The Best Places in the United States

Tucked inside the Cherry Lane Theatre, this intimate cocktail bar and bistro from the Frenchette team runs a roving menu that moves from raw bar to steak tartare to fried frog legs with garlic butter, and somehow also a cheeseburger that regulars order without apology. Amber globe lights, curved bar, green banquettes: the room is doing its job quietly. Frozen custard or another round of cocktails closes things out. Reservations are scarce, so plan accordingly.

The roaster works in plain sight at the back of this Brazilian crop-to-cup coffee shop, which pulls beans from the Peters family farm in Minas Gerais. No flavored syrups, no blenders, just coffee, milk, and water in various combinations, which sounds austere until you taste it. Pastries come from a local bakery and empanadas round out the food side. A second location sits inside Epicenter at Agritopia.

Plants climb the walls beside murals of a fish and a rooster at this Venezuelan restaurant in Station North, where Latin music keeps the room from taking itself too seriously. The chef plates things like Caribbean scallops and stuffed arepas with a careful hand, and much of the menu skews gluten-free with strong vegan options. A James Beard semifinalist spot that Baltimore Magazine has landed on its best restaurants list.

The central bar is the anchor here, and the cocktails come first by design. Kingfisher is a Vietnamese restaurant and cocktail bar in Golden Hill where the kitchen treats the cuisine with serious technique, pulling flavors from canh chua and congee into something more considered than traditional. The Michelin Guide has it listed, and the Los Angeles Times placed it on their California 101. A dressed-up neighborhood crowd that clearly knows the menu by heart.

A U-shaped bar anchors this Danish coffee shop, where streamlined taps for cold drinks share space with a proper V60 setup and a counter lined with pastries worth stopping for. La Cabra built a following in Copenhagen before planting roots on the Lower East Side, and the East Village original still draws a crowd that treats croissants and a carefully pulled espresso as a reasonable reason to leave the house.

Deborah VanTrece's modern Southern restaurant in a Westside industrial strip is the kind of place where the bar program is as serious as the kitchen, a James Beard semifinalist on both counts. The menu takes the food your grandmother made and runs it somewhere she probably didn't, with collard dip alongside pimento cheese fondue and fried chicken arriving with a collard green roll. The New York Times put it on their Atlanta list, and the room earns the attention.

The grilled pizza here goes directly onto the flame, which does something to the crust that an oven simply cannot: a char-edged, smoke-threaded base that's thin enough to feel light but sturdy enough to carry its toppings. This is a full-menu Italian restaurant, not a slice shop, so come ready for pasta and roasted vegetables too. The room is bright, the pace is brisk, and the drinks list is short but chosen with care.

A repurposed garage on the east side doing dinner-only, with Indiana pork tenderloin and pan-fried walleye anchoring a menu that takes Midwest agriculture seriously without taking itself too seriously. The sommelier's global wine list is the kind of thing you don't expect to find alongside fried local smelt. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025, which tracks for a room that manages to feel both neighborhood and occasion at once.

Coffee drinks topped with salted egg yolk set the tone at this all-day French-Vietnamese cafe in Fountain Valley, where the kitchen leans into the Vietnamese morning routine and the iced coffee is strong enough to renegotiate your afternoon plans. The menu runs to things like curry crab omelet, and the room fills fast with people who clearly know something you don't. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: California.

El Molino del Sureste is a Yucatecan restaurant where deep jade walls and patterned benches make you briefly forget you're a few minutes from Lindenwood Park. The namesake molino sits front and center, grinding nixtamalized corn into the tortillas that show up with nearly everything. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Midwest, which tracks for a place that treats a turkey-and-sausage relleno as a weeknight option.

A twenty-seat BYOB in Grays Ferry where the menu runs fewer than a dozen small plates, almost all of them seafood-leaning and swapped out with the seasons. The kitchen pairs familiar things in ways that quietly surprise you, carrots with crab, mussels over miso and chili oil. Bring something good to drink, because the food asks for it, and book ahead, because twenty seats go fast.

