The Best Places in the United States

The bullet holes in the walls are original, and so is the escape route through the ladies' lavatory. This Tenderloin cocktail bar started life as a Prohibition speakeasy, complete with a trapdoor and password, and neither gimmick has been retired. The 1920s painted wallpaper and marble staircase survived intact, and you still need the password to get in, which is either charming or exhausting depending on your mood.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with bottles replace the books here, and the ladders are real. This TriBeCa spirits bar has made brandy its organizing principle, stocking vintage Armagnacs, Cognacs, and plum brandies from corners of the world most bars have never considered. Whisky and rum fill the gaps, the cocktail list runs a hundred drinks deep, and the staff who climb those ladders to fetch your bottle know exactly what they're doing.

The coal-fired oven sits at the center of the room like the point it's trying to make, and the point is a New York-style pie with deep Italian roots cooked the way early immigrants did it, because wood was too expensive. This is a comfortable, full-service pizza spot with appetizers, a solid wine list, and a menu that ranges well past margherita territory. Ranked 31st on 50 Top Pizza USA.

The zinc-topped bar inside the Ace Hotel is where Jeffrey Morgenthaler built his reputation, and Portland's cocktail crowd hasn't forgotten it. Clyde Common is technically a big, open dining hall, but the bar runs the show here, with vintage stools filling up fast under a double-height ceiling loud with conversation. The food is genuinely good, but nobody's coming just for dinner.

The pizzas are named after Louisville neighborhoods, which tells you something about how this Neapolitan-style pizza spot sees itself. The crust leans more pronounced than a traditional Neapolitan, and everything from the appetizers to desserts is made in-house or sourced from local artisans. No delivery, by design, because the pie doesn't survive the trip. It landed on 50 Top Pizza USA, if you need a reason to go in.

The name comes from an obscure white Campanian grape variety, which tells you everything about how seriously this Lakeview spot takes its Southern Italian bona fides. It's a Neapolitan pizza restaurant, wood-fired and traditionally minded, with a patio that leans into the convivial-trattoria feeling. The crust has the soft, charred-edge character the style calls for. 50 Top Pizza USA has taken notice, landing it at number 43 on their national list.

Ten luxury tents on a thousand acres of ranchland a few miles west of Vail, open summer through early fall only. Each tent comes with rain showers, wood-burning stoves, and enough plush linens to make you forget you're camping, which is sort of the point. The lodge handles breakfast and dinner, from a self-grilled BBQ setup to a full tasting menu. Horseback rides, fly-fishing, and mountain biking fill the days; actual Vail is thirty minutes if you need it.

Forty-five Craftsman bungalows spread across 1,700 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountain foothills, each with a fireplace and a soaking tub, most looking out over fairways or valley. This is a full-on golf resort with Robert Trent Jones Jr.'s championship course as the centerpiece, though the One Iron Bar and its martini list have a way of making the back nine feel optional. Il Vigneto handles Californian cooking with produce from the surrounding region.

Lark Hotels planted a modernist, color-forward boutique hotel in one of New England's most resolutely traditional ski towns, and somehow it fits. Field Guide reads less like a rebellion against Stowe's cozy-inn heritage than a cheerful argument with it: bright, contemporary design where you'd usually expect exposed beams and plaid. The kind of place that draws guests who came for the mountain but wouldn't be caught dead in a lodge aesthetic.

The cocktail bar on the second floor of the landmark Metropolitan Life building, where the ceilings are tall enough to make you feel like you should order something serious. The drinks program travels with the restaurant group globally, which keeps the bar from feeling like an afterthought to the dining room below. A polished crowd in no hurry fills the seats most evenings, and the room does most of the work before the first drink arrives.

The open oven sits at the center of the room like a piece of furniture someone actually thought about, which tells you a lot about Grana before the pizza arrives. This is a contemporary Neapolitan pizza restaurant on East Burnside, bright and carefully put together without feeling precious. The dough runs high-hydration and long-fermented, San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella alongside whatever's local. It landed at 26 on 50 Top Pizza USA.

