The Best Places in the United States

The small orange building on Blake Street looks like it could be anyone's house, which is sort of the point. Hannibal's is an old-school soul food restaurant where the menu leans hard into Lowcountry seafood, with crab and shrimp rice that locals and working chefs both talk about. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and the room makes clear why: nobody here opened a menu for the first time today.

The chef's counter at this vegan tasting menu spot on Belmont seats you close enough to watch the kitchen improvise, and some dishes on any given night will never appear again. Aaron Adams moves between produce-forward simplicity and molecular technique without making either feel like a statement. The sourcing runs local and specific, down to tofu from an old-school Portland maker. The New York Times put it on their Portland shortlist.

The menu arrives handwritten each day with exactly two appetizers, two mains, and two desserts, and you won't know what they are until you sit down. This romantic neighborhood restaurant is tucked into a house off a gravel path in a way that makes even locals double-check the address. The feel is a dinner party at a well-traveled friend's place, the food seasonally European and quietly confident. Booking ahead is wise; guessing the menu is the game.

Naturally leavened pizzas anchor the menu at this East Nashville neighborhood restaurant, though the kitchen moves seasonally enough that what lands on top is anyone's guess. Philip Krajeck also runs the more formal Rolf & Daughters, but Folk is the warmer, wood-paneled sibling where the cooking feels unfussy without being unambitious. The Michelin Guide has it selected, which tracks for a room that fills up with locals who clearly never needed a reason to return.

Lacquer walls and deep-red booths give Jackrabbit Filly the feel of a Chinese-American restaurant your parents loved, except the chef behind the counter was a Top Chef finalist. The menu runs New American Chinese and shareable, from dumplings to cornmeal-crusted trout, with frozen drinks for anyone who needs something festive alongside the spice. North Charleston, which has quietly become the more interesting half of the metro.

A mural of a steer over the parking lot reads "All Hail the King," which tells you everything about the mood inside this Texas-style BBQ shop in Charleston. John Lewis made his name at LA Barbecue in Austin, and the brisket he slices to order at the counter explains why. Picnic tables on a gravel patio, firewood stacked ceiling-high, and a permanent haze of smoke round out the scene. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand.

The open live-fire grill runs the length of the kitchen and puts on a show whether you book a counter seat or not. This Argentine-inflected steakhouse has been an institution on MLK forever, with Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton behind the flames. The asado is built for at least two people and their ambitions. The chowder, meanwhile, arrives with a smoked marrow bone floating in it, which tells you everything about the kitchen's sense of humor.

A converted 1920s bank building on King Street, with soaring ceilings, white tile, and black wood that lands somewhere between Parisian brasserie and Charleston old money. The menu calls itself "fancy seafood," which is honest: this is a full-on seafood brasserie where the oysters are slurped cold and the crab toast is the kind of thing that makes ordering seem easy. The kitchen handles beautiful product with a light hand and doesn't overcomplicate it.

A coal-fired Neapolitan pizza shop a short walk from Coors Field, Marco's holds the only certification from the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana in Colorado, which is basically a notarized letter from Naples saying the pies are correct. The crust is blistered and chewy in the right proportions. Substitutions on the Neapolitan pies are not allowed, which will sort the room into people who appreciate that and people who ask anyway.

You pick your fish from the case, tell them how you want it, and then somehow end up eating one of the better seafood meals in the city. The New York Times ranked this Egyptian seafood market at number seventeen in New York, which raises real questions about what the fancier places on that list are doing with their tablecloths. The room is Astoria's Little Egypt, not a dining room, and nobody seems to mind.

A postcard mural splashes the back wall of this fast-casual Filipino spot in the International District, setting the tone for a menu that's equally unsubtle about what it loves. Bulalo, the clear beef shank soup, is the centerpiece, and Melissa Miranda's kitchen pulls it off with enough technique to make a simple bowl feel considered. The pancit, the lumpia, the sinigang wings, all travel well in the same direction. The New York Times has named it among Seattle's 25 best.

Seventy-eight beachfront acres of white stucco and red-tiled roofs designed to echo a Spanish village, sitting between the Pacific and the Santa Ynez wine country. This Ritz-Carlton resort has 358 rooms, five restaurants, and one of the larger spas on the Central Coast, so leaving the property is entirely optional. The Santa Barbara coast tends to attract a crowd that has already decided leisure is a serious pursuit, and the hotel leans into that.