The burnt banana coconut tapioca pudding is a little ugly and completely beside the point, which is almost the whole story of this Vietnamese restaurant on Washington Ave. The menu runs bright and chili-forward, with shrimp cakes wrapped in butter lettuce and twice-cooked eggplant that quietly steals the table. A James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Northeast and a New York Times Restaurant List pick, it draws the kind of crowd that orders everything.

The entrance is around the corner from the address, at Florida and Mariposa, which feels like a metaphor for the restaurant itself. Ernest is a New American spot in the Mission where the chef pairs kaluga caviar with tater tots and means it. The menu is small and seasonal, with raw bar, snacks, and a few mains. Walk-ins can post up at the bar, which has a cocktail program worth the detour on its own.

A snug Georgetown lunch counter where the glass case does most of the talking: lentils with smoky eggplant, leek-and-walnut tarts, spinach-feta börek, and a dairy-free zucchini soup that has no business being that good. Order a sandwich on the crackly focaccia to eat on the spot, then quietly stock your fridge from the rest. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2025, which explains why a takeout counter feels like such a considered place.

By day, Beast & Cleaver is a Ballard butcher shop where you can walk out with chops and links for the home stove. After hours it turns into a whole-animal steakhouse under the alter ego "The Peasant," running a tasting menu, which is the sort of double life usually reserved for superheroes. Steaks, house sausages, and even the salads draw a meat-minded crowd, and the chef was a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist.

The Peking duck arrives whole or halved, which is the kind of choice that quietly tells you what sort of restaurant NiHao is. A contemporary Chinese spot in Canton, it draws from Sichuan traditions and dim sum alongside more ambitious plates, with a menu wide enough that vegetarians and serious heat-seekers end up equally occupied. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, it landed national attention fast and has held the room ever since.

The fry bread here comes out puffy and golden, stuffed with ground beef and beans or finished with chocolate, and it gives the whole menu its name. This family-run Tohono O'odham restaurant has been an anchor in Phoenix's Melrose District long before the neighborhood got interesting, serving tacos, stews, and tostadas alongside it. The kind of spot where out-of-towners finally understand what Arizona actually tastes like.

The bread basket alone sets the tone: sheet-pan biscuits and jalapeño johnnycakes before you've even decided anything. This is a sleek Modern Southern restaurant in Summerhill, where the menu keeps one foot in tradition and one somewhere unexpected, think berber-spiced fried chicken or a dish cheekily called lamburger helper. A James Beard semifinalist and a New York Times pick, Southern National reads as a neighborhood spot that just happens to be cooking at a different level.

Wild Fig is a no-frills BBQ takeout counter in Summerlin that started life as a commissary kitchen, and it still has the energy of one. The smoked pastrami goes toe to toe with the East Coast versions, and the pickles are homemade. Most of it sells out by mid-afternoon, so ordering ahead is the move. A few picnic tables face the parking lot, which the people eating there have decided not to mind.

The skylight over the dining room does most of the heavy lifting at this Latin American restaurant and rum bar on Sansom Street, flooding plates of vaca frita with the kind of light that makes you briefly question which city you're in. The daiquiris are serious, the ceviche keeps pace, and the piña coladas have a small but devoted following. A James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist runs the kitchen.

A boutique hotel installed in a pair of mid-century buildings on Camelback Road, RISE Uptown runs the room spectrum from deliberately snug to balcony-with-firepit. The courtyard pool is the real draw: Lylo Swim Club handles cocktails, Cartel Coffee Lab handles mornings, and a popsicle stand handles the argument that boutique hotels have run out of ideas. Rooms are colorful and comfortable without trying too hard.

Royal blue booths, an open kitchen you can pull a counter seat at, and a baked Alaska that arrives on fire make the room feel like it has something to prove, in a good way. Bludorn is a New American restaurant and bar where the menu swings wide, from oysters (some Texan) to cioppino to seafood towers. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, and the hospitality is the kind that makes you notice it without being able to say why.