Montauk sits at the farthest tip of Long Island, far enough out that locals just call it The End, and Gurney's has been holding down this stretch of Atlantic coastline longer than most of its guests have been alive. It's a full resort, with ocean views, a seawater pool, and the kind of unhurried pace that the rest of the Hamptons keeps promising but rarely delivers. The crowd leans casual and sand-tolerant, which is exactly right.

A pizza shop in Beaverton where the dough is made with a biga starter, splitting the difference between Neapolitan softness and New York chew, then topped with flavors drawn from Asian pantries. The combination landed Hapa on the 50 Top Pizza USA list. The room is warm and the kitchen moves fast, which matters when half of Beaverton decides to show up at once. Original without being weird about it.

A Dutch Colonial mansion on a private lake in Stone Ridge, about two hours from the city, converted into a boutique hotel with the kind of restraint that makes you feel like you discovered it yourself. The carriage house and stables are now guest rooms, the old swimming pool got a quiet refresh, and the ground floor runs a farm-to-table restaurant called Butterfield. Hudson Valley weekenders who want nature without roughing it have found their place.

The wood-fired oven is shaped like an igloo, and someone thought to write "Food is important" across it in Italian, which sets the tone nicely. This wine bar and Neapolitan pizza spot in a small Iowa town keeps the menu short on purpose: a couple of appetizers, classic and meat-topped pies, tiramisu to finish. It landed on the 50 Top Pizza USA list, which feels both surprising and completely logical once you're there.

The sourdough starter has a name, Curtis, and the chef tends to it daily with the seriousness most people reserve for houseplants they actually like. Lucky Dough is an outdoor sourdough pizza spot in downtown Pensacola with a menu so tight it reads like a manifesto: two apps, a salad, ten pizzas. The raw-passed tomato sauce tastes less cooked than conjured. Ranked on 50 Top Pizza USA, and the setting still feels like someone's very well-curated backyard.

Old money meets boutique hotel money at this Lake Montauk resort, where whitewashed timber rooms and two pools sit on a marina that Gilded Age dynasties once claimed as their own. The setting feels genuinely private in a way that most of the Hamptons stopped being long ago. A beach club, tennis, fitness classes, a wood-fired pizzeria, and a seafood fine-dining room round things out. Pack light, but bring something for dinner.

A former bank vault now holds the wine list, which feels about right for a bar that takes its pours seriously. Nopa's cocktail menu runs classics, seasonal, and "spiritual" categories, alongside fifteen wines by the glass. The room earns its own attention: double-height ceilings, cartoonish SF murals, and tall windows that make the long bar feel less like a neighborhood spot and more like somewhere you accidentally stayed for three hours.

A wooded property off Mountain Road with direct access to Stowe's Recreation Path and one of the larger outdoor pools in the area, Outbound is a boutique hotel that splits the difference between glamping and summer camp for adults who own good fleece. Communal fire pits, Adirondack chairs, and a stylish all-day eatery fill the gaps that Stowe's older, stuffier lodging scene left open. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A long sloping entry leads you up into a warm, modern room where communal high tables split the space between a serious bar and proper wood-fired pizza. Ryan Magarian's cocktail program is the draw here, pairing classics and house originals with Italian street food from the kitchen. The design reads clean rather than cozy, which suits the crowd that comes as much for the drinks as anything coming out of that oven.

You get in by picking up the phone inside a wooden booth at a hot dog joint on St. Marks. If whoever's watching the camera approves, the door buzzes open. PDT is a cocktail bar that takes the speakeasy conceit completely seriously, which is either charming or exhausting depending on your mood, and the line outside suggests most people land on charming. The drinks are the kind of careful, considered pours that made the whole city start doing this.

Gene Autry and Roy Rogers built Pioneertown as a permanent Old West film set so they wouldn't have to drive to the desert every time Hollywood needed tumbleweeds. The town never quite became the resort they imagined, but it got there eventually. This boutique motel is the lodging that finally fits the moment, sitting in the high desert near Joshua Tree where the line between stage set and actual town has always been pleasantly blurry.

