The Best Places in the United States

The live seafood tanks near the entrance set the agenda at this Cantonese dining room, where the kitchen has been turning out Hong Kong-style crab, lobster, and fresh fish for Houston since the family arrived from Hong Kong decades ago. Weekend dim sum draws a crowd that knows better than to sleep in. It's a big, bustling room, and the sweet-glazed barbecue pork alone tends to settle any argument about where to sit.

A counter-service taco joint in The Heights where the filling can come from just about anywhere on the map, including Thai-style chicken, lamb keema, falafel, and fried oysters with ranch slaw. You order at the counter, grab a frozen margarita, and land in a dining room painted a shade of orange that commits fully. The patio is the move when the weather cooperates, and the queso and hummus both turn up for sharing. The Infatuation put it on its Houston tacos list.

The Galloway Trail runs right past the back fence, so the patio fills up with cyclists and runners who've just earned something fried. This casual American bar and grill keeps things straightforward: big sandwiches, Frito pie, barbecue-sauced burgers, the kind of food that makes a two-hour ride feel like a sound investment. Sun shades cover the back-corner tables where you can hear the trail traffic rolling by outside.

A roadhouse that means it when it says farm-to-table Italian, Giaco's sits a five-minute drive from Samuel P. Taylor State Park, which matters more than you'd think by night two of camping. There's a bar up front, a cozy dining room in back, and a patio when the weather cooperates. The wood-fired pizzas run a little bready, but creative toppings carry them, and the saffron arancini with Point Reyes truffle cheese earns its place on the menu.

Giordano's is a Chicago pizza chain built around the stuffed pie, which is deep dish with a second crust sealed over the cheese and then buried in tomato sauce, like a pizza that got tucked in for the night. Slices arrive tall and heavy, so plan on a fork and a nap. The menu riffs on gyros and Juicy Lucy burgers, and Eater has named it one of the city's deep-dish picks.

Gold Tooth Tony's is a casual pizza joint built around Detroit-style pies, with a thick, focaccia-meets-sourdough crust that makes a good case for carbs as a personality. There's a Houston-style pie too, a New York and Detroit hybrid, plus pizza tots and fish and chips for anyone who came for the not-pizza. Order at the counter, wear whatever, and stay out of the arugula-pesto debate. It's on Eater's best pizza list.

A no-frills Vietnamese lunch spot on the edge of Portsmouth Square, where the best move on a sunny day is to grab takeout and eat in the park while retired neighbors argue card games at the tables nearby. Pho, grilled meats, rice plates, and vermicelli salads are the whole program, exactly as advertised. The spring rolls, fried in rice paper, come out blistered and genuinely airy in a way that's hard to explain until you've had one.

The garlic fries alone have launched a thousand detours off the freeway. Gott's is a California roadside grill doing burgers and shakes with Niman Ranch beef and seafood sourced with the same seriousness, which is more than most places in this price range bother with. The classic cheeseburger hits the produce-and-seared-beef formula cleanly, and when the soft-shell crab sandwich is on the menu, it's the move. Plenty of outdoor tables if the sun cooperates.

Gourmet Island is a weekday-only lunch counter in a Ruffin Road business park, where the salad menu runs long enough to need its own filing system. Eater put it on its list of the best salads in San Diego. The family behind it has been at this for ages, and the daily specials that catch on get promoted to the permanent menu. Order at the counter, then take your arugula and beets out to the open-air patio, ideally before the cubicle rush.

Greenberg's is a counter-service deli tucked under the fake apartment facade inside New York-New York, which is about as close as Las Vegas gets to a bodega with a sense of humor. The morning special runs under ten dollars and includes coffee, and the croissant sandwiches arrive roughly the size of a hubcap. A pastrami and corned beef breakfast burrito also exists here, and nobody in the building seems alarmed.

A small French sandwich shop on Cedar Street where the main event is a buttermilk-fried chicken cutlet on a Semifreddi's roll, craggy-coated and topped with a creamy, spicy slaw. The potato puffs are the other reason people come, little pillowy spheres that have built a loyal following on their own. A few sidewalk tables exist, but most orders leave in a bag headed for Live Oak Park.