A Malaysian Indian tasting menu restaurant tucked into the Tenderloin, Azalina's trades the neighborhood's gray palette for the saturated colors and layered textures of a Penang night market. The chef grew up there, and the seasonal prix fixe traces Malaysian cooking's Chinese, Indian, Malay, and European overlaps through a California lens. A James Beard semifinalist and listed in the New York Times and Condé Nast Traveler, it earns the attention without announcing itself.

This tiny Chinatown dumpling house on Spring Mountain Road has a glass window where you can watch the staff fold your future soup dumplings while you wait, which is either entertainment or torture depending on your blood sugar. There are no reservations, and you may be asked to order before you sit, so study the menu in line. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist, and the xiao long bao are the reason the line exists.

Half the rooms share a bathroom, and the Ace Hotel will tell you so without flinching. This Belltown hotel pitches itself squarely at travelers who'd rather have 14-foot ceilings and whitewashed brick walls than a private shower. The lobby reads like an art gallery that wandered into the hospitality business, all dark walnut floors and retro-futuristic white walls. Expect a crowd that owns interesting jackets and has opinions about fonts.

Thirteen rooms, each one a little different, wrapped in original fireplaces, forest greens, and Victorian wrought iron that feel genuinely of this neighborhood rather than borrowed from it. A small hotel in the Lower Garden District, the Blackbird leans into Southern Gothic without costuming itself. The pool bar runs craft cocktails and occasional live jazz, and the café handles food better than a room count of 13 has any business doing.

The rooftop lounge and the sandy palette both nod to Camelback Mountain, which gives this modern Hilton a more coherent design identity than most hotels in the Phoenix sprawl. Rooms are contemporary and quietly comfortable, with Cobre Kitchen + Cocktails and the open-air Outrider Rooftop Lounge on site. The real advantage is the address: Old Town Scottsdale is one of the few genuinely walkable neighborhoods in a metro that treats sidewalks as a theoretical concept.

Czech glass chandeliers and gold-leaf ceilings in a city that built its reputation on reclaimed wood and oat milk. Hotel deLuxe is an old-school, unapologetically ornate hotel in Portland's West End, where art deco mirrors and twinkling lobbies feel like a deliberate provocation. Pack something other than fleece. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A 52-story tower shaped like a ship's prow where the Miami River meets Biscayne Bay, this hotel takes the nautical metaphor further than most: it's the only Miami property with dockside access, handling vessels up to 900 feet with overnight mooring and onboard catering. Floor-to-ceiling bay views show up in most guest rooms, so you're never allowed to forget the water. The Michelin Guide has it on their selected hotels list.

A Perkins + Will renovation turned a landmark Deep Ellum building into this Kimpton boutique hotel, and the bones of the original structure still show. Kimpton does a reliable version of stylish-but-approachable, which fits the neighborhood's mix of music venues and murals better than anything glass-and-tower would. A solid base for exploring a part of Dallas that most conventioneers never find.

Rooms named Ben and Betsy, after the neighbors who made this street famous, set the tone at this low-touch, apartment-style hotel in Old City. No front desk fuss, just an iPad stocked with neighborhood intel and urban-loft interiors with contemporary furniture. It's the kind of place that assumes you'd rather feel like a resident than a guest, which, on one of Philadelphia's most historically loaded blocks, is not a bad assumption.

Apartments with a washer/dryer and live plants in every unit, inside the landmarked Book Tower. ROOST is an extended-stay boutique hotel where the studios and one- or two-bedroom suites run closer to a furnished apartment than a standard room, with full kitchens and a bikes-to-borrow program. Dogs are welcome, and when cooking feels like too much, the building's own restaurant options are right downstairs.

A Fernando Botero bronze in the lobby sets the tone for this luxury hotel in Brickell, where the common areas read more like a gallery than a corridor. Suites come with marble kitchen bars, soaking tubs, rainfall showers, and private balconies over the Miami skyline. The ninth-floor terrace has a rooftop pool for daytime lounging. Guests also get beach and pool access at the Delano in South Beach, which softens the blow of not being on the water yourself.

