The Best Places in the United States

Near Lake Merritt, Enssaro is a roomy Ethiopian restaurant that covers the full range, from slow-cooked lamb in berbere and ghee to kitfo rolls that wrap spiced beef tartar inside spirals of injera. The menu is mostly traditional, but it takes the occasional contemporary detour, Ethiopian nachos among them. A spiced, sweetened tea, hot or iced, is the move if the heat builds up.

Ernie's Boondock is a dive bar tucked below Up-Down in East Nashville, and it commits to the role with pool tables, dollar bills stuck to the walls, and a chain of Underberg hanging by the register. There's no cocktail menu, so order a gin and tonic or a tequila shot and accept the taxidermy's silent verdict from the red leather booths. Someone will mangle "Benny And The Jets" nearby, and you may join in.

Duck confit on a ginger waffle, finished with a sunny-side-up duck egg, is the kind of thing that makes you reconsider every breakfast you've eaten before it. This is a breakfast shop that treats classics as a starting point rather than a destination, stacking French toast with blueberry Danish flavors and running Benedicts in half a dozen directions. The daily specials are always worth asking about, and the room fills early.

A Houston brewery that takes its beer names as seriously as its beer, with year-round taps like Buckle Bunny (a cream ale) and a rotating Limited Awesome Beer Series that lives up to the acronym. The indoor space is cavernous enough to actually beat the heat, which in this city is less a perk than a survival strategy. When the weather cooperates, the outdoor area fills fast with the kind of crowd that stays for three rounds and means it.

Shrimp and grits on a menu that also swings through duck and quail in the colder months signals a kitchen that takes its eclecticism seriously. Evangeline's is a dressed-up dinner spot in Tuscaloosa Galleria that has been the default venue for every graduation, anniversary, and retirement dinner in the county for what feels like generations. The cocktails and the crème brûlée both get mentioned in the same breath, which tells you something about the priorities here.

Staff pull fresh noodles behind a glass window in full view of the dining room, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Squirrel Hill noodle shop. The rest of the neighborhood already knows it, so expect a wait. Hot spicy wontons buried in cilantro and scallions are the move, but regulars tend to circle back for the soup dumplings, the classic pork especially.

Fad Classic Bakery sits in Smyrna beside a loud blue building that does its best to upstage it. The bakery is a quiet counter-service spot, cheap and unfussy, with cinnamon rolls that stay soft without going gummy under a generous slab of cream cheese icing. Weekends bring Nutella, Oreo, and strawberry versions, which also means they sell out early, so the alarm clock is part of the plan. The Infatuation lists it among Atlanta's best bakeries.

The red-drenched dining room and prix fixe menu of "Asian Italian" dishes at this East Nashville spot signal that something genuinely odd is happening here, in the best way. A trio of industry vets serves garlic noodles from a vintage lunchbox and caviar over French onion dip, then hands out red-checked bibs when the gochujang short ribs arrive. The bit never quite tips into exhausting, and the New York Times named it among Nashville's top restaurants.

The restaurant sits on an actual working farm in Los Ranchos, which keeps the farm-to-table premise from being purely decorative. Farm & Table is a new American dinner spot where the sourcing is local in practice, not just on the menu header. The kitchen has launched several notable careers over the years, and owner Cherie Montoya has brought alumni back for guest appearances. Expect a relaxed, pastoral room with food that earns its provenance quietly.

The steamed taro buns here are shaped like little pigs, which tells you something about the mood. This is a neighborhood dim sum house in the outer Richmond where the har gow are fat with filling and the siu mai are delicate enough to make you forget the trek out Balboa. The menu stretches well past brunch into roast squab and clay pot brisket, and the prices run noticeably gentler than downtown.

A wood-fired grill dominates the center of this gastropub on Broad Street, close enough to the bar and high-tops that you can watch steaks and avocados take on char while you drink a Pennsylvania pint. The kitchen leans hard into smoke and fire across the menu, wings included. It reads like a neighborhood spot that actually feeds the neighborhood, rather than one performing the idea of it.

Five Bar keeps its dinner and brunch menus to exactly five entrees each, which sounds like a gimmick until you're actually sitting with fried Gulf shrimp in a downtown room full of exposed brick and local art. Half coffee shop, half full-bar restaurant, it runs happy hours, wine Wednesdays, and a weekend jazz brunch with a build-your-own bloody Mary bar. The kind of place that makes a short menu feel like confidence rather than laziness.