Guard and Grace is a downtown Houston steakhouse where a dramatic installation of bronze rods does the decorating, and the corporate lunch crowd gives way to date-night lighting after dark. There's a seafood bar for the shellfish-first set. The filet flight pairs prime wagyu with angus, for diners who can't commit. Expect expense-account prices and a dress code of "just came from a meeting."

Guerrilla Pizza Company is a casual Detroit-style pizza counter in the Soho Lofts space on the Strip's southern edge, where the pies come in small rectangles with caramelized, crispy edges. One of them is topped like a cheeseburger, pickles and burger sauce included, which tells you how seriously everyone is taking themselves. Order the garlic tots, wear whatever you flew in wearing, and Eater has called it the best pizza in town.

The guiso sauce, a peppery family recipe passed down from the chef's grandmother, shows up across the menu at this Salvadoran and Caribbean restaurant in downtown Healdsburg. It's casual but serious, the kind of upscale Latin spot where the staff hug regulars and explain the story behind every dish. Restaurant workers from around the county fill the tables, which is usually a reliable sign of something.

Checkerboard tablecloths and divey walls set the scene at this beloved fried chicken shop, where the bird arrives hand-battered and properly spicy. Memphis is barbecue country, and Gus's seems fine with the argument. Sides run to okra, beans, and mac and cheese, and a half-dozen pies baked daily close things out. The Front Street location is the one for anyone staying downtown.

The focaccia at this Italian sandwich shop and pizzeria is springy enough to qualify as a mattress topping, then loaded with stracciatella, 'nduja, pistachio butter, or artichoke cream. A deli counter runs along one side, stocked with mortadella, salami, and prosciutto that get hand-sliced to order. Roman-style pizza sits out in thick, dimpled slabs. Bring cash for lunch and a plan for a slow afternoon.

This is a Guy Fieri sports bar at Caesars Palace, which means flame-adorned everything and a name that commits fully to the bit. The bottomless brunch is the sleeper move on the Strip, with banana custard French toast, brisket mac and cheese, and biscuits and gravy refilled on request. It costs less than most Vegas cocktails, and The Infatuation put it on its list of the best cheap eats in town.

The homemade pita, puffy and fresh, is the detail that keeps ASU students coming back across generations at this no-frills Tempe restaurant and grocery. Shawarma, falafel, kebabs, and baba ghanoush fill the menu at prices that don't require a financial aid disbursement. Baklava in pistachio and Arizona pecan closes things out. The strip-mall setting is deeply unromantic, which seems to be the point.

Half Shell is a Tom Douglas seafood restaurant in the old Etta's space on Western Ave, back to oysters after a short barbecue phase nobody asked for. Local oyster farms rotate through, and the menu runs from king salmon to a caviar service for people who've had a good quarter. The happy hour shrimp nugget slider on a pull-apart roll is the move for everyone else.

Diners at this casual Millbrae Korean spot can be spotted holding oxtails up to the light like jewelers, hunting for every last scrap of meat. Han Sang runs on bone broth soups and sliced beef, the kind of cooking that earns regulars fast. The sul long tang, a cloudy white stock loaded with brisket, tongue, and tendon, arrives unseasoned so you can salt it yourself, which somehow makes it feel more personal.

Hando is a hand roll counter in the Heights where you perch on a stool and eat with your fingers, which is the correct way to eat a hand roll anyway. The sets come in three, four, or five rolls, the spicy tuna one carries real heat, and robata and small plates fill the gaps. Happy hour runs daily with $7 cocktails, and the speakeasy next door handles the nightcap, because Houston apparently needs a hidden bar for everything.

The password comes from their social media, which is either charmingly old-fashioned or exactly what a speakeasy is now. Either way, the third-floor of one of Orlando's oldest buildings is a genuinely dim, close-quarters cocktail bar where the drinks are stiff and the couples are very comfortable with each other. A small outdoor ledge offers escape when the room gets cozy. Dress the part and look like you belong.

Happy Camper is a covered patio pizza spot at the Fashion Show Mall, which is a sentence nobody would have predicted about a mall. There are disco balls, lawn games, and fire pits, plus both cracker-thin tavern pies and chewier classic ones. The morning shift runs on bottomless mimosas and a bacon, cheddar, and egg breakfast pizza, a very Vegas answer to the question of what to do about last night. Casual, shorts-friendly, and priced like pizza.