The walnut-heavy Beaux Arts lobby sets the tone at this downtown Dallas hotel, where the fixtures are bold and the lighting is the kind that makes everyone look like they have a secret. Rooms run toward warm and plush, and the suites are reportedly among the largest in the city. The heated rooftop pool stays open until midnight, cocktails included, which is a civilized policy for which the Adolphus deserves more credit than it gets.

A 121-room boutique hotel on First Avenue that will, without making a fuss about it, lay out a doggie bed for your St. Bernard. Art-forward rooms and a genuinely warm staff make it the rare place that manages to feel upscale without feeling exclusive, drawing business travelers, families, and the occasional touring musician in equal measure. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Two restored Federal-style row houses on a quiet Georgetown block hold just fifteen rooms, which means the staff knows your name by checkout. This luxury boutique hotel sits in Washington's oldest neighborhood, a short walk from the university and well clear of the monumental everything downtown. The interiors run spare and bright against the historic facades. Breakfast and an evening spread of craft beer and local wine are included, and Georgetown handles the rest.

Some of the loft-style rooms here come with spiral staircases separating the sleeping area from a small upper sitting space, which is either charming or mildly inconvenient after a late night on Frenchmen Street. This boutique hotel on the edge of the Lower Garden District went through a full overhaul, with herringbone floors, marble bathrooms, and a saltwater pool with a swim-up bar doing most of the convincing. Magazine Street is a short walk away.

Two early-1900s buildings on Washington Street house this 242-room hotel, the interiors dressed in mid-century neutrals with orange accents, which is a more interesting answer to Boston's past than a tricorn hat. The Godfrey sits in a city where the hotels tend toward the historic and the hushed, and it leans into that without being stuffy about it. Staff who take your comfort seriously, in the old-school sense of the phrase.

The building has been housing itinerant strangers since the 1800s, first as a sailors' hostel, now as a low-budget boutique hotel in Chinatown. Rooms range from hostel-style bunks to private en-suites, so the price you pay shapes the experience considerably. The café and bar runs all-day breakfast and light fare, and a rooftop deck is rarer here than you'd think. Close to the river and just north of downtown, it makes a practical base for the rest of Portland.

Five restored buildings, three rowhouses and two carriage houses, connected by a palmetto-shaded courtyard in the Ansonborough district. Zero George is an eighteen-room boutique hotel whose address, technically zero, sounds like a clerical error until you're standing in it. The oak trees on the block are as old and composed as the architecture, which gives the whole place a quietly theatrical sense of having arrived somewhere specific.

Raku is a Japanese izakaya in a Spring Mountain Road strip mall, where binchotan charcoal and condiments come straight from Japan and the robata grill does the heavy lifting. It stays open until 1am, so the late tables fill with chefs and hospitality workers who have just finished feeding everyone else. The omakase needs a call a few days ahead, and the sake list is long enough to count as a second menu.

Vintage Vegas glamour gets a quiet update at this steakhouse inside the Circa Resort, where the chef behind Scotch 80 Prime brings a recognizable hand to the Downtown corridor. The menu runs classic prime cuts but keeps slipping in detours: lobster and shrimp potstickers, short rib with harissa, tater tots finished with poutine gravy. The crowd skews loyal, the kind who followed the chef here from his last room and haven't opened the menu in months.

Kurdish restaurant on Nolensville Pike, in the Nashville neighborhood that holds the country's largest Kurdish population, so the room knows what it's doing. Lavash comes out of the oven puffed with hot air, sesame seeds still warm, and the lamb stew arrives in its clay pot. The New York Times put it on their 2024 Restaurant List. Come with people, order more than you think you need, and plan on finishing it anyway.

Through a glass partition, you can watch the dumpling-rolling operation in full swing before you've even ordered, which makes restraint basically impossible. This bright Outer Sunset shop does stuffed dumplings, cold small plates, and a beef noodle soup so deeply flavored it reads as a direct rebuttal to the neighborhood fog. The New York Times put it on their San Francisco list, and the pig-ear salad alone will make you rethink your dumpling-only strategy.

