The Best Places in the United States

Shareable plates at this Navy Yard restaurant pull from enough corners of the world that the menu reads like a well-stamped passport. The chef behind it has a diverse résumé, and that shows in combinations that feel considered rather than random. The room draws a neighborhood crowd that actually seems happy to be there, which in a trendy district is its own quiet achievement.

Claudine is a tasting-menu-adjacent American restaurant from a couple who came up through Per Se, and they've brought the habits along. Drawn curtains, cozy booths, and a bathroom where the toilet paper gets refolded between visits make it feel like New York in a Providence-sized package. The menu shifts often, foam appears in more than one course, and it was a James Beard Best New Restaurant semifinalist.

Scarlet curtains climbing toward the ceiling set the scene at this Tao Group steakhouse in Chelsea, where the room commits fully to the bit. Melissa Rodriguez runs the kitchen, and the custom grill sears cuts edge to edge while a long roster of vegetable sides keeps things honest. The desserts punch well above the steakhouse average. A thoughtful wine list and servers who actually know how to pace a table round out the package.

Evviva is a Mediterranean dinner spot in the Marigny, the kind you walk to when you've had your fill of dodging ghost tours. The menu shifts daily, but grilled Gulf shrimp and anchovy bread tend to show up. Gin martinis at happy hour draw the date-night set, and the servers have clearly logged time at other good kitchens around town. It was a James Beard Best New Restaurant semifinalist.

An Art Deco chophouse and raw bar in downtown Silver Spring, J. Hollinger's splits its loyalties between land and sea: prime steaks anchor the menu, but the kitchen lets you pile on butter-poached crab or fried oysters if you're feeling ambitious. The duck confit and homemade ricotta ravioli give non-carnivores a reason to show up too. Happy hour runs most of the week, and the dollar oysters keep things from getting too serious.

Doug Katz, a James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur semifinalist, built his name on Indian-fusion and Mediterranean small plates before going unabashedly American with this polished full-service restaurant in Shaker Heights' Van Aken District. The menu spans two dozen shareable dishes, ranging from small bites to proper plates, with a wine list that takes its job seriously and service that matches. Fans of Katz's long-gone bistro Fire will catch the occasional echo.

The French onion soup here is a quiet tribute to the French Cafe, the old-school institution that held this Old Market address for decades before Le Bouillon moved in. It's a French bistro leaning natural wine, with a burger and a roast chicken earning as much attention as anything on the list. A James Beard semifinalist for its wine program, it also runs a sister shop next door and a basement wine bar downstairs, so the evening has options.

The deep whiskey list is the tell: Nickel City is a cocktail bar that takes its drinks seriously without taking itself seriously. An Austin transplant now rooted in the East End, it pulls off the trick of being a genuine neighborhood hangout and a credible bar program at the same time. Hot dogs and mozzarella sticks handle the rest. A Top 10 U.S. Nominee at the Spirited Awards keeps the credentials honest.

Lines form outside this old-school neighborhood Italian restaurant well before the doors open, which tells you most of what you need to know. The menu runs to hearty, unapologetic comfort food, think cheese-stuffed chicken drowning in both Alfredo and marinara at once. The move, though, is to arrive early enough to catch a complimentary slice of red velvet cake, delivered tableside while supplies last. A James Beard Outstanding Hospitality Semifinalist in 2025.

A food hall inside a converted industrial complex, The Kitchen Bar draws a crowd that comes less for the putt-putt course next door and more for the rotisserie chicken, wood-fired pizza, and the kind of African Caribbean cooking, including Senegal's thieboudienne, that you don't find everywhere. Celebrity chef Gerard Craft is often behind the counter at his own pizza stall, which makes the whole setup feel a little less mall-ish than it sounds.

Harlo is an upscale steakhouse in Summerlin, set up like an old Vegas lounge with chandeliers, indoor trees, and booths plush enough to lose a fork in. The caviar comes mix-and-match with malt vinegar fries and latkes, and the wagyu tomahawk gets carved at your table, price tag included. It's a place to wear the good jacket, though happy hour martinis with charred olives cost $11 for those watching.

