The Best Places in the United States

This is a Detroit-style pizza counter tucked into an old mill building, a fine place to learn that Rhode Island can do Motor City when it feels like it. The slices are thick and bouncy, with an inch of crisp, caramelized cheese running the edges. Order the pepperoni, or the Supreme, which tastes like the frozen one from childhood after it got a job and started eating vegetables. It's casual, cheap, and best eaten standing nearby.

The beef noodle soup here has a peppery, slow-built broth that earns its reputation quietly. This is a Taiwanese-Chinese casual spot in Irvine, the kind of place where the noodles, crispy pork chop over rice, and spicy wontons keep the room perpetually full. A few Sichuan dishes round out the menu, including a beef tendon with garlic sauce that regular customers seem to order without looking down. Fast service, warm room, zero pretension.

A converted warehouse downtown that's been standing since before anyone alive can remember, Acqua di Dea is an elegant Italian seafood restaurant that leans hard into occasion-dining energy, all high ceilings and happy noise. The menu runs from whole grilled branzino to ossobuco for the table that always orders steak at a fish restaurant. Dress up a little; this is the kind of place where no one is underdressed and everyone knows it.

Chandeliers and vibrant Afghan artwork give this small Fremont kabob shop the feel of a classy living room, which sets up the food nicely: deeply comforting, made from scratch, and the kind of thing Bay Area diners drive across several zip codes to find. The mantoo and chapli kebabs are the draws, and the dimpled flatbread comes by the slab, built for sopping. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top South Asian restaurants.

A small Afghan restaurant in Concord where the narunj palow arrives looking simple and proceeds to misbehave. The signature rice dish hides a lamb shank somewhere beneath saffron-tinted basmati, with caramelized orange peel lending a faint bitterness that makes the tender meat taste even richer. The habanero chile paste on the side is not decorative. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top South Asian tables.

AJ's Jazzy Grill is a casual Creole counter in Tremé that began as a food truck under the Claiborne bridge, which explains why everything tastes faintly like a backyard cookout. There are a few tables and some TVs, but the real business is takeout and delivery. Come in sweatpants, order the sweet potato pie the chef's mom bakes, and don't bother pretending you're stopping by for the atmosphere.

Fourteen stools, one narrow counter, and a line that forms before the coffee even brews. Al's is a breakfast diner that has been squeezed into a ten-foot-wide Dinkytown storefront since what feels like forever, and the room has not meaningfully changed since. The bacon waffle and blueberry-walnut pancakes with Minnesota maple syrup are the reasons regulars come back, though mostly the reason is that nothing else feels quite like this at six in the morning.

Part cafe, part specialty grocery, Alta Baja Market anchors downtown Santa Ana with one of the largest selections of Mexican wines you'll find under one roof, alongside heirloom corn, beans, and grains worth browsing. The breakfast and lunch menu leans New Mexican and border-crossing, with green chile eggchiladas built on La Princesita tortillas. Order a michelada and you'll understand why people linger here longer than they planned.

Alyonka is a Russian restaurant on West State Street where the kitchen crew traces back to Kazakhstan, Tatarstan, and Ukraine, so the menu spans more of the map than the name lets on. Cabbage rolls, stroganoff, piroshki, and blini share space with a vegetarian borscht and a shuba built with smoked salmon instead of herring. It's a modern, easygoing room, and Eater lists it among Boise's 30 essential restaurants.

Anna's Vesuviano is a small, casual Neapolitan pizza joint on Doyle Ave where the crusts come out light and airy with leopard-spotted undersides. The mosaic tables are too small for the number of pies you'll inevitably order, which everyone treats as charm. Punk plays over the wine, and the wood-fired oven doesn't fully beat the chill, so bring a sweater in winter. Takeout is popular, but the bar seats fill up fast.

A takeout window and a handful of outdoor tables set the pace at this casual vegetarian Indian spot in a Milpitas business park. The menu runs Mumbai-style: chaat, vada paav, paneer burgers with a satisfying crunch of breadcrumbs, and combo thalis that pull the whole meal together with dal, flatbread, and rice. It feeds the lunch crowd from surrounding offices without much fuss, which is exactly the point.

The back patio is the whole reason to come: a lush, sheltered garden that you'd never guess existed from the Hayes Street sidewalk. Arbor is a casual American comfort spot with a strong lean toward vegan options, serving burgers, chile cheese fries, and the kind of mac and cheese that makes you stop mid-sentence. On a sunny afternoon the patio fills up fast, which in San Francisco means you should probably just go on the next sunny afternoon.

Lobster bisque folded into soup dumplings is either a stroke of genius or a cry for help, and at this Lakewood bistro, it reads as the former. The menu roams freely, Korean short ribs landing next to Moroccan-spiced lamb hummus without any of it feeling forced. Crafty cocktails and a popular weekend brunch keep the room lively well past dinner, and the whole place has a glam, buzzy energy that Lakewood wears surprisingly well.