The dough here sits somewhere between New York and New Haven, fermented with a sourdough-and-commercial-yeast blend that produces a crust that shatters at the edge and stays open and airy inside. This is a pizza shop in the Lower Haight, and it's one of the tougher reservations in the city right now. On Tuesdays the kitchen roasts a half chicken that the New York Times found worth mentioning in the same breath as Zuni Café.

Sichuan Garden fed Brookline Village for two decades before the family's son, a bartender with a James Beard-nominated bar pedigree, took over the front of house and made it a cocktail bar. The drinks lean tropical, lots of rum and agave, threaded through with Sichuan flavors that have no business working this well together. The Spirited Awards named the bar team a Regional Top 10 Honoree, which tracks.

Farmers and foragers sometimes drop by mid-service with morels or a jar of honey, which tells you something about how Crafted operates. This farm-to-table New American restaurant sits in Yakima wine country and takes the surrounding agriculture seriously, building a menu where the kitchen collaborates and seasons actually steer the ship. A 2024 James Beard Semifinalist, it runs a tasting menu without the stiff-backed dining room that usually comes with one.

Picnic tables covered in floral oilcloth and a menu that has almost no peer in San Francisco: Prubechu is the city's go-to for Chamorro cooking, the Indigenous cuisine of Guam. The staff will walk you through it happily, from coconut-braised beef noodles to thrice-cooked brisket skewers. Fire up the space heaters on a cool evening and the outdoor patio starts to feel, almost, like somewhere warmer.

Kase x Noko is an omakase sushi counter where getting a seat means setting an alarm for five to midnight, six weeks ahead, and then refreshing like it's a concert drop. There are three sessions a night at the bar, and they vanish almost instantly. It's a tasting-menu splurge, so dress like you earned it, and expect the chef to run the evening with jokes between courses. Nashville Scene named it Best New Restaurant in 2025.

Kouign-amann and cruffins sharing a case with proper baguettes and macarons sets the tone fast at this French patisserie. The laminated dough is serious, the espresso keeps things moving, and the whole operation closes by two, so the morning crowd treats it with the urgency the pastries deserve. A James Beard Outstanding Bakery semifinalist, JL Patisserie is what happens when French technique finds a permanent home in the desert.

Named for the men who drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail, Hotel Drover sits inside Fort Worth's historic Stockyards district, where the Western aesthetic is less costume party, more lived-in. The rooms lean rustic without tipping into bolo-tie excess, the backyard has a pool and hot tub, and the upscale 97 West restaurant is on-site when the mood calls for it. Michelin awarded it one Key.

A 1964 concrete hulk at Wilshire and Normandie, the LINE is a hotel that leans into its brutalist bones rather than apologizing for them. The Sydell Group renovation turned 384 art-filled rooms into a Koreatown landmark, and the Hollywood Hills-facing rooms frame the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign like a painting someone left on your wall. Design-forward guests who find warm neutrals suspicious tend to feel at home here.

A jewelry box packed in ice, opened tableside to reveal a small trove of nigiri and prepared bites, is the kind of move that sets the tone here. Kame is an intimate omakase counter where fish flies in from Japan several times a week and caviar appears less as a flourish than a habit. The chefs talk, the room stays loose, and the whole thing lands closer to a dinner party than a ceremony. A Michelin selected restaurant.

Dungeness crab in a bib is the great equalizer, and Thanh Long has been proving that since before most of its regulars were born. This Outer Sunset Vietnamese restaurant built its reputation on roast crab drowned in butter and garlic, served with noodles that are non-negotiably part of the order. The garlic situation borders on theatrical, which is exactly the point. An old-school institution that still packs the room on any given night.

Good Pie is an Arts District pizza shop that can't commit to one style, so it does New York slices, thick Detroit rectangles, and a thinner Long Island grandma pie. You can eat at the sidewalk window like it's a Tuesday, or take the nicer dining room and order a pitcher of sangria like it isn't. Lunch is easy here, gluten-free pies are on the menu, and nobody will make you pick a lane.

