The Best Places in the United States

This is a strip-mall sushi counter on the Westside, no frills, where the sashimi is spotless and the nigiri keeps things simple. The menu is gentle on beginners, with a starter platter built around the California roll, while the chirashi bowl comes loaded like a small aquarium. Reservations go through a phone line that only picks up at certain hours, which is either a hassle or a personality, depending on your patience.

Sylvia's is a relaxed, family-run Mexican restaurant on Woodway where the menu is basically one long argument about enchiladas, each named after a city in Mexico or Texas. They come under chili gravy, mole, or salsa verde, and the servers will happily bend the menu around you. The mini sampler lets you try several before committing, which is how regulars settled on their favorite. It was a James Beard semifinalist, Best Chef: Texas.

The puffy, air-bubbled crust known as canotto is the thing here, a contemporary Neapolitan style where the dough does the talking before any topping gets involved. Si Cara is a cozy artisanal pizza spot on Mass Ave, running seasonal pies alongside the classics, with wines and cocktails to match. It landed on 50 Top Pizza USA, if you need a reason beyond the margherita. The room feels like someone's dining room, which is sort of the whole point.

The xiao long bao are made in-house, and you can watch through the glass as the pleating happens at speed. This is the New York outpost of the global dumpling chain, set in a large underground room near Times Square that runs loud and packed most hours of the day. The New York Times gave it a star in 2024, which did nothing to shorten the line. Expect a menu of soup dumplings in various fillings, a youthful crowd, and prices that won't require a moment of hesitation.

Two wood-fired ovens sit behind a glass partition so you can watch the dough work its way in and out of the flame, which sets the tone for this casual Tucson pizza spot. The crust lands soft inside and properly crisp at the edge, and the menu earns its keep beyond pizza too. Friendly staff who can actually tell you the history of the place round out a room that feels genuinely independent rather than assembled by committee. It placed on 50 Top Pizza USA.

Ai Pazzi is a sit-down Italian restaurant inside the JW Marriott in Summerlin, run by Top Chef fan favorite Fabio Viviani, where servers wheel carts to your table and finish fettuccine alfredo in front of you. The mozzarella gets hand-pulled at the table too, so dinner has a bit of theater. The wagyu meatball is the size of a small planet, and a pizza counter next door handles the more casual urges.

The hood of your car doubles as your table at this late-night taco truck on Fulton, where the line forms fast after the bars close and moves just as fast. Fajita tacos with Oaxacan cheese and a creamy green salsa that bites back are the reason to show up, along with a Mexican Coke cold enough to justify the wait. No seating, no frills, just the sidewalk and whoever else is hungry at this hour.

El Tiempo is a Tex-Mex cantina in Upper Kirby, run by Mama Ninfa's son, which makes the Houston argument over this one versus Ninfa's something close to a family dispute with a public comment section. Wooden tables, high archways, and relics on the walls set the scene, and it's loud in the fun way without being unthinkable. The carnitas arrive sizzling over coals, and pitchers of house margaritas tend to follow.

A bleached cow skull in the parking lot tells you everything about Gerardo's Drive In, a weekend-only taqueria and meat market on the Northside that's been steaming barbacoa since the late '70s. You can sit down to a few tacos, buy meat by the pound, or take home an entire cow's head, which is a very specific kind of leftovers. It's casual, cheap, and made for people who plan their Saturdays around lunch.

Laredo Taqueria is a no-frills counter-service taco spot where the steam table does the talking and the flour tortillas do the heavy lifting. Expect a line, and expect the regulars ahead of you to know their order cold, so use the wait to study the breakfast and lunch options. Ordering on corn is permitted, but you'll be skipping the thing that holds every breakfast taco here together. Cash-in-pocket prices, work-boots-to-business-casual crowd.

A Tex-Mex cantina where half the menu is named after actual customers, which makes ordering feel like reading a very cheesy yearbook. The Berlys Burrito comes smothered in chili con carne, and the plates are built for people who skipped lunch on purpose. It's casual, sauce-forward, and old-school Houston, with margaritas that have won local best-of lists and tend to arrive before you've finished sitting down.

Moon Doggies is a sports bar where the kitchen keeps going long after the game has been decided, which suits both the celebrating and the consoling. The wings get fried, then tossed in a wok with teriyaki until they turn sticky, sweet, and a little charred at the edges. Thick-crust pizza with honey balsamic is the backup plan for anyone still hungry after the napkins run out.

Secret Pizza is a counter slice shop on the third floor of the Cosmopolitan, reached by a hallway of Rat Pack-era record sleeves that makes the whole thing feel like a bit. The secret got out years ago. Now it's a New York-style slice reheated until it could laminate your fingers, handed over by a quick-moving crew to bleary-eyed clubgoers who eat standing up in a tiny square room or carry it off into the night.

Warm tones, natural wood, and golden lighting make this Inner Sunset bistro feel like someone's very stylish living room, if that living room happened to serve buckwheat crepes and surf-and-turf crudo. The menu runs French but without the rulebook, leaning seasonal and local in a way that keeps things genuinely interesting visit to visit. Sharing plates reward a table of friends, and brunch draws the neighborhood in reliably.