New York-style slices in New Orleans, served at a counter in a room of concrete floors and no-frills tables, with a shaded outdoor bench area that feels like someone's backyard party got very serious about pizza. The crust holds up, the sauce has some tang to it, and whole pies outperform the slices even if most people never find that out. Ranked in the 50 Top Pizza USA, which for a Bywater slice shop is not nothing.

Counter-order pizza in a small, tidy room in East Aurora, about a half-hour outside Buffalo. The menu is deliberately short: a handful of red and white pies, small plates, beer, wine, and a few cocktails. The dough runs soft and cheese-dusted at the crust with a crisp underside, and the kitchen leans seasonal, which is why regulars show up chasing whatever's fleeting. It ranked 40th on 50 Top Pizza USA.

The wood-fired oven sits in plain sight from every table, which is either a promise or a dare depending on how the pizza turns out. This Neapolitan pizza spot in Assembly Row keeps things bright and airy, with big windows and a long bar stocked for cocktails alongside the pies. The team has been sourcing Italian flour, dairy, and tomatoes for years, and the crust shows it: soft, properly blistered, with a little lift to the cornicione.

Neapolitan-inspired pizza shares the menu with pastas and grilled dishes at this North End Italian restaurant, where the neighborhood's old-school density of red sauce joints makes landing here feel like a small victory. The dough holds up under generous toppings, the crust comes out blistered and colorful, and the wine list is worth a look. It landed on 50 Top Pizza USA, which the regulars probably already knew.

You order at the door, grab a table, and the pizza shows up without ceremony, which is exactly the point at this Greenpoint slice shop. The dough is soft and light in the way Neapolitan purists get worked up about, and the toppings stay out of each other's way. The bruschetta with honey and ricotta is a small, sweet detour worth taking. Ranked 32nd on 50 Top Pizza USA, Salsa keeps things casual enough that nobody feels underdressed.

Reservations required, a three-night-a-week window, and a bouncer who greets you like a long-lost relative: Saxony sets the terms before you've touched a drink. This late-night cocktail bar lives beneath the Faena Hotel, down a staircase into a basement of black terrazzo, gold-leaf ceilings, and Art Deco bones, with a DJ running things until 4am. The crowd arrived on purpose and dressed accordingly.

The dark oak bar counter twists through the room like it couldn't decide where to stop, with booths opposite and vintage paneling that makes the whole place feel like it's been here forever. It's a steakhouse bar in Ballard's old commercial strip, and while drinks are the stated purpose, the kitchen has a way of making that position hard to defend. Difford's Guide gives it five stars.

Modular wall-mounted gear storage tells you exactly where Tälta Lodge's priorities lie, and it isn't the pillow menu. The rooms go full minimalist-chic, the furniture leans modernist, and the vibe is a deliberate nod to the ski-boom lodges of the sixties, reconceived for people who actually have taste now. Mountain biking, fly fishing, and serious skiing are all within reach, some rooms are dog-friendly, and the Michelin Guide has it listed among its selected hotels.

Stone pulled from local quarries and timber cut from nearby forests give this ski resort lodge a solidity that most new-builds skip in favor of slope access and a gift shop. Stowe is the kind of mountain that takes itself seriously, and the Lodge at Spruce Peak fits that tone, with construction that reads as considered rather than assembled. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and one that earns the designation on materials alone.

A converted mill complex sitting where Fishkill Creek meets Beacon's main drag, the Roundhouse is a hotel that landed at exactly the right moment in this town's unlikely revival. Dia:Beacon drew the art crowd upstate, and the rest followed. Rooms lean into the industrial bones without overdoing the exposed-brick thing, and the Hudson Valley is right outside whenever the galleries feel like enough.

The conceit is that a London Underground station was abandoned in 1890, rediscovered, and quietly converted into a gin clubhouse, and the room commits to the bit completely. A cocktail bar from the team behind Smuggler's Cove, Whitechapel stocks a staggering wall of gins and divides into three areas, including an oxidized-patina bar counter called The Platform. Come for a gin and tonic; stay because you forgot you were on Polk Street.