Part cafe, part bar, part gourmet market, Astoria spreads across a bright, bustling storefront in Detroit Shoreway where you can grab a bottle of wine and a wedge of imported cheese to take home or settle in for a full Mediterranean spread. The menu runs long, from mezze and salads to pizza and sandwiches, and brunch keeps the patio and bar seats filled well into the afternoon. It's the kind of neighborhood place that makes you feel slightly smug for living nearby.

Au Levain is a North Center bakery and cafe where the morning rush is a mix of couples nursing coffee, commuters grabbing a pastry on the way to work, and parents running crumb containment while a toddler dismantles a pain au chocolate. The croissants are the draw, with a honeycomb interior, and the sourdough english muffin breakfast sandwich has a way of lingering in your thoughts around dinnertime. It's on The Infatuation's list of Chicago's best bakeries.

Cactus Music curates the listening experience here, which tells you something about the clientele Hotel Saint Augustine is after. This hotel lounge sits across from the Menil campus and spills across three rooms of haute-design chairs and low couches, feeling more like someone's very tasteful living room than a hotel bar. The cocktail list is concise, the kitchen runs through the Bludorn team, and Montrose neighbors have adopted it accordingly.

Ba Mien is a big, casual Vietnamese dining room out on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East, where the menu goes well past the phở-and-spring-rolls starter pack. You can build your own rolls from grilled pork paste, fresh herbs, and crunchy vegetables, or order steamed rice rolls with peanut sauce. Come for breakfast and pair either one with French-dripped coffee and condensed milk, which is how most of the room seems to do it.

Two turntables live behind the bar at Bad Medicine, not as decoration but as the point, anchoring a listening bar built around a vintage hi-fi setup that takes the music as seriously as the drinks. It's a cocktail bar on Cleveland's west side with gastropub food to keep you planted. Original cocktails share the menu with riff classics, and smash burgers and Italian beef sandwiches handle the rest.

A strip mall bakery wedged between a boxing gym and a bar on Allisonville Road, which is somehow the right neighborhood for ginger molasses monkey bread and buttery pain au chocolat. The chef left a D.C. political career for New Orleans patisserie training before landing in Indianapolis, and the French technique comes through in pastries that have no business being this precise in a parking lot. Saturdays go fast.

The old-fashioned blueberry cake donut is the thing people make a specific trip for, and the shop has been turning them out near Trolley Square for longer than most of its regulars have been alive. This is a classic donut counter, cash-and-carry, nothing fussy, with apple fritters and cinnamon rolls alongside daily new flavors for anyone whose loyalty hasn't already been claimed by the blueberry cake.

This is a casual Logan Square counter where the name is the entire menu philosophy: pie and biscuits, no further questions. The biscuits come big and a little crisp, with butter inside and more butter on the side, plus seasonal jam in case that felt like too little butter. The pies rotate through flavors like apple cider donut and German chocolate, by the slice or whole, and eating one before noon is an option nobody will stop you from taking.

Fresh tortillas made from organic Mexican corn, nixtamalized in-house, anchor the menu at this gluten-free modern Mexican restaurant in Des Moines's East Village. The chef spent years in fine dining before a deep dive into masa sent him to Mexico to learn the process properly. The room is casual enough that tacos feel right, but steelhead trout with mole verde suggests the kitchen has more on its mind than just keeping things simple.

The neon pig out front has been guiding people to this barbecue institution for longer than most of its regulars have been alive. Ronald Johnson opened the place as a kid to save up for a bicycle, using his grandmother's hickory-smoked recipe, and has never stopped. The ribs are the reason people drive in from across the state, following that sign like it's pointing somewhere sacred, which, in Indianapolis barbecue terms, it more or less is.

Bayona is a Creole restaurant in a French Quarter cottage, and the courtyard out back is the move. It's all plants and cobblestones, enough of them to make a Roman side street feel underpaved. Tables here are for lingering, not turning, so you can take your time with a friend or two without being swept along by a tourist parade. Expect a proper sit-down dinner, so dress like someone who's about to be served duck liver pâté.

The communal high-top near the entrance is the first thing you notice, and on social hour nights it's the last thing you want to leave. Beckett's Table is a neighborhood restaurant in Arcadia doing Southwestern comfort food with the kind of ease that comes from a chef who's been cooking since childhood. The fork-tender short ribs and a fig-and-pecan pie that the city seems to have adopted as its own keep regulars coming back without much deliberation.

Eighteen holes of indoor mini-golf sharing a building with a full gastropub and two bars sets the tone at Birdietown, a sprawling two-level spot in Lakewood's Birdtown neighborhood. The chef is James Beard semifinalist Jill Vedaa, which explains why the food takes itself more seriously than the surroundings might suggest. Think date night, not birthday party, and come thirsty.

