The Best Places in the United States

Eight suites, twenty-four guests at a time, and a thousand acres of Clark Fork riverfront along the edge of Lolo National Forest: RiverView Ranch keeps the headcount low on purpose. This Forbes Five Star all-inclusive ranch outside Missoula covers everything from airport transfers to meals to fly-fishing, with horses, snowmobiles, and hiking trails filling the gaps. The kind of place where the wilderness is the amenity and solitude is the whole point.

The façade is modeled on the Ritz Paris, which tells you exactly what you're in for at this Forbes Five Star resort in the Pennsylvania countryside. Inside, vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and white-gloved butlers on the club level set the tone. The grounds, though, are where things get interesting: two golf courses, Polaris off-road adventures, and, yes, actual zoo animals wandering the property.

Spanish-revival arches and Turkish rugs set the tone at this Forbes Five Star resort on its own private island off the Georgia coast. The original building came from Addison Mizner, the architect who shaped Palm Beach, and the Mediterranean bones are still intact. A raw bar handles the post-beach oysters; the Georgian Room handles the formal Southern dinners. Families with sandy kids and couples in linen share the same long driveways without it feeling awkward.

Three championship golf courses roll right up to the guestrooms at this Forbes Five Star lodge on St. Simons Island, styled after an English manor with hardwood floors, exposed beam ceilings, and private balconies facing either the fairways or the Atlantic. Forty-three rooms and suites keep things intimate, and the Golf Performance Center draws the kind of guest who brings their own glove. Sister property The Cloister, just nearby, adds a spa and beach club to the itinerary.

Parked at the foot of Rodeo Drive, this grande dame hotel has been a soft landing for Hollywood royalty since forever, most famously a long-term residence for Warren Beatty back in his bachelor years. Rooms run to white and pastel blue, Wolfgang Puck's CUT steakhouse anchors the ground floor, and the pool is the Mediterranean-fantasy kind that makes you feel famous even if no one recognizes you.

Casitas scattered across 40 desert acres make it easy to forget the other 209 guests exist. This Forbes Four Star, Michelin Key resort sits at the foot of Pinnacle Peak, where saguaros do the landscaping and Troon North's two golf courses are practically at the door. The pool is a genuine refuge from the Scottsdale heat, the spa runs Four Star as well, and Talavera handles dinner. Phoenix is a short drive whenever the desert quiet starts feeling too quiet.

Shingled walls, porches aimed at the water, bocce on the lawn, and a private beach on Quonochontaug Pond: Weekapaug Inn has been a summer retreat on Rhode Island's southern coast for as long as anyone's grandparents can remember. Antiques and coastal touches fill the rooms, sailing and bird-watching fill the days, and the whole thing holds a Forbes Five Star without feeling the need to remind you of it. Old New England ease, genuinely unforced.

The only adults-only hotel on the sprawling Boca Raton resort grounds, the Yacht Club is an all-suite property where champagne meets you at check-in and a floor butler handles the rest. All 112 suites have private balconies facing the marina, the lake, or the Atlantic. A Forbes Five Star. The top-floor restaurant is exclusive to guests, and the wider resort's beach, golf, spa, and pickleball courts are all yours.

The open kitchen runs long and hot, with live fire doing most of the talking at this upscale American restaurant inside the Fairmont Austin. The menu moves between bright, acid-forward starters and serious grilled meat, so a table here tends to drift toward the Akaushi wagyu by the end of the night. The cooking holds its own well away from hotel-restaurant expectations, which is saying something in a city with no shortage of smoke and ambition.

Glossy emerald-green tiles frame an open kitchen inside the Tampa EDITION, where John Fraser runs a plant-forward contemporary Mediterranean prix-fixe. The menu moves through a sequence of bites, small plates, and mains, leaning on seasonal vegetables without making a point of it. The wine list skews expensive. Lilac holds a Michelin star, a Forbes Four Star, and four AAA Diamonds, which together give a fair sense of how dinner is likely to go.

A churro waffle with a cult following and a soft pretzel served with butter blended from guinea hen fat says about everything you need to know about Valentine's priorities. This all-day cafe and restaurant in the Melrose District does wood-fired Sonoran cooking with Arizona ingredients treated like the whole point, not a talking point. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, and the elote pasta has its own fan club. The vintage furniture store in the back is not a joke.

The exterior is blanketed in ivy, which tells you everything about this hotel's priorities before you even check in. A high-design, sustainability-forward luxury stay on Demonbreun, 1 Hotel Nashville trades neon and boot-scootin' for reclaimed wood, organic textures, and views over downtown that some terraced rooms get all to themselves. The Bamford spa, a rooftop bar, and a farm-to-table restaurant round things out. It holds a Michelin Key.

