The Best Places in the United States

A food truck parked outside an auto repair shop on South First, Mi Lindo Apatzingán serves the kind of hyper-regional Michoacán cooking that doesn't turn up often anywhere in the Bay Area. The birria de lengua taco, beef tongue simmered in adobo until it collapses into sticky cubes, is the thing to order. Morisqueta, rice under soupy beans with stewed ribs, is worth the detour on its own. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best tacos in the Bay Area.

Mike's Kitchen is a cash-only, cafeteria-style Italian counter tucked inside a VFW outpost in Cranston, which means you order at the line and eat among Rhode Island accents thick enough to need subtitles. Polenta arrives as a soft, custardy square under red sauce, with a meatball or sausage on top. Bring bills, expect to hear about the old days, and don't be surprised if a neighbor offers beach advice unprompted.

Mings On Broad is a counter-service sandwich spot in Cranston where the fried chicken sandwich comes Asian-inspired and the portions seem to assume you're feeding a second person. Pho-tine fries arrive buried in beefy gravy and cheddar curds, and the pandan colada with toasted rice shows up to remind you there's a bar menu. The Infatuation put it on its Providence list. Order to go and eat it messily at home, unobserved.

Mixed Fillings is a pie shop where the key lime comes with a pretzel and brown sugar crust, which is the kind of thing that starts arguments among native Floridians who all have opinions about key lime. There are savory quiche slices too, and you can order flights of four or six to go, for people who can't commit to one pie. The owner also uses the shop to talk up local activism, so expect the conversation to run past dessert.

A wok that produces real smoky hei on Indo-Chinese noodles is a good sign you're not at a standard curry house. Munch India is a casual South Asian restaurant in Berkeley that draws from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, with California produce and the occasional Japanese ingredient folded into the mix. The menu rotates monthly, kebabs go over hardwood charcoal, and everything is available for takeout and delivery.

The barbacoa draws the crowd to this Michoacan-style taqueria in Redwood City, but the deeper menu rewards regulars who order cachete or nervio, the latter sticky with gelatinous fat in a way that takes some commitment. Everything arrives folded on yellow corn tortillas with a tangy salsa verde. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's finest tacos. It's small, parking is a project, and the whole experience costs almost nothing.

Neon pink flamingos and campy art line the walls of this cheerfully self-aware dive bar in Old Brooklyn, where a plain tavern exterior hides the kind of interior that knows exactly what it's doing. Draft cocktails and $3 beers anchor the drinks menu, but the food swings surprisingly hard: a Kobe beef frank topped with caviar and potato chips, udon in bone marrow broth. The crowd comes for the dive trappings and stays because the kitchen clearly didn't get that memo.

Detroit-style pan pizza in a small fast-casual shop on Edwards, where the menu started life on Instagram during the pandemic and somehow held together well enough to become a brick-and-mortar. You can grab a hot slice in house or take a par-baked pie home to finish yourself, which is either charming or suspicious depending on your mood. Toppings lean creative, hot honey buffalo chicken nuggets and fried Brussels sprouts, but the plain pepperoni holds its own too.

The brewing tanks practically share the room with you at this airy warehouse brewery on the edge of downtown Cleveland. Belgian strong ales, altbiers, and kölsches anchor the tap list, with hazy IPAs filling in the rest. The food runs to corndogs, nachos, and sandwiches, which is exactly what you want when you're sitting five feet from a working brewhouse.

Half Japanese grocery, half sushi bar, Noble Fish has been a Detroit-area institution for long enough that regulars have probably watched the dining room expand around them. The sushi counter is the draw: chefs assembling nigiri and sashimi with the kind of focus that makes you stop talking mid-sentence. Rolls run large, prices run reasonable, and the shelves of Japanese snacks and bottled teas make it hard to leave empty-handed.

Knife-cut noodles made in-house anchor the menu at this casual College Park storefront serving the bold flavors of northwest China. Mouth-numbing red chilies and black vinegar show up everywhere, from chili-oil dumplings to griddled flatbread sandwiches. Kumquat lemon tea and sour-plum juice are on hand for anyone who underestimated the heat. The University of Maryland crowd has clearly done the math on the price-to-fire ratio.

Taxidermy, graffitied walls, mannequins, shelves of old shoes, and a trippy dome with bean bag chairs on the second floor: Notsuoh is less a dive bar and more a three-story cabinet of curiosities that also happens to serve drinks. The art is strange, the vibe is stranger, and the whole place reads like a dare Houston issues to anyone who thinks Austin has a monopoly on weird. An old-school Main Street institution that earns every square foot.

Noura Cafe is a casual Lebanese counter spot in Jacksonville that doubles as a small grocery, so you can order a desert rider, that cold-cut-stuffed pita the city is oddly devoted to, and leave with imported tahini and lupini beans. Shawarma platters and kibbeh share the menu with Egyptian stews, and neighborhood moms grab spinach pies on the way home from work. It's cheap, quick, and nobody's dressed up.