The bumper stickers are everywhere in Wilmington, so the burrito shop behind them had better deliver. Flaming Amy's is a casual, order-at-the-counter spot where the menu leans into the unexpected: a Creole jambalaya burrito shares space with a Philly cheesesteak version, and the namesake Flaming Amy loads in three kinds of chiles for anyone keeping score. Chips, queso, and nachos fill out the edges, but the burritos are clearly why people put the sticker on their car.

Fleurette is a dressy French-Italian dinner spot where the portions run large and the bone marrow turns up in more dishes than you'd expect. The room feels like an art museum, with floor-to-ceiling windows and sculptures hanging overhead. Getting there means driving to the far end of a business park, where the valet may be the only living person in sight, which somehow adds to the atmosphere.

Florence Jones Kemp started this soul food institution in the front room of a two-room apartment, serving hot dogs on, as she put it, "a hot dog and a prayer." Decades later, she and her daughter Victoria are still running the kitchen together, with fried chicken, candied yams, braised oxtail, fresh-baked rolls, cornbread, and pie holding down the menu. The James Beard Foundation gave Florence's an America's Classics award, which about covers it.

Cardamom rolls with maple icing at a bakery in a town of 7,000, seventy miles from Minneapolis, is either a bold bet or a very convincing argument for small-town life. The chef behind the pastry case came up in big-city kitchens, and the breads and laminated doughs show it. Monday nights pivot to pizza, which gives regulars a reason to come back before the week gets away from them. The New York Times named it among the best bakeries in the country.

Flour Your Dreams is a small bakery and cafe out in Hermitage, the sort of place where bread making came first and everything else followed. The sourdough boules come sliced and ready for dinner, with local honey or butter on the shelf to go with them. There are only a few tables, but one usually opens up for a laptop and a chai, which makes it a decent excuse to skip the drive downtown.

Beignets on the menu at a French-inflected steakhouse and cocktail bar inside a hotel co-owned by Nick Saban, which does make Alabama football feel like a lifestyle brand. The chef blends brasserie and steakhouse instincts, the cocktails are serious, and the wine list is curated rather than encyclopedic. Brunch runs just as dressed-up as dinner, so there's no casual way in.

The Kilt Lifter Scottish Ale has been filling pints here long enough that it's practically a local institution, and the Mission Revival warehouse it lives in only adds to the effect. Four Peaks is a full-scale brewpub with a cavernous brick interior, a sprawling patio, and a menu that covers wings and nachos but also green chile mac and cheese for anyone who needs more than bar food. Spring training crowds and ASU students pack the place, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe.

Frankie & Wally's is a Coral Gables sandwich shop where the cold cuts are shaved so thin they nearly vanish, and the shredded lettuce is there to soak up the oil and vinegar before the bread can. A Padrino has more layers of mortadella, salami, and ham than anyone will count. It's a counter-service, no-dress-code lunch, and the line knows this. Miami has plenty of hot pressed sandwiches, so this one's the cold, quiet exception.

Sheepskin-draped chairs, candles everywhere, and vintage travel posters give this French bistro the feel of a Chamonix chalet that somehow materialized in Aspen. The menu plays it straight: foie gras terrine, bubbling cheese fondue, savory crêpes. It's the kind of après-ski stop that quietly becomes dinner, then a second bottle of Bordeaux. Reservations open 60 days out and fill fast, so treat that calendar alert as non-optional.

A National City coffee shop wrapped in mid-century breezeblocks, hanging plants, and jungle mural art, which is a lot of ambience for a place you can also order a latte at. By day it's a room of people with strong opinions about espresso, and some nights an R&B DJ turns up. The popups rotate with the week, the ginger thyme latte stays put, and there's a burger with crispy garlic chili peppers that coffee shops don't usually bother with.

Gold flower fixtures hang from the ceiling of this grand San Leandro banquet hall, where the projectors are always ready for the next big event and the dim sum carts have been replaced by tablets. It's a multigenerational scene, grandparents and kids at the same table, tea steaming alongside turnip cakes. The strawberry taro balls, crunchy outside and custard-oozing within, tend to stop conversations mid-sentence.