A sharp-angled modernist building on the Southwest Waterfront, a short distance from Capitol Hill but feeling nothing like it. This 131-room hotel from the Montage group holds a rooftop bar with a circular bar and Potomac views, an all-day Latin American restaurant with water vistas, and a moody ground-floor bar wrapped in navy and gold palms. Check-in happens seated, at a desk by a fireplace, which sets the residential tone. It holds a Michelin Key.

A 17-million-gallon lagoon sits outside the door, and guests spend their days kayaking, paddleboarding, or simply floating around what amounts to a manufactured beach in landlocked Orlando. The Conrad is a Forbes Four Star resort with 433 rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and two Jack Nicklaus golf courses competing for attention with the water slides. Walt Disney World is less than three miles away, so the clientele write themselves.

Herzog & de Meuron designed the building, which tells you immediately this isn't the usual DC hotel playing dress-up in neoclassical marble. The Conrad is a luxury hotel sitting above CityCenterDC, with interiors by Rottet Studio that feel genuinely considered rather than generically plush. Estuary does Chesapeake Bay flavors downstairs, and the rooftop bar Summit has the kind of panoramic view that makes visitors feel briefly important.

The Carousel Bar in the lobby actually revolves, one full rotation every fifteen minutes, which tells you almost everything about the Hotel Monteleone's commitment to a good time. This old-school French Quarter institution has marble floors, brass fixtures, and enough chandeliers to give the lobby its own weather system. A rooftop pool and full spa mean you can stay put, which, given the address on Royal Street, is a genuine temptation.

Chef John Tesar's chophouse inside the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes fills a large, dimly lit room done in weathered wood and beachy tones, with an open kitchen in the back and a well-stocked bar up front. Dry-aged steaks share the menu with top-shelf seafood and pastas that take a turn nobody saw coming, cacio e pepe made with ube noodles being the kind of detail that earns the conversation. The cocktail list keeps pace.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the Pacific at this fine dining room inside the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, where sunset turns the whole place gold about halfway through your second course. The cooking is polished contemporary California, classical in technique and easy in register, the kind of meal where luxury is implied rather than announced. A Michelin Selected Restaurant holding AAA Four Diamonds and a Forbes Four Star.

A gilded woolly mammoth by Damien Hirst anchors the courtyard outside, and the gold-domed dining room inside doesn't exactly dial it down. This hotel restaurant at the Faena runs a short menu that pulls from across Asia, loosely interpreted, with dishes that move between sweet, savory, and spicy in the same bite. The kind of place where the room is doing a lot of work, and the food quietly keeps pace.

The copper kitchen gleams open to the dining room, so you can watch the brigade work while you eat. This is the hotel restaurant at JW Marriott Grande Lakes, doing contemporary Italian with enough confidence that it doesn't feel like a hotel restaurant. Small plates, housemade pasta, and roast chicken in parmesan brodo sit alongside each other without apology. The room runs to booths and banquettes in soft, muted tones, and the bread arrives before anything needs deciding.

Genting Palace is a white-tablecloth Chinese dining room inside Resorts World, with high ceilings, floral wallpaper, and tables spaced far enough apart that nobody hears your negotiations over the duck. Dinner is Cantonese fine dining, and the Sunday seafood buffet sets up in the same formal room, complete with a carving station. It holds a Forbes Four Star, so wear something with a collar.

Cocktail menus organized light to full-bodied are a small kindness this bar extends before you've even ordered. Highball is a dimly lit cocktail bar on the second floor of a historic building in downtown Phoenix, doing the speakeasy thing with genuine commitment. Housemade ingredients show up throughout a lengthy menu where the flavor combinations tend toward the unexpected. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist, and a first-date spot that actually earns the designation.

A lakeside terrace with a direct view of the water is a strong opening argument for any pizza shop, and Robert's doesn't squander it. The pies have a crispy, well-salted crust and toppings that lean generous rather than restrained, built for sharing. The room itself is airy, anchored by a big bar counter, and the staff treats you like an actual guest. It landed at #8 on 50 Top Pizza USA, which tracks.

Rows of reclaimed leather belts line the wall behind the front desk, which sets the tone for this 171-room boutique hotel in the Domain Northside shopping district. Hill Country rusticity runs through the whole property: cowhide chairs, blue velvet armchairs by a fireplace, and a neon phrase borrowed from a Texas Tornados song. It holds a Forbes Four Star rating, and sits close enough to the Austin tech campuses to pull a reliably well-dressed business crowd.

Porthole windows punched into a bright white facade give this boutique hotel the silhouette of an elegant liner docked in Coconut Grove. The Cipriani family designed it around the idea of a modern yacht club, so the nautical theme earns its keep rather than feeling like a theme park. A rooftop Italian restaurant, a science-focused spa, and bay-adjacent surroundings round things out. It holds a Michelin Key.