Mojitos are the organizing principle at this Cuban restaurant and bar in Walnut Creek, and the menu runs a dozen or so of them, spiked with guava or prickly pear depending on your mood. Floral-print booths line the walls, a long communal table anchors the middle, and the patio fills fast on weekends. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best restaurants in Walnut Creek. Come thirsty and order the ropa vieja empanadas while you figure out the rest.

Haven Farm and Table is a daytime restaurant planted on a three-acre working farm in Encinitas, with a glass ceiling that lets the sun in and a menu that mostly walks over from the rows outside. Salads are the main event here, which is a sentence that usually ends in disappointment elsewhere. Eater has put it on its list of San Diego's best salads. Expect farm-adjacent casual, not a tasting menu.

Hearthstone Kitchen and Cellar is a casual, wood-fired-pizza-and-wings restaurant at Red Rock Resort that closed and then reopened in the exact same space, which is either bold or just good real estate. It's built for easy weekends in Summerlin, with chicken lollipop wings, $1 oyster Wednesdays, and a brunch where $25 bottomless mimosas and bloody marys keep the tab honest. Eater lists it among its best Las Vegas brunches.

Heavenly Pies is a pizzeria out in the Southern Highlands suburbs, run by a chef who spent years in a Venetian fine-dining kitchen and now makes pies with brie, speck, and black truffle tomato. There's also a green one loaded with asparagus and rapini, for people who want their vegetables and a crust in one motion. Eater has put it on a list of the city's top pizza, and you can order ahead on the website.

The Hound Dog cocktail is built around local bourbon, amaro, and a nod to Elvis that, yes, does go without saying. Hen House is a wine and cocktail bar in East Memphis that reads more like someone's well-appointed living room than a proper bar, which is either the owner's California sensibility or just good instincts. The food menu runs to duck and shrimp and grits, and the whole thing manages unpretentious and sophisticated without trying too hard at either.

The general store shelves stocked with local goods are the first thing you notice, and then the smell hits you. Henderson & Kane is a barbecue joint embedded inside a working grocery, slinging peppery brisket, smoked boudin, pulled pork, and ribs alongside Frito pie and loaded potatoes. The Pitmaster Plate exists for the indecisive, which in a lineup this long describes most people. Cash-and-tray Texas barbecue, done in a room full of surprises.

Getting in means walking through a brightly lit sundry shop that sells newspapers and cherry blossom Kit Kats, then pushing a bookcase that leans inward to reveal a dim cocktail bar. Red lanterns glow overhead, neon tigers face off above leather booths, and the Japanese whiskey list rewards lingering. It sits in the Resorts World food hall, so expect conventioneers feeling very clever.

High Steaks looks like every other Vegas steakhouse until you reach the "hunt" section of the menu, where elk, boar, and bison sit beside a "lion" entree that turns out to be a mushroom. That's a gentle joke on the carnivores. The rest stays in familiar territory with porterhouses, lobster chowder, and baked potatoes, then closes on Key lime doughnuts or a seasonal souffle. Eater lists it among the city's best steakhouses.

A sushi restaurant just outside the Heights where the bar seats fill up with people who already know what they're ordering. The menu moves from cold sashimi plates through specialty maki and into nigiri and tempura, so there's room to graze or commit to a full spread. The patio exists for the handful of Houston evenings cool enough to justify it, which locals treat as a minor holiday.

Hold Fast is a Springfield craft brewery with a patio strung with lights and a rotating cast of food trucks pulling up to feed whoever's around. The house golden ale, the Patio Pleaser, is the kind of thing you order without overthinking it. Hammons Field is a short walk away, so the crowd skews toward Cardinals fans doing some productive pre-game research. Live music most nights keeps things lively without tipping into loud.

Home Slice is a casual Austin pizzeria where the pies come the size of a hubcap and the debates run to which Mario Kart character you'd room with. Order it by the slice if you're solo, or split an Italian sub, wings, and a Greek salad that somehow feels like a plot twist. It's counter-service beer-and-negroni territory, and shorts are the dress code.

Hong Hua is a white-tablecloth Chinese restaurant in Farmington Hills where the main event is Beijing duck, carved tableside by a server whose knife work gets a small audience. You can have it crispy with honey-glazed skin and crepes, or boneless and stir-fried with vegetables. The dining room is all dark woods and warm tones, a good setting for a family dinner, and the honey-glazed barbecue pork keeps the table busy while you wait.