The pillowy ricotta and semolina dumplings in spicy Calabrian arrabbiata have become something of an obsession in Fishtown, and that kind of word-of-mouth is hard to fake. This upscale Mediterranean restaurant draws from the spirit of Corsica, so the room feels warm and coastal rather than stuffy, and the menu follows suit. Named Esquire's Best New Restaurant of 2024, it earns the attention without seeming to try.

This is Wynn's lakeside seafood restaurant, a split-level room where the chairs are upholstered in fish skin and the margaritas arrive in blowfish-shaped glasses. It's refined Mediterranean at fine-dining prices, so dress like someone with a reservation and a reason. The $1,000 seafood platter feeds eight and comes with enough caviar to make a toast feel necessary. Good for anniversaries, or celebrating a friend's profitable divorce.

The Meyer Davis interiors lean on wood, leather, marble, and tile in a way that feels more like a design hotel than a Garment District crash pad. Arlo Midtown sits squarely between Times Square and Hudson Yards, with Penn Station close enough to be useful, and the rooms read as a genuine buffer from the surrounding noise. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Check-in is handled at a kiosk, which either sounds like your nightmare or exactly right. CitizenM is a design-forward hotel that keeps rooms small, smart, and genuinely comfortable, with tablet controls for everything including the mood lighting you'll spend ten minutes adjusting. The lobby doubles as a bar, café, and co-working space open around the clock. It sits on a quiet block just above Market, with Union Square, SoMa, and the Financial District all close.

Cashmere on the walls, not the bed, is the tell. This small, apartment-style hotel sits across from Central Park with no lobby to linger in and no public spaces to be seen in, which is rather the point. The Fasano brand's New York foothold runs to duplex suites with vintage furniture and park views, and a quiet caffè that doesn't announce itself. The crowd, such as it is, came specifically to avoid one.

The old Pacific Building facade dates back forever, but the rooms inside have been quietly modernized with pops of color and calm, residential warmth. This hotel sits at 4th and Market, which is as close to the center of San Francisco as a pin on a map gets, with Union Square, SoMa, and Chinatown all walkable. Dirty Habit, the in-house cocktail bar and restaurant, handles dinner well enough that you might not wander far on your first night.

Wabi-sabi as a design philosophy turns out to suit a hotel rather well: Kimpton Hotel Enso channels the Japanese aesthetic into calm, minimalist rooms that feel less like a refresh and more like an intention. The boutique hotel sits squarely in Japantown, which means good ramen, Kabuki Springs, and a genuinely walkable neighborhood are all within easy reach of checkout.

A 1929 Art Deco building that once housed the American Institute of Architects is a pretty good starting point for a hotel with art on its mind. The Kimpton Palomar leans into that history without turning the place into a lecture, hanging work by Philadelphia artists throughout rooms that feel warm rather than curated. The lobby fireplace alone makes arriving in winter feel like a reasonable life choice. A block from Rittenhouse Square.

The Beefeater doormen on Powell Street have been a Union Square landmark forever, and they set the tone: theatrical, a little grand, entirely committed to the bit. The Sir Francis Drake is a classic full-service hotel with Art Deco bones, comfortable rooms on the smaller side, and enough happening inside, from Scala's Bistro to the penthouse Starlight Room, that leaving feels optional. The Powell Street cable car stops at the front door, which is either convenient or a trap.

River North's density of bars and galleries practically demanded a hotel like this one. Moxy Chicago Downtown leans into the neighborhood's energy: Bar Moxy runs as a co-working space during daylight hours, then pivots to local beers, cocktails, and weekend DJ sets by night. There's also a games room with shuffleboard and arcade cabinets, a gym, and a podcast booth, which suggests the kind of guest who checks in with a carry-on and a content strategy.

Charlie Palmer owns this place, but you'd never know it from the branding. The Mystic is a hotel in a 1906 building two blocks from Union Square, renovated carefully enough that the rooms feel more like a prewar San Francisco apartment than a boutique property. They run small, so book a suite if you need to spread out. Downstairs, Burritt Room + Tavern does craft cocktails and seasonal American food against live jazz six nights a week.

A boutique hotel that leans into San Francisco's bohemian bones rather than fighting them, the Palihotel sits in Union Square and runs on the small chain's signature approach: design-forward rooms without the fussiness that usually comes with them. It's the kind of place that attracts the laptop-and-oat-milk crowd without feeling like a co-working space with beds. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

Perched at the top of Nob Hill, the Huntington is one of those old-school San Francisco hotels that feels like it was built to outlast everything around it, and has. Ken Fulk's renovation kept the bones and sharpened the rest, so rooms still feel like proper apartments rather than hotel boxes, the Big Four Restaurant channels gilded-age railroad money, and Arabella's Cocktail Salon manages to feel both cozy and theatrical at once.