Johnny's Gold Brick is a tiny rectangular cocktail bar in the Heights, and it makes the most of the floor plan. A dozen classics run under $10, and the seasonal drinks top out around $15, some of them set on fire while you watch. There's a mushroom-infused rum drink for the savory crowd, and the music stays low enough that nobody has to shout, which is a bigger selling point than it sounds.

The picadillo mac and cheese earned a shoutout from the New York Times, which tells you something about what this South Side BBQ counter is doing. Everything is cut and weighed market style, so you load your tray with brisket, turkey, and sides that lean hard into Mexican tradition: pickled nopales, street corn, chicharrón mac. A line forms early and moves slowly for good reason. Texas Monthly put it on their statewide list, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.

A donkey illustration on an easy-to-miss door inside the Cosmopolitan's Block 16 Food Hall is all the signage this dimly lit agave bar bothers with. Red string lights, floral murals, and a serious list of tequilas and mezcals fill the rest of the room. The nachos come loaded with toppings that make you look twice at the menu. Time Out named it one of the best bars in Las Vegas, which feels about right for somewhere this committed to being hard to find.

A wood-fired grill anchors the dining room at this lively Mexican restaurant on the Trinity River, where the move is to start with a drink at the horseshoe bar and watch the kitchen work before settling in for a round of shareable plates and grilled meats. The tequila and mezcal list runs deep, and the crowd skews festive in the way places do when the patio has won awards and someone nearby is building tacos at the table.

Old Glory is a candlelit cocktail bar in a former industrial steam plant, where the old boiler still sits in the corner and a coal hopper hangs overhead like a very heavy chandelier. Weeknights are quiet and date-friendly, while weekends turn the floor into a dance party. The drinks are spirit-forward, and the monthly lineup of drag, circus acts, and jazz nights suggests the boiler has seen weirder things than you.

The dining room sits on the second floor of a Victorian house that has been many things over the years, and it still feels lived-in. Modern French cooking with a Pacific Northwest accent is the move here, seasonal and unshowy, the kind that makes you want to book the chef's counter and stay while the afternoon light changes. The New York Times named it among Portland's best. A glass from the thoughtful wine list and a couple of small plates, and it's easy to see why regulars never really leave.

A tiny Filipino coffee shop in Bowmanville where the menu leans on flavors you won't find at any other cafe in the city. Pandan, ube, and macadamia nuts show up where oat milk and brown sugar usually do. The room is small enough that regulars eventually stop ordering off the menu and let the baristas improvise. Its sibling spot, Drip Collective, handles the Fulton Market crowd if you need more elbow room.

Crystal chandeliers hang over dark-paneled walls covered in jazz-themed artwork, which is either perfect or a lot, depending on your mood. This Southern fusion dinner spot runs on house-infused spirits and live music, and the kitchen leans New Orleans by way of the Southwest: gumbo with Andouille and hush puppies, pasta soaked in lobster broth and crawfish. The kind of room that feels designed for a date night where everyone is trying slightly harder than usual.

Masa-based dishes anchor the menu at this Mexican restaurant on East Sixth, where chef Fermín Núñez runs an open kitchen in a space that feels rustic and a little buzzy. The cooking moves between tuna tiradito, wood-grilled vegetables, and tacos built on confit wagyu brisket. A James Beard semifinalist and a Michelin Guide selection, it draws a crowd that tends to linger well past the last tortilla.

A small Vietnamese soup counter in a Southeast Powell strip mall, open each morning until the pots run dry, which happens faster than you'd expect. Two or three soups rotate daily, with Saturday drawing people specifically for the cao lầu, a Hoi An regional noodle dish that rarely makes it this far from home. The Vietnamese iced coffee hits harder than you're ready for. Come early, bring cash, and don't stress the menu because there isn't much of one to stress about.

The smash burger with house-cured pork jowl and jeaw condiment is either a flex or a provocation, possibly both. Taurus Ox is a casual Laotian restaurant that moved out of its original counter spot into a proper dining room, and the menu came with it. Khao poon and a family sausage recipe built around lemongrass anchor the Lao side of things, while that burger quietly complicates any notion of what the restaurant is supposed to be. The New York Times named it among Seattle's 25 best.

The wood-fired oven sits dead center in the room, which tells you everything about priorities at this intimate pizzeria in the Warehouse Arts District. Naturally leavened crusts, house-stretched mozzarella, and locally sourced toppings keep the menu short and the focus narrow. The minimalist space, warm lighting, and low hum of a neighborhood crowd make it feel like someone's very well-appointed living room, if that living room produced excellent pizza.