The horchata cream doughnut sells out early, which tells you everything about the pace of a morning here. Casaema is a daytime cafe in Houston Heights rooted in Mexican foodways, with a pastry case full of conchas and guava-queso empanadas alongside a coffee menu running café de olla lattes and piloncillo chai. The chilaquiles are built on housemade chips with brisket. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Recycled wood, river stone, and living moss walls set the mood at this eco-minded luxury hotel on the Embarcadero, steps from the Ferry Building and whatever the farmers market left out this morning. The 186 rooms lean bright and airy, a contrast to the moody lobby, and the Bay Bridge sits right there in the window. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Fátima Juárez nixtamalizes heirloom Mexican corn every morning to produce blue, red, and yellow masa, which explains why the tortillas at this molino inside Mercado La Paloma have their own devoted following. The short menu runs through tacos, tlacoyos, and chucitos, but the molotes de plátano, plantain dumplings fried crisp around fresh quesillo and floated in mole negro, landed on the New York Times list of best dishes in the country. Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The name says it all: "anju" means Korean food made to go with a drink, and this gastropub on 18th Street takes that premise seriously, with soju, makgeolli, and beer running alongside a menu of fried snacks, rich stews, and banchan. Brick walls, wood floors, and a bit of funky art make it feel like a neighborhood spot that happens to be packed every night. The chef is a James Beard nominee, and the cooking has a mom's-kitchen warmth that earns that comparison without being sentimental.

The lobby is as big as a city block and designed, without apology, for people who will open a laptop in it. Ace Hotel Brooklyn is a Michelin Key hotel sitting on the edge of Boerum Hill, where the industrial bones and deliberately low-key atmosphere draw the kind of guests who prefer brownstone streets over Midtown. The Brooklyn Heights Promenade is a short walk, and the ground floor bar handles the rest of your evening.

Kelly Wearstler's maximalist redesign of an old private club turned this 147-room hotel into something you'll spend a full check-in trying to take in. Original monogrammed doorknobs, hidden messages embedded in the art, a sweeping lobby mural by Abel Macias, rugs and tiles pulled from Turkey, Morocco, and Mexico. Two restaurants, three bars, and a rooftop pool mean you can stay busy without leaving. It holds a Michelin Key.

The kiva fireplace in the lobby is going year-round, and the handcrafted doors are so heavy they make every entrance feel vaguely ceremonial. This Rosewood hotel sits a block from the Santa Fe Plaza in a pueblo-style building that reads more like a serious local artifact than a luxury property, with vigas overhead, local art on the walls, and a restaurant that takes New Mexican culinary tradition at face value. It holds a Michelin Key.

A 19th-century mansion on its own private peninsula in Newport, Castle Hill Inn sits where Narragansett Bay opens up and the light does something unreasonable at sunset. The 33 rooms spread across the main house and shingled cottages along the water. Breakfast, afternoon tea, a lighthouse trail, and sunset sails are all part of it. Forbes Four Star and a Michelin two-key property.

A Greg Norman-designed golf course and a 40,000-square-foot spa suggest this Forbes Four Star resort has no real interest in competing with the theme park circus a few miles up the road. The JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes sits on its own landscaped grounds with a waterpark for the kids and a reimagined lobby lounge for the adults who pretend they don't also enjoy a waterpark.

The clock in the lobby and the gilded Peacock Alley lounge are lifted straight from the New York original, which is either charming or slightly unsettling depending on your relationship with theme parks. This Forbes Four Star resort earns its keep with a nature preserve on one side, a golf course on the other, and genuinely attentive service throughout. Magic Kingdom is fifteen minutes away, but the pool makes it easy to forget that entirely.

Crystal chandeliers run the full length of the marble lobby, which makes entering feel like an event before you've even checked in. This grand Waldorf Astoria hotel has been around forever, and the bones show it, from the vintage timepieces anchoring the corridor to the historic Sazerac Bar just off the lobby. The rooms are plush and numerous, the staff quietly expert at making famous guests disappear.

Oysters dressed with curry emulsions and Kashmiri chili signal right away that this modern Indian restaurant is not following a familiar script. The menu traces the chef's path through the Maldives, Seychelles, and beyond, so coastal raw bar items sit alongside the subcontinent's spice pantry without apology. The room leans toward subdued opulence, the plating rewards a camera, and a James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant keeps the ambitions in view.