A greenhouse-style coffee station sits at the center of an otherwise industrial room, tucked behind heavy wooden doors in a Chinatown strip mall. This Korean coffee shop pulls espresso and pour overs alongside signature drinks and desserts so meticulously arranged they feel almost too pretty to eat. Regulars navigate the nondescript parking lot without a second thought. A second location sits in Henderson.

Galette is a pocket-size bakery in Avondale Estates that keeps Thursday-through-Sunday hours, which sounds like a hobby until you see the weekend line. Saturday and Sunday bring the oversized cinnamon rolls under a generous slick of icing, plus breakfast sandwiches on croissants, and the rolls vanish early. Weekdays are calmer, with apple cider donuts, pistachio croissants, and an apple galette that earns the name.

The Croque Park Avenue, draped in mornay sauce over Black Forest ham and gruyère, is a good argument for eating lunch at a corner cafe more often. Garnett's is the kind of relaxed, homey spot where first dates go well and regulars linger, with French-leaning sandwiches and wine poured without ceremony. The happy hour pricing borders on anachronistic in the best possible way.

An Argentinian steakhouse in Pittsburgh's Cultural District where the wood-fired grill does the talking and the line outside does the bragging. Proteins come off the fire with a serious char, and the chimichurri and sides hold their own beside them. The Parrillada Mixta platter is the move for the undecided, though regulars tend to land on the flap steak and stop second-guessing themselves.

A giant dragon mural looms over a small room built around sashimi, handrolls, and an unusually serious gin list, sorted by style so you actually learn something. The kitchen pairs fatty toro with yuzu salt and tucks pomegranate jam into a hamachi roll without it feeling like a stunt. The bar seats more people than the tables do, which tells you something about the vibe. Better for two than for six.

Gluten Free Goose is a dedicated gluten-free bakery in Lenox Village that opens just three days a week for six hours a day, so the Thursday-morning line comes with the territory. The case runs to cupcakes with tall dollops of frosting, oatmeal cream pies sized for a fist, and a brown sugar pop tart with ambitions. There's one lonely table inside, so most people eat in the car.

The pho broth here is light and fragrant with onion and ginger, and the soy-protein brisket has enough chew to make you question your assumptions. This all-vegan Asian restaurant, connected to the Loving Hut network, runs through a long menu of pad Thai, wonton soup, and claypot rice without any of it feeling like a consolation prize. It's a Civic Center lunch spot with real intentions and very reasonable prices.

Ballpoint pen drawings cover every wall of this tiny lounge at The Venetian, which is doing its best Shinjuku Golden Gai impression, and pulling it off better than it has any right to. DJs push house music loud enough to rattle the sake glasses while the drinks lean Japanese, gin and matcha cocktails alongside serious whiskey pours. Small and clubby, with neon doing most of the decorating.

This is an airport coffee counter in PDX that happens to be run by an independent Portland roaster, which means La Marzocco machines and a sleek, minimalist setup instead of the usual chain with a rotating cast of regrets. The seasonal lattes lean toward pairings like pear and bergamot, a lot of thought for someone clutching a boarding pass. It made The Infatuation's list of Portland's 25 best coffee shops, airport and all.

A coffee shop painted entirely black, because of course it is, parked next to a music venue in case the aesthetic wasn't clear enough. The drinks go the other direction: colorful, Southeast Asian-inspired lattes built around pandan, black sesame, and ube soft serve, which makes the whole thing a cheerful contradiction. Worth arriving in the morning before the night crowd reclaims the block.

Gray's Hall is a South Boston wine bar that has the energy of a friend's living room, if your friend kept a natural-leaning wine list and a small-plate menu that includes a burger. It comes from the team behind American Provisions, the neighborhood's sandwich-and-bottle stop, so the instinct is to feed you while you stay put. Staff stay unbothered even when the place fills up, and a loyal local crowd keeps it that way.

A French bistro in Richmond where the steak frites is the answer whether the question is date night or Tuesday. The wine list is short, approachably priced, and chosen with genuine taste, which pairs well with a charcuterie spread that doubles as a reasonable case for skipping an entree. The chef behind it also runs a wine shop and a bakery nearby, so clearly one project was never going to be enough.

The burger of the month rotates, the beer names do not disappoint, and the bar snacks lean harder than most breweries bother to. This Chapman Street brewery pours its own ales alongside house cocktails, wine, and THC options, so there's something for whoever you dragged along. The Flip Flop Cowboy amber and the pineapple-tangerine blonde tell you exactly what the vibe is before you've taken a sip.