A sandwich shop on Haight doing exactly one thing from New Orleans: the muffuletta, served in a wedge like a slice of savory pie, toasted or cold. The meat version layers prosciutto, mortadella, soppressata, and provolone under a spicy olive spread; mushrooms and scallions handle the vegetarian side. The pickled egg salad with potato chips stuffed inside is its own argument. Seating is tight, but Buena Vista Park is a short walk away, which seems intentional.

A nondescript Katy strip mall is doing a lot of work here. Inside, the dining room runs to sleek fixtures and lazy susan-fitted private rooms, and the menu reads like a focused edit of Hong Kong classics rather than the usual encyclopedia. Congee, wonton soup, and candied walnut shrimp anchor things, with weekend seafood specials worth asking about. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, and the Houston Chronicle ranked it among the city's top restaurants.

Attaboy is a speakeasy cocktail bar in East Nashville, tucked into a concrete-block building that looks like it services HVAC units. There's no menu. The bartenders ask what you like to drink and what kind of day you've had, then handle the rest, like a therapist who works in rye. It's the Nashville sibling of the New York original, and its bar team earned a regional honor from the Spirited Awards.

The blenders run constantly at this French Quarter-edge daiquiri bar, which lifts its whole aesthetic from Havana's legendary Floridita. The decor, the food, and the drinks list all commit to the bit: Cuban classics like El Presidentes and daiquiris in several frozen variations, served in a room small enough that you're on nodding terms with the bartender by round two. A Spirited Awards Regional Honoree for Best U.S. Cocktail Bar.

To get into this speakeasy cocktail bar inside the Horseshoe, you pick up a phone, answer a riddle, and crawl through an entrance. The bar itself looks like a haunted Victorian study, shelves packed with odd artifacts and enough atmosphere to make you forget you're technically in a casino basement. Cocktails run strong and strange, and there's a dedicated mixology classroom if you want to learn why your drink tastes like that.

The cheeseburger, griddled and stacked with onion aioli and double cheese on a toasted sesame bun, has its own reputation to manage. But The Loyalist is a proper basement brasserie doing quiche Lorraine, anchovy toasts, and trout grenobloise with a polish that quietly nods to the tasting-menu restaurant upstairs. It sits below Smyth, which holds three Michelin stars, and the kitchen shares the same sensibility at a fraction of the formality.

Freya is a tasting-menu restaurant where the courses change daily and a pierogi gets dressed like a Coney dog. It's fine dining, but the room is loose enough that you can flip through a binder of the owner's vinyl and request a song, which is not a sentence you hear at most places with a James Beard Semifinalist nod. The wine list leans toward small, sustainable producers, and the Dragonfly bar next door handles cocktails.

Other Mama is a Japanese neighborhood spot in a Durango Drive strip mall, where the fish comes in so fresh you'll forget you're in a desert. The daily catch and oysters live on a chalkboard, and the French toast caviar started as a special and never left. The room feels like a polished dive bar, with the chef's trinkets on display, so jeans and a low-stakes date night both fit.

The sour cream cake near the door has been pulling people off Balboa Street for longer than most San Francisco restaurants have existed. Cinderella is an old-school Russian bakery and cafe in the Richmond, the kind of place where the piroshki are stuffed with cabbage or beef, the borscht is non-negotiable, and the honey cake has its own following. Order something, find a seat, and stop worrying about whatever you were worrying about.

Handmade pasta rooted in Roman and Lazio tradition is the point here, and Evan Funke's Italian restaurant inside the Fontainebleau takes that seriously enough to make everything else on the Strip feel like a reheated punchline. The room is modern rustic, open enough to clock the occasional famous face drifting through, with quieter tables along the edges for anyone who'd rather not. Seasonal antipasti, handmade pasta, the full Roman heritage treatment.

The Spanish Revival bones have been here forever, and a top-to-bottom renovation brought them back to the kind of formal California glamour that makes you feel underdressed just checking in. This is a Fairmont hotel in downtown Long Beach, so expect crisp service and rooms that skew sophisticated over breezy. The rooftop bar looks out to Catalina on a clear day, and the Sky Room above it pushes all the way to the L.A. skyline.

Some rooms look directly into Truist Park, close enough to follow the count without a ticket. This AAA Four Diamond hotel sits inside The Battery Atlanta, the mixed-use development wrapped around the Braves' stadium, so the postgame crowd spills past your front door rather than into a parking lot. Rooms run to 55-inch TVs and refined furnishings, and the upper suites add rooftop patios with soaking tubs above the outfield.

