhood. Usually easy to get a table, which says something.

Kinjiro is a small, quiet izakaya in Little Tokyo that seats two sittings a night, and you get in by emailing for a reservation like it's 2004. The dining room is hushed enough that you'll hear the uni risotto being scooped. Plenty of the regulars greet the chef by name and order from every section of the menu, so a mix of sushi, sake, and small plates like grilled onigiri is the move.

Kita Steak & Ribs is a steakhouse run like a family business, which it is, with grill-dad barbecue given a Vietnamese accent. It began in a Hillsboro strip mall with a short menu and a loyal following packed into very little room, and it has since moved into nicer digs in Beaverton. The menu has grown a bit, but the beef is still the point. Eater lists it among Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

Kulture is a sit-down comfort food restaurant steps from the George R. Brown Convention Center, where Caribbean and Southern cooking share one menu and nobody makes them fight about it. Gumbo opens things, there's an oxtail melt, and brunch gets theatrical with crab-topped catfish and grits. Happy hour runs all day on Astros home game days, which is a generous reading of the word "hour."

Kwok's Bistro is a casual, stand-alone Cantonese-leaning Chinese restaurant just west of the big downtown casinos, which is about as far from a buffet as Reno gets. The chef, a former casino busboy, takes days to prepare the Beijing duck, so ordering it is a commitment. Wok-fired dishes lean on garlic and ginger, and the lamb brings real heat. The chef was a James Beard Best Chef: Southwest semifinalist.

La Condesa is a Mexican fusion restaurant in a former car repair shop on Wells Avenue, where the roll-up garage doors now open onto a patio courtyard. The menu wanders freely, with crab mac and cheese, Kobe beef ravioli, and a steakburger stacked with pork belly. Hand-painted murals share the walls with celebrity mug shots, and the pop hits on the video screen suit the cocktails, which skip the sugary syrup.

A giant pink monkey painted on the outside wall tells you what you're getting into, and the stained-glass windows and colorful ceiling fixtures inside keep the theme going. This is a lively, casual Mexican spot in East Fremont serving tacos, flautas, and seafood, plus loaded fries that count as a starter if you're generous. Weekend brunch goes full pink, with rosy cocktails and a mimosa flight.

This is a family-run New York-style pizzeria on India Street, selling slices and whole pies at the kind of prices that won't require a conversation with your accountant. Little Italy mostly closes up early, and this is one of the few spots still serving on weekend nights, which makes it popular with people who skipped dinner or want a second one. Wings, salads, and Italian-meat paninis sit alongside a pie named after the Sopranos, because of course.

Lansdowne is a fine-dining room behind an exposed brick facade, where the service is the attentive, old-fashioned kind that notices your glass before you do. The seasonal menu runs to beef tartare and scallops perched on maitakes, plated with care but without the tweezers or the portions that make you stop for a burger afterward. The wine list stays strictly Oregon and Washington, which turns out to be a wider world than it sounds. It's on Eater's list of Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

Las Cazuelas is a family-run Salvadoran restaurant on Figueroa where the recipes come down through the owner's mother, and nobody seems inclined to edit them. Pupusas are the draw, the revuelta with crisped chicharron and a three-cheese stretch in particular. The leather booths are roomy, the prices are easy, and the back lot has parking, a rarity in Highland Park that feels almost like a dare.

This Gaslamp patisserie lets you do France on a lunch break: grab a croissant at the counter and keep walking, or sit down for a quiche Lorraine or a crêpe folded around Nutella and strawberries. The cases are lined with macarons, and the iced coffees come in flavors like coconut and cinnamon brown sugar, which is not how anyone in Lyon takes their coffee. Dress is whatever got you through the Gaslamp.

Leo's sits next to the River Oaks Theatre and plays a New York supper club, which in Houston means a 28-ounce porterhouse, lobster thermidor, and a side of potatoes dauphinoise nobody ordered for the table but everyone eats. Dinner here is a dressed-up, wallet-forward affair. There are four Old Fashioneds, one of them an Elvis-inspired peanut butter and banana situation, so the bar is clearly not here to be polite.