The lobby looks like Belle Époque Paris reassembled by someone with very strong opinions about color, which sets the tone for the whole hotel. Two blocks from Union Square, the Marker puts most of downtown San Francisco in easy walking distance. Rooms are comfortable rather than lavish, with good linens and modern bathrooms. The in-house Italian trattoria, Tratto, is worth a stop before you head out.

Fried oyster deviled eggs and a lobster corndog share menu space with whole grilled branzino and oxtail lasagna, which tells you everything about what chef Jasmine Norton is going for here. This casual-to-dressy neighborhood restaurant in Hampden has aquamarine walls hung with pop art prints and a hand-woven rope tapestry, a room that takes itself just seriously enough. A James Beard semifinalist and one of Eater's essential Baltimore spots.

Twelve acres of exotic gardens and waterfalls in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains make this Four Seasons feel genuinely removed from Los Angeles, even if it's only an hour out. The resort hosts what the collection bills as its largest spa, so the crowd skews toward people who came here specifically to lie down and breathe. Malibu and Santa Barbara are both easy day trips from the driveway.

This Korean pub on Northbrook's Milwaukee Avenue strip treats baseball, karaoke, and a very large amount of fried chicken as one coherent plan. Beer arrives in a tableside tower, which turns a seafood pancake into a group project. It's casual and loud in the way a place with a karaoke setup has to be, and it works best with a crowd that doesn't mind sharing a tteokbokki skillet and an opinion on the pitching.

Perched on its own peninsula about an hour east of Atlanta, this Ritz-Carlton breaks from the brand's usual playbook with Craftsman-style architecture that feels at home among the pines and lakeshore. Rooms and lakeside cottages cover the lodging, while five championship golf courses, kayaks, water bikes, and a full spa handle everything else. A Forbes Four Star and Michelin Key property that functions, without apology, as an upscale summer camp for adults.

Concrete walls, candles, and a staff you could count on one hand: this Little Havana tasting menu spot runs on a kind of controlled intensity that bigger kitchens couldn't pull off. The chef and a sous cook, plate, and clear the room themselves, turning out a frequently changing contemporary menu where the roasted plantain brioche, served hot with caramelized coconut butter, appears to be non-negotiable. Counter seats put you closest to the action.

The cured olive cookie has been living rent-free in regulars' heads for years, which tells you something about this East Village espresso bar. Abraço roasts its own, keeps laptops out, and occasionally pivots to cocktails for evening music events, which is either a flex or just very New York. The room fills fast on weekends, the bites are small and creative, and the whole operation runs with a neighborhood-institution energy that's genuinely hard to fake.

East Colfax doesn't usually do "sexy Eastern European," but Molotov Kitschen makes a convincing case for the phrase. The chef, a James Beard semifinalist, roots the menu in Ukrainian cooking, rotating dumplings and borscht alongside dishes that treat radishes and buckwheat like they have something to prove. Horilka cocktails and Balkan wines round things out. Counter seats are the move if you can get them.

A faded pink building off Seventh Avenue, formerly a tax office, which tracks: there's something a little bureaucratic about a jukebox this good. Inside, the bar is cheap, loose, and happy to stay that way, with Scrabble at the booths and beers that don't require a budget meeting. The patio shifts into DJ territory after dark, and the rotating calendar of themed nights keeps regulars checking Instagram like it's homework.

Three pools, one of them adults-only, and a complimentary nightly happy hour that arrives before anyone asks: Andaz Scottsdale is a resort that makes a convincing case for never leaving the property. The bungalow-style rooms keep things low-key and airy, the spa and a well-regarded restaurant called Weft + Warp are on-site, and the whole setup is designed so that the city outside quietly stops mattering.

Tucked into a corner of the Fontainebleau that most guests walk right past, Chyna Club is a fine dining room serving modernist Cantonese and regional Chinese, helmed by the chef who once earned the only Michelin star for a Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas. The tableside Beijing duck, all paper-thin wrappers and julienned scallions, sets the tone: this is banquet-grade precision in a room that doesn't announce itself.