The bar is in the basement, which is the point. The Drifter is a tiny subterranean cocktail lounge tucked beneath the Green Door Tavern, a speakeasy in the old sense of the word, not just the aesthetic. Low ceilings, dim light, and the general feeling that you've wandered somewhere you weren't supposed to find. The kind of place where a well-made drink tastes better simply because you had to descend a staircase to get it.

A cash-only slice shop in North Beach that's been around forever, Golden Boy does thick, focaccia-style pan pizza under a neon sign that's become something of a neighborhood landmark. The clam and garlic slice is the one regulars order without looking up. Grab it, find a spot on the sidewalk or walk it over to Washington Square Park, and eat standing up the way San Francisco intended.

Lines form before the doors open at this specialty seafood counter, which tells you most of what you need to know. Faroe Island salmon, live sea urchin, razor clams, and whatever else flew in that morning fill the case alongside premium tinned fish and prepared foods. The shop insists it isn't a restaurant, then sells poke banh mi and sashimi boxes to go. Wednesday's lobster roll has its own cult.

Seafood flown in daily from Tokyo sets the pace at this sleek River Oaks sushi bar, where the menu runs from delicate nigiri to a flaming king crab roll that arrives with some theatrical intent. It's the kind of polished Japanese spot where the fish is the point and the room knows it. Maki, hand rolls, and omakase-style nigiri fill the card alongside a few non-sushi detours for the table purists inevitably dragged along.

You'll spot it by the squat brick house with Christmas lights that never come down and lace curtains that predate everyone's memory. Inside it's a casual red-sauce Italian joint with checkered tablecloths and a brick fireplace, where the portions arrive in casserole dishes and the lasagna comes buried in marinara. Grab any table you like, since nobody's fighting you for it, and expect to leave carrying leftovers.

CrunCheese is a corn dog counter in Chinatown's Shanghai Plaza, where the Korean street-food version comes battered, rolled in crunchy potato cubes, and fried until it looks like it has armor. Sausage, mozzarella, or half of each, then sugar and a sauce lineup that takes the whole thing past reasonable. It's a few dollars and made to be eaten with one hand while you browse the shops, and a second one tends to happen.

Nashville-style hot chicken counter inside the Venetian's Via Via food hall, where the queue alone tells you something is happening. The LA original has a cult following, and the Vegas outpost brings the same obsessive consistency: fiery chicken sandwiches dressed with coleslaw, comeback sauce, and pickles, with heat levels running from no-heat "country" to "Howlin'," which the menu might as well label "your problem now." Grab the banana pudding as a chaser.

A casual Vietnamese noodle shop on Spring Mountain Road that does its best work after the casinos have taken everything you brought. At 3am the room splits between people refusing to end the night and industry workers who just ended theirs. The spicy beef phở comes with a plate of jalapeños and limes, and the steam off the bowl is thick enough to cloud your glasses, which at that hour is a mercy.

A dark wood-paneled steakhouse tucked deep inside Circus Circus, which is a bit like finding a tuxedo in a ball pit. There's a dry-aging closet, oil paintings of cows the size of garage doors, and an open kitchen where you can watch your order get chopped and grilled. Entrees arrive with pretzel bread and black bean soup, and the martinis are essentially cups of gin. Expect resort-casual and a neighbor with a story.

Uchi runs omakase and à la carte Japanese small plates out of a warm, low-lit room on Westheimer that fills up fast enough to make a reservation feel non-negotiable. The chef's background is in Austin, where the original location built a following, and the Houston room carries the same ethos: precise, inventive bites plated like someone actually thought about where to put them. Happy hour runs from four to six for anyone watching the tab.

Bistro Monadnock is a wood-paneled French bistro on a quiet side street near the Art Institute, which makes it a natural place to go after a morning of looking at French things and deciding you'd like to eat some. There's an open kitchen, a bar, and booths that rarely require a plan. Your server may volunteer a tour of the dry-ager or a short lecture on the building, and it's wise to let them.

Getting to this inn requires a ferry, which is either a dealbreaker or the entire point. The island has no cars to speak of, and the inn leans into that with no TVs or phones in the rooms, just vintage furniture, local art, and views. Bikes, tennis, golf, and charter boats fill the days, and the restaurant runs on lobster, mussels, and produce from nearby farms. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Sitting at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort's aerial tram, this hotel in Teton Village is built around the assumption that you'll be outside most of the day. The 87 rooms keep things purposeful: warm oak, charcoal walls, Navajo-print textiles, and mountain photography that reminds you why you came. Wild Pine handles dinner, Unravel does coffee, and the outdoor pool and hot tub handle whatever the mountain did to your legs. Skiers in winter, hikers and bikers all summer.