Soup dumpling tortellini is either a great idea or a cry for help, and at Maxwells Trading it reads as the former. This contemporary restaurant in the West Loop packs a converted warehouse, where the bar stretches nearly the full length of the room and the kitchen folds Japanese, Chinese, and Thai threads into a single, coherent menu. A rooftop herb garden feeds the kitchen. Named a James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Great Lakes two years running.

Sky-high ceilings, velvet drapes, and cushy curved booths set the stage for chef Tara Monsod's Filipino- and Asian-inflected steakhouse, a room that takes a night out seriously. The menu moves between wagyu, kinilaw, and kare kare without apology, and the bar is worth a stop on its own. Monsod is a two-time James Beard nominee for Best Chef California, which tracks with how the kitchen handles comfort food this opulent.

Warm ochre walls, bookshelves stacked with dried flowers, and handmade pasta that regularly lands a James Beard nomination: this cozy Italian restaurant on Free Street is the kind of neighborhood spot that somehow becomes a national conversation. The chef's shapes and sauces pull from whatever local producers are doing well right now, and the wine program is its own reason to linger. Settle in and watch Portland's Arts District do its thing out the window.

The digital windows scroll through passing landscapes while you sit inside a wood-paneled Presidential Pullman car that never moves, which is either the concept or the joke, possibly both. Platform 18 is a reservation-only immersive cocktail bar built around Prohibition-era drinks and Roaring Twenties New York. The Pinnacle Guide awarded it 2 Pins. Book ahead; walk-ins go nowhere fast.

The open kitchen here runs on live fire: a wood-burning oven, a grill, and a turnspit that turns out roasted pork while chefs pull oysters and raid a glass-windowed vegetable humidor in full view of the dining room. It's a New England restaurant in a high-ceilinged brick warehouse above the Old Port, and a James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur winner. The rope-cultured mussels in garlic-almond butter are the kind of thing regulars order without looking up.

Fifteen acres of Newport Beach waterfront, a Forbes Four Star resort where the concierge can send you off in a vintage Mustang, color of your choosing, with maps and a packed picnic basket. Summer concerts, outdoor films, and Fourth of July barbecues keep the calendar full. Drive the coast toward Laguna Beach, and if the timing cooperates, blue whales and dolphins are out there doing their thing too.

The comal choricero never stops, and every cut of pig goes in at a different moment so the lard carries the memory of everything that came before it. This tiny taqueria on the Lower East Side does pork and pork only, from snout to cheek to offal, wrapped in homemade tortillas with fresh salsa. Paint buckets double as seats. The chef earned a James Beard nomination, and the Times put it among New York's best new restaurants of 2024.

The name means "simmered," which tells you something about the chef's approach: unhurried, precise, nothing showing off. This is a casual French prix-fixe counter in the Mission, built around a weekly four-course menu that follows Northern California's seasons and a natural wine list that would feel at home in a Paris cave. The chef trained in France via Japan, and the room, all warm wood and open kitchen, has the nerve to be unpretentious about it. A James Beard nominee.

The six-acre pool deck alone gives you some sense of the scale here. This resort on the Strip draws from its Miami Beach namesake but runs considerably larger and louder, with a vast casino, a 3,800-seat theatre, and a spa that requires its own navigation. Rooms are plush without apology. The dining lineup reads like a celebrity-chef roll call. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Pasta anchors the menu, but the chef insists Wildweed isn't an Italian restaurant, and a rib eye with umeboshi, seaweed jelly, and fermented crab makes a reasonable case. This Over-the-Rhine dinner spot grew out of years of pop-ups, and the bar counter lets you watch the kitchen work through every strange, precise move. Named to the New York Times Restaurant List and a James Beard nominee, it earns the attention without seeming to chase it.

The cabin is dressed in burnt orange and warm walnut, the windows show a looping blue-yonder reel, and a flight attendant is rolling the beverage cart your way. Carry On is an immersive cocktail lounge built around the first-class, Mad Men-era flight fantasy, preflight announcements and all. Reservations drop weekly and go fast, so plan accordingly. The Spirited Awards named it a Top 10 U.S. Nominee for Best New Cocktail Bar.

A wide, foldable New York-style slice in a city that usually wants to put mango on everything takes a certain conviction. Miami Slice is a no-reservations counter in the Arts District, fast and focused, with a short menu of recognizable pies and a crust that stays crisp without going brittle. The line moves constantly between people eating in and people walking out. 50 Top Pizza placed it third in the country for slices.

The ceiling is covered in thousands of clay churchwarden pipes, each one claimed by a regular who never came back to collect it. Keens is an old-school Manhattan steakhouse in Midtown, all dark wood and white tablecloths, and the mutton chop alone has landed on the New York Times list of the city's defining dishes. The porterhouse is USDA Prime, dry-aged in-house, and broiled without apology. It sits at number 68 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.