Two stone lions guard the front door of this North Charleston BBQ shop, which should tell you something about how the team does things. Meat by the pound is the move, built around shared combos that draw on both North Carolina Piedmont tradition and Chinese family-style dining. The hot pot collards keep people talking. Popular cuts like duck legs and ribs sell out, so arriving early is less a suggestion than a strategy.

A coffee shop in the East End where the menu reads like a choose-your-own-adventure: classic pour overs and cold brews on one side, house lattes spiked with cinnamon and raw honey on the other, and a CBD infusion option for anyone who knows what they want from life. Empanadas and breakfast tacos fill out the food side, with barbacoa on weekends for the committed. Loteria nights and paint-and-sip events keep regulars coming back between caffeine runs.

A three-story former church building with soaring ceilings and a rooftop deck overlooking the Houston skyline is a pretty good argument for a second latte. This bustling coffee shop leans into its bones, mixing plush sofas and good acoustics with a menu of espresso drinks, chai, and matcha. The Big Tex, clocking in at four ounces of espresso, is there for the committed.

Leopard print, bamboo pagodas, faux foliage, and video poker embedded in the bar top: this Chinatown tiki bar on Spring Mountain Road commits to the bit completely. The strip-mall address keeps the tourist bustle down, so the stools fill with off-shift locals who treat it like their living room. The drinks are tropical and potent, the kitsch is sincere rather than ironic, and the whole place feels like Vegas decided to throw a luau and never stopped.

Gold hands serve as beer taps, jewel-toned decanters fill a Queen Anne cabinet, and the wallpaper is not quite what it seems. Velveteen Rabbit is a cocktail bar in the Arts District that takes the storybook theme seriously without going precious about it: seasonal menus, vintage glassware, and drinks rooted in Golden Age mixology. The patio and light-projected walls are draws on their own. Weekends fill up, so book ahead.

Tapioca dumplings arrive wrapped in banana leaves you peel back like a present, and a catfish hot pot comes in a tureen with tomatoes and okra bobbing in tangy broth, and somehow the room stays minimal enough that the food fills every inch of it. This Vietnamese restaurant on East Passyunk has a James Beard semifinalist nod and a spot on the New York Times restaurant list, which tracks once the bánh bèo chén lands on the table.

A dim, low-slung corner restaurant in East Kensington where the pierogies are non-negotiable and the rotisserie pork lands on stewed kapusta like it's been doing this forever. The sourdough comes with dill butter and smalec, the seasonal water ice is a very Philly curveball, and the whole place reads like Polish comfort food filtered through a neighborhood that just figured out it had good bones. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List.

The chef running this low-key Rainier Avenue to-go spot cut his teeth in the butcher shop that used to occupy the same building, and the meat knowledge shows. Brisket, burnt ends, and pull-apart pork ribs come with a choice of tomato-based house sauce or a Jamaican jerk concoction that starts complex and finishes hot. The New York Times named it among Seattle's 25 best restaurants. Save room for the rum cake.

The name means "midnight snack," which is about right for a casual restaurant where khao soi radiatori and green curry lamb with pakoras share a menu without apology. The team calls it first-generation American food, drawing on growing up Taiwanese American and cooking across the country. Monthly Wednesday burger specials and weekend brunch with Taiwanese rice porridge keep regulars checking the calendar. End with a gelato flight and no regrets.

The exterior mural of mariachi musicians on Oracle Road is hard to miss, and inside the checkered floors and chalkboard specials keep the vibe going. This is a Coahuila-style taqueria where the quesabirria tacos, slow-braised beef and melted cheese in crispy corn tortillas with consommé for dipping, are the reason the place fills up fast. The menu runs deeper than tacos, with mesquite-grilled ribs and carne asada burritos holding their own.

The open hearth at the center of this Middle Eastern restaurant burns hot enough that you can feel it from across the room, which is by design. Everything here runs through that fire, from the flatbreads to the meats, and the kitchen's control of it is something to watch. Spreads, vegetables, and grilled proteins arrive in a relaxed progression, and the Middle Eastern wine and spirits list is a serious one. On The Washington Post's 40 best D.C. restaurants.