The Mission-style archway and stone lobby fireplace survived the restoration of Ojai's oldest hotel, which is the right call. El Roblar is a 50-room boutique hotel spread across a main building, private garden bungalows, and a newer Sycamore House wing, all done in warm earthy tones with locally sourced art on the walls. It sits right on Ojai Avenue, so the valley is essentially your front yard.

Jackson Hole has spent years avoiding the Aspen trap, all luxury condos and designer boutiques, which makes Hotel Terra feel like a small act of rebellion in reverse. It's a stylish, design-forward hotel sitting in the village, and it stands out precisely because the town around it never bothered dressing up. The Michelin Guide selects it, and the surrounding mountain landscape does most of the heavy lifting on atmosphere.

A 125-room hotel rising 18 stories above downtown Fargo, the Jasper leans into the region's Scandinavian roots with Nordic-inflected design and a quiet emphasis on coziness that feels less like a mood board and more like a considered choice. The on-site restaurant, Rosewild, serves Plains-sourced food shaped by Nordic technique, which is either a natural fit or a very good argument that it always should have been. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

The trail network runs right through the property, so you can be on a bike or in hiking boots before the coffee from Entrada Cafe kicks in. LOGE Bend is an adventure-focused hotel on the road to Mt. Bachelor, pitched at the mountain-biker-and-ski-bum crowd but unfussy enough for families. Rooms are stylish without being precious, rentals cover skis and snowshoes, and a fleet of cruiser bikes is free for guests.

Every room has a private balcony overlooking Lake Mangonia, which sets the tone pretty quickly at this British Caribbean-inflected resort about ten minutes from Palm Beach. The spa runs a private saltwater pool and eucalyptus steam rooms alongside something called vibroacoustic relaxation therapy, which sounds made-up until you're lying in it. Guests can also access a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, the first new private links in the area in decades.

Bentonville has been quietly having a moment, and this boutique hotel leans into both sides of it. Ozark limestone runs through the public spaces; the rooms go warmer, woodier, and modernist without feeling like a showroom. There's a Tuscan steakhouse and a craft cocktail lounge on site, and a cycling concierge who can outfit you for the hundreds of miles of trails starting practically outside the door.

Eight rooms in Oregon wine country, with platform beds, hardwood floors, and modernist furnishings that feel more boutique hotel than barn conversion. A European-style breakfast arrives at your door before you head out to the vineyards. The bocce court and croquet lawn look out over farmland in every direction, which makes the whole setup feel a little surreal, in the best, quietest possible way.

A six-room B&B in a Colonial-era house that has Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes on the walls, which is either charming or a lot depending on your relationship with transcendentalism. The inn has been around forever and shows it in the best way: pine floors from the original build, original architectural details, and modern bathrooms that know when to stay quiet. Breakfast, a lending library, and an honor bar round out the thoughtful extras.

Handmade tortillas folded around adobada, lengua, buche, or suadero, with no basic chicken option because the menu has standards. This cafeteria-style Tijuana taco counter across from Resorts World runs until 4 a.m. on weekends, which explains the line at 2 a.m. full of people who've just remembered they're hungry. The tacos are petite, so order accordingly. Eater named it among the Strip's 38 essential restaurants.

The New Haven-style pies here are cooked to a serious crunch, with dough pressed thinner than the Connecticut purists would sanction and a tangy, oregano-heavy tomato sauce that makes a decent argument for staying in Brooklyn. Wheated is a Ditmas Park pizzeria with a full bar that also does bagels, so the menu has range. The New York Times put it on their best pizza in New York list, which is the kind of thing that fills a neighborhood spot fast.

The dining room is painted in every color someone could fit on a wall, which turns out to be solid preparation for the menu that follows. This Sinaloan seafood restaurant in Phoenix runs a multi-page spread of aguachiles, whole fried fish, grilled shrimp Micheladas, and molcajetes loaded with carne asada alongside whatever came out of the ocean. A serrano margarita handles the heat. Families book out the patio on weekends, so call ahead if you're bringing a crowd.

The tortas here are the size of a small architectural project, stacked high on soft telera rolls with combinations like fried beef, ham, egg, chorizo, and avocado all grilled together. This casual Mexican sandwich shop in Sunnyslope sprawls through several rooms, and the menu takes real time to navigate. The juice bar deserves equal attention, especially the agua cremosa, a condensed milk and fresh fruit drink that arrives under a paper umbrella, which feels right.

The plain cheese slice is what the co-founder tells you to order, which feels like a trap until you see the crisp undercarriage and the clean, balanced sauce. This is a NY-style slice shop doing the straightforward thing well, in a region where pizzas tend to arrive under a pile of arugula. The cheesecakes come in from Long Island, and the garlic knots have the right chew. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best restaurants in San Jose.

This is the dressier sibling of Esther's Kitchen, an upscale Italian restaurant in Tivoli Village where the focaccia arrives with roasted garlic and a plan to keep you from ordering anything else. The dough carries over to the pizzas, and the meatballs come with a square of crunchy polenta built for chasing sauce. Early evenings at the bar are busy, and patio tables overlook a fountain, which is as close to Rome as Rampart Boulevard gets.