Wooster Street is New Haven apizza territory, so opening a Neapolitan pizzeria here takes a certain nerve. The family behind Zeneli trained in Naples and planted that tradition right in the middle of the local institution's turf. Wood-fired, soft-crusted pies with San Marzano tomatoes and proper mozzarella sit alongside classic Italian dishes in a room that feels genuinely like someone's people are running it.

The line at this cash-only Mexican bakery in Glendale moves slowly because everyone freezes in front of the cases. Giant pink pig-shaped cochinitos glazed with molasses, chamoy-dipped apples, tamales, fresh tortillas, and trays of pan dulce all compete for your attention at once. Phoenix New Times named it the best Mexican bakery in the city, and the regulars waiting ahead of you look like they already knew that.

Sonny's is a bright counter-service spot in the Highlands where the whole decision tree fits on one hand: pita, salad, or plate, then falafel, chicken, or both. The chef came over from Safta, and the sauces are all made from scratch, so an extra cup of harissa is the move. The zhoug is for people who have lost an argument with their taste buds before and want a rematch.

The team once competed on Food Network's Cupcake Wars under a different name and won, which tells you something about what's happening at this bright, family-run bakery near Seventh and Camelback. Frosted cupcakes and cookies rotate with the seasons and holidays, so there's almost always a reason to stop in. The signature brown boxes travel well and double as a gift when flowers feel lazy.

Élephante lets you print a photo on top of your espresso martini, which is either the future of cocktails or a sign we've collectively lost the plot, possibly both. This lively Mediterranean restaurant on the sixth floor of Scottsdale Fashion Square draws a crowd that skews festive and photograph-ready. The espresso martini comes with a choice of vodka, mezcal, or tequila as the base, and the mocha variation leans into creme de cacao and vanilla.

Our Green Affair is a counter-service salad shop in Solana Beach where the menu is a pun-off and the bowls are the punchline. You'll find the Hot Chick, the Thai Me Up, and a Caesar called the Seize Her, which is a lot of wordplay to absorb before noon. Order at the counter, add toppings if the mood strikes, and join a lunch crowd in athleisure. Eater has named it among San Diego's best salads.

A tiny pink-and-white bungalow in West Phoenix, family-run since the parents first opened it, now in the hands of their five kids. The pho here is the reason to show up, arriving in oversized bowls with the full spread of garnishes, and the broth is the kind that takes all day. Closes at five, shut on Tuesdays, and full of regulars who know better than to overthink the menu.

A Cortez Hill omakase counter where the whole evening is decided for you, which is the point, and the point costs $180. You get about two hours and twenty courses, with appetizers up front, nigiri in waves, a warm dish for a breather, and soup and dessert to close. The staff leans hard into omotenashi, so you'll be looked after more attentively than you've been in years. Reserve ahead and wear something nicer than gym shorts.

Sundubu jjigae arrives at the table still at a full boil, in a black earthenware bowl that stays screaming hot long after it lands. This Korean tofu house in Mesa's Asian District is the kind of place where a server drops off a raw egg and you crack it straight into the broth. The house-made tofu is silky, the broth is deeply red, and the white-shirt warning is sincere. Bulgogi and bibimbap round out the menu for anyone not ready to commit to the fire.

The cumin lamb buns alone might justify a drive to Englewood, but this lively Sichuan restaurant on South Broadway is stacking reasons to come. Dry pepper eggplant, pickled pepper beef, and wok-fried lotus root all land on the table with serious color and contrast. There's a full bar running fruity retro cocktails, which somehow fits. Westword named the mapo tofu among Denver's best in 2025, and the room tends to agree.

A former billiard hall that now keeps the lights low and the candles lit, so it feels more like a speakeasy than a pool room, though nobody's chalking a cue. It's a Mexican small-plates and cocktail spot on Halsted, with a menu that riffs on a few classics and a bar that leans on Chicago-based, Mexican-owned brands. The tequila espresso martini is the drink people keep ordering, naturally.