A private compound of log cabins and a main lodge sitting on 1,500 forested acres near the Allegheny National Forest, Glendorn is the kind of place that makes a weekend feel like a month. It holds a Forbes Four Star rating. Fishing, hiking, and shooting round out the days; the evenings quietly do the rest. The whole estate has the feel of a very wealthy family's old retreat, because that is exactly what it was.

A former cattle ranch turned low-rise resort, with TPC Las Colinas fairways visible from most balconies, sits just minutes from DFW and somehow feels nothing like an airport hotel. The Ritz-Carlton Las Colinas spreads across 400 acres, trading the urban tower format for genuine breathing room between buildings. Three pools, a large spa, tennis and pickleball courts, and five dining options give guests enough to do that leaving feels optional.

A glass-enclosed pasta room visible from the dining floor sets the tone at this Italian wine bar in Wedgewood-Houston, where the look is sleek and industrial and the menu stays concise enough to actually read. House-made pastas anchor the middle of the card, soft serve sundaes close it out, and the kitchen treats both with equal seriousness. The New York Times put it on their Nashville list, and the Michelin Guide has selected it too.

This is a casual taco and breakfast spot in a South Durango strip-mall unit where the kitchen nixtamalizes its own heirloom corn, so the tortillas arrive with a pedigree most tortillas would find embarrassing. Chilaquiles, squash-filled tetelas, and fish tacos fill the minimalist room, along with aguas frescas and a horchata matcha. The chef was a 2025 James Beard Best Chef: Southwest semifinalist, and the Strip tourists are mostly elsewhere.

Pork sisig made with pig's head, sizzling on a cast-iron at brunch, gives you a sense of how seriously Ed Kenney takes not taking things too seriously. This Kaimuki wine bar and restaurant runs on a modern Hawaiian sensibility, where lūʻau leaves show up in the fresh fish and mapo gravy lands on a biscuit. Kenney was a James Beard semifinalist, and the room fills with locals who already know the menu but still take a minute to choose.

The line forms before the doors open at this Texas-style BBQ shop, and a strip of tape slapped over a sold-out item on the menu board is a genuine source of anxiety by the time you reach the counter. The team came up out of competitive barbecue, and the Hill Country influences show in the smoke. A James Beard semifinalist in 2026, the place draws a crowd happy to stand outside in the Phoenix heat for brisket and jalapeño cheddar grits.

The order at this old-school Italian beef counter is "beef, hot, dipped," and you say it fast because there's a line and nobody here has time for your uncertainty. Johnnie's has been slinging thin-shaved, garlicked beef soaked in its own jus, piled into a roll with spicy giardiniera, since before most of its regulars were born. You eat over the hood of your car in the parking lot, which is not a quirk but the entire point.

The wood-fired oven does the talking here, blistering crusts until they're charred and chewy in all the right spots. Bar Del Corso is a pizza shop on Beacon Avenue that keeps quietly outrunning that label, with fried risotto balls, grilled octopus, and aperitivo-forward cocktails filling out a short menu. The back patio is easy to miss, the waits are not. The New York Times has put it on their Seattle list, and the James Beard Foundation named it a hospitality semifinalist.

The bar is packed before most tables are seated, which tells you something about how this place operates. Cucina Morini is a Sicilian-leaning Italian restaurant where the menu sprawls in the best way, pastas are made in house and offered in half portions so ordering more feels principled rather than excessive. The chef's James Beard semifinalist nod tracks; the food is careful without announcing itself.

Piero's is an old-school Italian dining room just off the Strip, with oversized leather booths, candlelight, and the lingering suggestion that someone at the next table is discussing something other than linguine. The bar is moody enough that the FBI reportedly once staked it out, which tells you how long the martinis have been this good. Expect a jacket-and-dinner-plans crowd, and a Garbage Caesar that sounds like an insult and isn't.

This West Loop steakhouse cooks Argentinian-style asado over an open hearth in a dining room built so you can watch your dinner get the full campfire treatment. It's a dressed-up night out with a check to match, and the menu has fun with itself: the bone marrow doubles as a shot glass for mezcal, and the "Party Steak" arrives with a trio of sauces, presumably so no one has to share a favorite.