An ice cream shop that started as a walk-up window at a bar and somehow turned into a proper neighborhood institution in the Drake area. The from-scratch flavors lean hard into Midwestern nostalgia, think bomb pop sorbet and sweet corn with raspberry, which sounds like it shouldn't work until it does. The butter ice cream loaded with fried Twinkie chunks earns its following every state fair season. A second location has since opened in Valley Junction.

Blue Nile is a casual Ethiopian restaurant where dinner arrives on one big communal platter laid over injera, which doubles as the plate, the fork, and the napkin you wish you had. Come with friends and a willingness to eat with your hands. It's been doing this in Houston for ages, and the meal can end with a full coffee ceremony, which is a slower way to finish dinner than a check and a mint.

String lights, a sprawling patio, and a wedding venue next door set the tone at this cozy modern bistro tucked behind an office park in Mesa. It reads like an elegant garden party that wandered off and found a better location. The menu rotates with the seasons, leaning toward steaks, fresh seafood, and handmade pasta, with shareable starters and a dessert list worth saving room for. A Phoenix New Times top 50 pick.

Bochi Bochi is a Japanese street food trailer that started as a takoyaki cart and has since graduated to a full-size, whimsically decorated rig. The menu runs to comfort food, like fried chicken karaage and yaki udon topped with a fried egg, plus the okonomiyaki and kimchi tater tots that built the following. It moves around Boise, so check social media first, because showing up at an empty parking spot is no way to eat.

Black-and-white tile, Argentinian mementos on the walls, and a menu short enough to fit on a napkin: Boludo is a pizza and empanada shop that takes its cues from Buenos Aires. The chef trained in his grandmother's kitchen there before landing in Minneapolis, and the compact menu shows that restraint. The pizza crust has a faint sweetness that plays against the tangy tomato sauce, and the empanadas are dense and crispy-edged. Several locations around the Twin Cities, all doing takeout and delivery.

The chef caps Bosforo kebap at fifty daily, so ordering early isn't optional so much as strategic. This modern Turkish restaurant in Normal Heights serves wood-fired hummus, hand-minced beef skewers, and lahmacun alongside homestyle dishes the chef grew up on but couldn't find a reason to put on a menu until now. The room draws a neighborhood crowd that clearly got there before you.

The shokupan here is soft enough to make you question your relationship with crusts. Bread n' Chu is a Japanese-style sandwich counter on Clement Street where the egg salad is Kewpie-heavy and dill-flecked, the chicken katsu arrives with purple cabbage slaw, and the choux sandwich with strawberries and pastry cream exists primarily to be photographed. No seating, but there's a ledge by the window for exactly that purpose.

Brew is a casual bakery and cafe on Park Street in Five Points, where the unofficial motto is "not bad," a level of restraint the pastry case does not share. Eggs come on Texas toast or tucked into a pimento cheese kolache, and the layer cakes get ribbons of buttercream. Laptop people claim the booths while everyone else watches the street from the bar, with a torched marshmallow cube on top if it's cold.

Brine is a tiny San Marco seafood spot run by a married pair who spent years serving caviar bumps out of coffee shops and distilleries before anyone gave them a door. The tasting menu is crudo-heavy and runs a dozen courses, so wear something you can sit in. Lunch is walk-in, with a grilled cheese that sneaks caviar in, and aperitivo hour and $2 oyster Tuesdays keep the bill from getting ideas.

This is a small counter-service bakery in Greater Grand Crossing where the cakes are sold by the slice, so you can sample the whole case without committing to a wedding order. The caramel cake is the one people talk about, with light, open layers frosted so neatly it looks like a surveyor was involved. Cheesecake, pies, and cupcakes crowd the case too, and the line tends to move with the focus of people who already know their order.

Chandeliers hang over the shrimp and grits at this Southern comfort restaurant, which commits to the contradiction with a straight face. The menu runs through fried chicken and waffles, pimento mac and cheese, and biscuits, but the room is full date-night, not diner. The bourbon list is one of the longer ones in Iowa, which is saying something in a state that takes corn seriously. End with the hummingbird cake if you know what's good for you.

Budsi's is a sit-down Thai restaurant on a brick corner in the Marigny, a long way from the pop-up it started as. It's built for splitting things, so bring friends and let the table fill with wings, satays, and dumplings. Everyone gets their own curry or noodle dish, because sharing has limits. Going solo for a cocktail and larb is allowed, but the table does the real work here. The Infatuation includes it on its list of the city's best restaurants.

The wine list here gets talked about almost as much as the pizza, which is saying something given how good the Neapolitan pies are. This Brentwood pizzeria and wine bar keeps things simple: blistered crusts, quality toppings, and an affordable bottle selection that skews interesting rather than obvious. Rotating specials lean seasonal, and the appetizers hold their own. Casual enough for a weeknight, fun enough that you stay for another glass.