Liberty started as a butcher shop and sandwich counter, and the meat is still broken down in the basement, from a ranch down in Minden, before it meets the wood-fired oven upstairs. It's a casual downtown Reno restaurant a few steps from the Riverwalk, where black-and-white photos of 1980s celebrities watch over the dining room. Mark Estee runs it, and he's about as close as Reno gets to a local celebrity chef.

A two-level seafood restaurant in the Pendry Hotel, where the Gaslamp's night-out dinner crowd comes dressed for it and the menu leans on sustainable fish. Sushi-bar nigiri and oysters make an easy opening act, and the real commitment is a whole grilled fish or a wagyu tomahawk the size of a toddler's arm. Reserve ahead, because everyone else already thought of this.

Little Rey is the casual, all-day Mexican spot from restaurateur Ford Fry, the one where you can order breakfast chalupas at eight and a margarita at noon without anyone blinking. Tacos come in every direction, and the half chicken roasted over coals arrives with tortillas and ranch beans for assembling at the table. Soft-serve in tres leches or salty cajeta is the correct way to close out a meal. Come in whatever you're already wearing.

Lou & Mickey's is a Gaslamp steakhouse with a lounge attached, built on the idea that a chophouse should still look like a chophouse. The beef gets aged in-house for a month, and the menu runs from grass-fed rib-eye to Japanese wagyu, with halibut and clam linguine for anyone dragged along against their will. It holds AAA Three Diamonds, so expect an expense-account dinner, not a quick bite before the ballgame.

Lumi is a rooftop restaurant in the Gaslamp where Akira Back's Nikkei cooking, Japanese technique with Peruvian instincts, comes with downtown views and fire pits. Wagyu gets cooked tableside on hot stones, so dinner doubles as supervised arts and crafts. A highball machine handles the drinks, a mystery box handles the decisions, and on Mondays you can get a discount if you can prove you live in San Diego.

A Sichuan restaurant on York Boulevard with a bright green facade that makes it hard to walk past, even if you're committed to a different dinner. The cooking leans on the chef's Chengdu roots while poking at newer ideas, and the wings and fries come dusted in ground spices, which is how fries should be seasoned. The noodles are handmade nearby, and they're the reason to bring a table full of people.

The restaurant attached to Hauser & Wirth's Soho gallery, Manuela runs lunch, dinner, and brunch inside an interior wild enough to distract you from the menu. The original location in Los Angeles keeps live chickens on the premises; New York wisely does not. The all-day menu leans Mediterranean-ish, crudo and carpaccio giving way to grilled fish and roasted lamb, the kind of food that photographs well and also tastes like food.

Clam-shaped pendant lights from Fritz Hansen set the tone at Marée, a French-California bistro and wine bar that sits just above the chef's Michelin-starred Lielle, a little more relaxed and a little less reverent. The menu leans on French technique and California produce, moving through truffled onion soup and escargot beignets toward pastas and a bouillabaisse, with pillar candles and a green onyx bar keeping things properly moody throughout.

Maria Luisa is an empanada shop in a garage-like Ballard space, the kind of place where lunch means a few high-top tables and a paper bag. The fillings run from creamy spinach to chorizo to plain cheese, and the chimichurri alongside would be welcome in packet form for the glovebox. Takeout is easy, even for a family-sized order, and the alfajores filled with dulce de leche cover dessert. Nobody dresses up for this.

Masu is an omakase sushi counter that sits at the quiet end of the sushi spectrum, where nobody has ever draped a roll in roe or a squiggle of spicy mayo. The dozen or so courses are mostly about the fish itself, cut with the care of someone sizing a diamond, with the occasional hit of yuzu or grapefruit kosho. It's a sit-down, plan-your-evening, reservation-minded sort of dinner, and Eater has it on its best Portland list.