Upstairs on Main Street, this downtown Italian restaurant fills up fast enough that the full-service bar exists partly as a pressure valve for the reservationless. The menu runs a clean Italian line from handmade pasta through to secondi, with the wine list holding its own alongside both. A James Beard semifinalist nod for beverage service in 2026 says something about where the priorities land.

A few steps below street level on MacArthur Boulevard, this intimate counter seats you facing the sunken kitchen where the team runs an eight-course Wagyu omakase. The style is Kappo, meaning the chef works in full view and the pacing feels personal rather than performative. Wagyu anchors almost every course, with seafood woven through, and the meal closes with Wagyu miso soup and rice that lands like the best part of coming home.

Art deco bones and a sparkling wine list longer than most bars have wines: Marietta Proper is a wine bar on the historic square that also does cocktails, whiskeys, coffee, and a short food menu of sandwiches and pastries. The team behind it includes a sommelier, which shows. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar in 2025, it draws the kind of crowd that knows the difference between pét-nat and Champagne and orders both.

Rum on tap and ropa vieja on the menu: Otto's High Dive is a neighborhood rum bar in a whitewashed brick room that feels like Old Florida never really left. The kitchen runs a short Cuban-Floridian menu with tropical leanings, and the daiquiris come by the pitcher if you've committed to the evening. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this unfussy and this easy to love.

Syrian home cooking, not the takeout shorthand version, is the whole point at this elegant sit-down restaurant tucked into a condo complex on Key Highway. The chef grew up in Syria and cooks accordingly, which means dishes built on layers of sweet, sour, warm spice, and brightness that most menus flatten into one note. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List in 2024, and the room earns the attention.

Blowfish sculptures and boats hanging from the ceiling set the tone before you've ordered a thing. Adrift is a full-commitment tiki bar on South Broadway, with bamboo walls, fishing-net lights, and totem carvings doing their best to convince you Denver isn't landlocked. Cocktails arrive in coconuts, flaming punchbowls, or funky mugs, running from Zombies and Singapore Slings to seasonal originals leaning on cachaca, sherry, and cacao. Spam musubi keeps things honest.

You get in by pressing a paw-shaped doorbell, which sets the tone. Doberman Drawing Room is a cocktail lounge and social club in the Arts District, dressed in antiques, taxidermy, and surreal art, with a central bar dividing the room into separate moody dens. Non-members are welcome; members get the private loft with a juliet balcony. No phones, no photos, charcuterie served inside a hollowed book, and cocktails that are genuinely the point.

Lou's is a cheap, cozy Las Vegas diner done in full small-town cosplay, right down to the porcelain chickens and sheet metal signs reminding you that coffee helps. Your table gets a free sampler of housemade jams on butter crackers before you've ordered anything. The Belgian waffle shows up under hot strawberry sauce and a mountain of whipped cream. Weekday breakfast is calm, while weekends belong to the regulars.

A wine bar in RiNo that keeps fried chicken and tinned fish on the menu alongside Khikhvi, Nerello Mascalese, and a Mencía from Oregon that has no business being that good. The list leans hard into natural, biodynamic, and small-production bottles, and the staff can talk you through all of it without making you feel like a student. Grape nerds and people who just want a glass with snacks coexist peacefully here.

Milton's is an Italian-American restaurant up a flight of stairs from Local Foods in Rice Village, which means you earn your lasagna a little. That lasagna is built from 100 layers, then sliced and seared so the edges crisp, a lot of engineering for something your grandmother did with a casserole dish. The tiramisu arrives tall enough to need a plan, and the chef is a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Texas.

Two wood-burning ovens run the show at this Glassell Park Southern restaurant, and nearly everything on the menu passes through them at some point. Oysters, cornbread, pork chops, braised greens that bubble by the coals all night. Long communal tables and wax candles fill the main room; counter seats face the kitchen. A quieter wine bar in the back serves a shorter menu for anyone who wants the vibe at half the volume.

Wood-paneled walls and brass fixtures in Las Vegas's Chinatown, well off the Strip's theatrical gravitational pull. Partage is a modern French tasting restaurant where the chef's intentions are on the plate and the room quietly asks you to pay attention. The menu has loosened from pure tasting format to include à la carte, which locals have taken as an invitation to become regulars. A 2026 James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef Southwest.