Takeout-only lunch counter in a Kahului strip mall, where Top Chef alum Sheldon Simeon built a line that hasn't really stopped. The move is a bowl of garlic noodles under fried chicken or pork belly, with daily specials that lean into his Filipino roots. Grab a spicy fried chicken sandwich if the board shows it. The picnic benches at Kanaha Beach are the dining room, which, honestly, isn't a downgrade.

A casual lunch counter on Oretha Castle Haley that serves New Orleans Creole the way the neighborhood expects it: red beans, gumbo, Gulf seafood po' boys, priced so that going twice in a week doesn't require a conversation. The staff includes students learning the trade as part of a job-training mission, so the meal comes with a side of genuine purpose. The chef behind the kitchen spent years in upscale rooms before landing here, and the cooking shows it.

The potato pierogi has been on The Infatuation's list of dishes that define New York, which tells you something about Veselka's place in the city's food mythology. This East Village Ukrainian diner has been around forever, serving borscht and pierogi to the neighborhood at all hours, 24-hour service now restored. It draws tourists, yes, but also the people who grew up eating here and aren't stopping. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurant semifinalist, and cheap enough that you'll go back.

Tuna crudo in charred green tomato aguachile is not the Italian that built this city's red-gravy reputation, and that's the whole point. This trattoria in the Faubourg Marigny does vegetable-driven antipasti, fresh pasta, Neapolitan pizza, and roasted meat with a lightness that locals treat as a minor civic relief. The New York Times named it among the 25 best restaurants in New Orleans, which feels about right for the neighborhood canteen that quietly rewrote the local Italian conversation.

Etc. is a stylish Southern restaurant in the Loop, a neighborhood not known for fluorescent pillars or an R&B soundtrack that makes you forget you're a few blocks from a Willis Tower gift shop. Couples split smoked turkey rice and fried okra, friends pass lamb chops, and the oxtail comes under gravy, next to purple grits. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Great Lakes semifinalist, if you like your comfort food credentialed.

Burnt terracotta walls and 65 seats keep this Melrose Hill Italian restaurant feeling like someone's well-appointed dinner party. The team does twice-weekly farmers' market runs, so the menu follows the seasons rather than the other way around. The wine list moves through France, Italy, and California without showing off. A James Beard semifinalist nod for Best Chef California in 2025 tracks for a room where regulars rarely bother with the menu.

Colorful murals from local artists cover every wall at this plant-based Latin restaurant on East 6th, where the smell of spices hits you before the door closes. The menu is scratch-made and mostly vegan, pulling from Mexican and Latin traditions with jackfruit carnitas and al pastor tacos that don't apologize for the absence of meat. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2024, which tracks with how seriously the kitchen takes the food.

No website, no Instagram, just a strip mall address and a fan-run page to track the daily rotating soups. Hà VL is a Vietnamese noodle shop where the bowls do all the talking, and the fermented fish noodle soup alone explains why regulars treat the weekly schedule like a train timetable. A 2024 James Beard semifinalist, and the kind of place the New York Times flies someone to Portland specifically to write about.

A 1903 Georgian Revival building with long wraparound porches and rocking chairs, sitting inside the Presidio with a sliver of Golden Gate Bridge peeking over the trees. This intimate B&B offers full breakfast, evening wine and cheese, and beds that apparently inspire loyalty. It's quiet enough to forget the city exists, which is the whole point, and 24 miles of trails begin more or less at the door.

An actual ghost town turned luxury resort in remote southwestern Colorado, Dunton Hot Springs is a cluster of hand-hewn log cabins (and one teepee) sitting along the Dolores River between Telluride and Mesa Verde. The abandoned gold prospectors' camp was restored shack by shack, so roughing it now involves thermal baths, spa treatments, and fine organic dining. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Halibut Cove has no road in, so you arrive by floatplane or boat, which does set expectations. Stillpoint is an upscale wilderness lodge built from local Alaskan timber, its cabins rough-hewn on the outside and surprisingly plush within, with big beds, serious baths, and porch views that make the hot tub feel almost redundant. All meals are taken here, which suits a place where "popping out for dinner" is not an option. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

A rum library with over 150 bottles and a dedicated room that walks you through the sugarcane-to-bottle story before you order. This cocktail bar inside the Collins Avenue strip leans Prohibition-era in its feel, with leather couches, cozy booths, and a patio sized for golden hour. The rum flights lean into Florida producers. You don't need to arrive knowing your agricole from your molasses; the bar is built for learning on the job.