O-Ku is a high-end sushi restaurant on a stretch of First Street better known for bars, snacks, and anything that can be fried. Real shoes are encouraged. It's the sort of place you bring a date to prove you can think past the California roll. The signature rolls pair wagyu with tempura shrimp, which is surf n' turf by way of Jacksonville Beach, and the menu is part of a small national izakaya chain.

Obon Shokudo is a small, bright Japanese comfort food spot on SE Grand where the whole menu happens to be vegan, a fact it mentions about as loudly as a houseplant. Udon comes in brothy curry or chilled with sesame, and the onigiri get a smear of miso made from things like hominy or pistachios. Fermented hot sauce and tofu get made in-house too. Portland Monthly put it on its 50 Best Restaurants list.

An Armenian and Caucasian grill tucked into an Aurora strip mall, where the khachapuri arrives topped with egg and cheese and the beef dumplings, called khinkali, are large enough to require a small plan of attack. The menu runs from hearty stews and hand-pulled noodles to eggplant rolls stuffed with garlic-walnut spread. Georgian wine, from a region that considers itself the cradle of viticulture, is the right call alongside any of it.

Othello is a tapas restaurant in Springfield's Historic District, where pothos spills off the bar and moody pendant lights do most of the flirting. The kitchen leans Spanish and Mediterranean, and dinner starts with a choice of house-baked breads, which is a decision you'll take more seriously than expected. The cocktails go heavy on amari, and the string-lit patio is the move on a mild night, especially for a date.

A family-owned restaurant and market where the steam trays hold Samoan turkey tails, Tongan taro leaf stew with lamb, and Hawaiian musubi, not the usual local lunch options. The LDS church's long missionary ties to the Pacific islands drew Polynesian communities to Salt Lake City, and Pacific Seas has quietly become their gathering place. Cool off with a mango 'otai, a blended coconut-and-pineapple drink that earns its space on the tray.

Halal tandoori from a wood-fired oven and curries priced so low you'll order three things you didn't plan to, at a Pakistani-Indian restaurant that's been a Tenderloin fixture long enough to feel like infrastructure. The chickpea masala and chicken tikka masala are the moves, with naan arriving in quantities that suggest the kitchen is rooting for you. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the top South Asian spots in the Bay Area.

A pop-up food stand rooted in two traditions, Liberian and Jamaican, that the co-owner grew up eating. The menu built around jerk chicken wings and jollof rice draws long lines wherever it lands, whether that's the downtown farmers market every other week or the sprawling Ragbrai bike ride across the state. In Iowa, in February, the smell of jerk spice doing its work is a reasonable argument for following a food stand around like a grateful stray.

This is a Pilsen panadería where you grab a tray and a pair of tongs at the door, which makes you feel briefly like you work there. The shelves of Mexican pan dulce run from cocoa-dusted conchas to molasses-heavy marranitos, and a dozen kinds of tortillas, spinach and black bean jalapeño among them, cover the savory side. Nothing costs much, so you'll leave with far more than you planned.

The former showroom for Vitrolite tile is now an all-day Italian-leaning cafe in Ohio City, and the bones of it still run the room: fifteen-foot ceilings, graceful arches, and walls covered in pigmented glass tile in colors that catch the afternoon light. The menu is lean and unhurried, moving from morning coffee through grain salads and warm vegetables to aperitivo by early evening, which is exactly the kind of pacing Cleveland did not know it needed.

A Vietnamese soup-and-sandwich counter tucked inside C Fresh Market, which means you might reach your table past a wall of fish sauce and dried noodles. The pho bowls are the main event, deep and aromatic, and the banh mi are packed with enough herbs to qualify as a salad. Order the wonton soup too. The name comes from north-central Iowa's area code, a quiet nod to the community that built the place.

A curry-spiced butterscotch custard pie brought two coworkers together, and now their baking operation has a loyal following that lines up at farmers markets and pop-ups across Des Moines. Pie Bird is a preorder-and-pickup pie shop, with weekly Friday handoffs at a couple of local spots, slinging whole pies, galettes, and hand pies, many finished with intricate pastry work that makes cutting into them feel vaguely rude.

Pierrot Gourmet is a French bakery-cafe attached to the Peninsula Hotel, which means it's the one place in that building where nobody asks you to dress up. Grab a seat among the brunching tourists if you like, but the to-go line is where the flaky chocolate croissants, hefty cinnamon rolls, and tarts shaped like chrysanthemums are moving. The Infatuation includes it on its Chicago bakeries list.

A century-old house on artsy Larchmere, converted into a full-service restaurant with mahogany fixtures, exposed wood beams, and a four-seat cocktail bar that makes the wait feel intentional. Seating spills onto an enclosed porch, a renovated second floor, and a patio with its own bar in the carriage house. The chef's seasonal small and large plates shift with what's good, and the cocktails are taken as seriously as the food.