Three kinds of larb on the menu signals where Gai Noi's heart is. Ann Ahmed's fast-casual Thai-Lao restaurant in Minneapolis draws from the Lao city of Luang Prabang, so the menu runs toward khao poon gai, banana-leaf-steamed whitefish, and four versions of jeow, the spicy Lao dipping sauce. It's the looser, louder sibling to Ahmed's more formal Khâluna, the kind of place where you order generously and don't overthink it. The New York Times put it on their 2023 restaurant list.

Full kitchens, in-unit laundry, and Bulgari bath products make this extended-stay property in Beverly Hills feel less like roughing it and more like subletting someone's very tasteful second apartment. The 88 suites and townhouses run sleek and modern throughout, with room service arriving from the adjacent Spago when cooking feels like too much. A landscaped terrace with fire pits and views toward the Hollywood Hills keeps things social. A seven-night minimum applies.

The rooms run crisp and modernist, and the suites get bold color and genuinely strange contemporary art. This Andaz sits not on the water but in the Gaslamp Quarter, which puts the city's nightlife at the door rather than the horizon. It used to operate under a different name with a racier reputation, and something of that energy lingers in how the hotel carries itself. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

RiNo has been through its artist-loft-to-restaurant-row arc, and the Catbird arrived as the boutique hotel chapter. The rooms run studio and loft sizes, but the design packs in more considered comfort than the square footage should allow, with a modernist sensibility that reads less Denver and more Amsterdam. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for a neighborhood that treats "evolving" as a permanent state.

The pool deck has a screen so large it registers as a geographic feature. Circa is an adults-only casino resort on Fremont Street, a deliberate step away from the Strip, with a mid-century modernist look that leans into Vegas glamour without tipping into kitsch. The casino, sports-betting floor, and a stack of bars and restaurants fill the rest of the building for anyone who surfaces from the water.

A wraparound rooftop bar with Fenway-facing sunset views is a strong opening argument for a hotel. citizenM is a compact-room, XL-bed chain hotel on Newbury Street where tablet controls handle the blackout blinds, the mood lighting, and basically everything else. Self-serve check-in keeps arrival frictionless, and the bright lobby fills with original art and neon. Walkable to almost everything worth walking to in Back Bay.

The Dutch chain's compact formula lands in Pioneer Square: XL king beds, rainfall showers, and tablet controls that handle everything from blackout blinds to room temperature. A 24/7 canteen runs from breakfast through evening cocktails, and the lobby's primary-colored furniture signals that laptops are very welcome. King Street Station is a short walk away. A Michelin Selected Hotel, it's built for people who want a smart, functional night's sleep rather than a personality.

Murals by local artists, including a member of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, set the tone in the lobby of this design-forward hotel on the edge of South Lake Union, a short walk from the Amazon campus. Rooms are deliberately compact, trading square footage for oversized beds, blackout blinds, and full app control over lighting and temperature. The implicit deal: the city is your living room, and the bed is very good.

Roosevelt Island's only hotel sits on the Cornell Tech campus, which most New Yorkers will learn about only when they book a room here. Graduate by Hilton leans into that campus identity hard, with Snøhetta-designed rooms in bright, cheerful colors and skyline views on most sides. The 18th-floor Panorama Room bar delivers a 360-degree look at New York from an angle the city rarely offers its own residents.

A boutique hotel in Denver's Highlands district, where the exterior is clean and contemporary and the interior pivots hard into Victorian detail, a nod to the neighborhood's founding era. LoHi is one of those corners of Denver that's still figuring out what it wants to be, with galleries and breweries trading space with new builds, and this property sits comfortably in the middle of that negotiation.

A converted 19th-century textile warehouse in Greenpoint, the Henry Norman is a boutique hotel where the loft-style rooms lean into the bones of the building: hardwood floors, exposed brick, and, depending on your room, a terrace or rooftop. The retro vibe extends to a vintage taxi kept on call as in-house car service, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your mood. Williamsburg is a short walk south when you need a meal.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Common from nearly every room, which is a solid reason to book a higher floor at this sleek downtown hotel on Tremont Street. The building is a quiet contemporary amid Boston's colonial streetscape, but the interiors go louder: bold patterns, rich materials, and lighting someone clearly thought hard about. Beds come with ten pillow varieties, which is either thoughtful or a decision you'll regret making at midnight.

The terra cotta atrium under a massive skylight is the first thing that stops you in this downtown Detroit hotel, which has been around forever and knows it. Rooms run to tall windows and high ceilings, the bones of a grand old skyscraper kept largely intact through a careful restoration. It sits right where downtown meets Midtown, so the theaters, stadiums, and galleries are all on foot.