The Best Places in the United States

Spago is a business-casual fine-dining room at Bellagio, and its patio has a front-row view of the fountains, which is why you'll be humming Sinatra whether you meant to or not. The menu sits between luxurious and familiar: pizzas, pastas, and a thick cheeseburger with charred onions. The chinois chicken salad has been on since the early eighties, the culinary equivalent of a band that still plays the hits.

The Caribbean Roast sandwich at this casual counter shop has a dramatic backstory involving a lawsuit over the marinade recipe, which is exactly the kind of lore that follows a legendary pork shoulder around. The roll is from Macrina Bakery, the aioli is garlicky, the onions are caramelized into something slippery and sweet, and the slow-roasted pork does most of the talking. Seattle is not a sandwich town, but Un Bien keeps making the case that it could be.

Pulled pork pressed between two fried plantains, dressed with mango sauce and pikliz, is a reasonable introduction to what this Treme restaurant is doing with Haitian cooking. Fritai is a bright, welcoming room where the Caribbean flavors run vivid and the bar leans on clairin, the Haitian cane spirit that most New Orleans cocktail menus haven't caught up to yet. A James Beard semifinalist two years running.

The burritos here skip the rice, which Mission purists treat as either heresy or gospel depending on which taqueria they grew up on. Order yours dorado-style and the kitchen presses it on the plancha until the tortilla blisters gold. Counter service, cash-register lines out the door, no frills beyond the food. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have both made the pilgrimage to this old-school Mission taqueria, which tells you something about the burritos.

A European restaurant tucked into the Melrose District's Wagon Wheel building, where the back patio's twinkle lights and two-top tables make the whole thing feel like a date you actually planned. The menu changes with the seasons and you can do a five-course tasting or just pull a bottle from the adjoining wine shop and order à la carte. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest.

Garlic naan pulled straight from a clay oven is the baseline here, and it only gets more interesting from there. Zareen's is a casual South Asian counter-service spot where street food classics share the menu with a chapli kebab burger on a pillowy bun and paneer tikka masala wrapped burrito-style. The masala fries alone are a strong argument for the side dish. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws a steady lunch crowd of people who know exactly what they're ordering.

Matt Groening is a regular, and his illustrations hang on the wall alongside the framed press clippings, which tells you something about the Jitlada experience. This Southern Thai restaurant occupies a well-worn strip mall on Sunset, but the menu runs to hundreds of dishes, split between familiar Thai standards and a deep catalog of southern specialties that most LA Thai spots don't touch. A James Beard nominee, and the kind of place regulars will talk your ear off about.

The booths at this coal-oven pizza parlor are so carved up with initials and signatures that the wood itself is basically a guestbook for the last several decades of Greenwich Village. Whole pies only, thin-crusted and charred just right, no slices and no exceptions. The room is loud, cheerful, and not trying to impress anyone, which is precisely why it has been full since before most of its customers were born.

Live fire anchors the open kitchen at this spacious Contemporary American restaurant, where Levi Goode channels five generations of Texas roots into a menu that swings from seafood towers to whole duck. The monkey bread served alongside the deviled crab is the kind of detail that makes a dish unforgettable. Ranch-inspired without being the least bit kitschy, it's the sort of place Houston does better than it gets credit for.

The house-made soba is the point here, though the menu at this elegant soba house in the Arts District runs wide enough to spark a real argument about what to order. Cold or hot noodles arrive with seasonal toppings that range from strictly traditional to a Bolognese that has no business working as well as it does. Grilled freshwater eel comes with its crisped spine, exactly as it would in Japan. The Michelin Guide has it listed among its selected restaurants in Dallas.

A 10,000-pound custom oven fires the pies at this Arcadia pizzeria, and a quarter of every dollar goes to the dog rescue operating out back. Each evening, adoptable puppies come out to a covered patio pen, which is where your appetizers will go cold. The pizza is better than you'd expect from a place whose headline act has floppy ears. Bring a date or the kids, and decide in advance exactly how many dogs you're allowed to take home.

A sunny Ethiopian cafe in Silver Spring where you pick your injera before anything else, choosing between imported (extra tangy) and local, both soft enough to do the job properly. The menu is vibrant and the cooking runs from a bubbling chickpea stew to crispy beef tibs to collards that hold their own. Show up early and order the wheat flatbread fried in butter and drizzled with honey. A James Beard semifinalist chef runs the kitchen.

Some rooms look directly across the street at the face of Busch Stadium, which tells you exactly who books this hotel and how they feel about the Cardinals. Live! by Loews is a contemporary boutique hotel planted in the middle of Ballpark Village, St. Louis's stadium-anchored entertainment district. Rooms are bright and colorful, with Stearns & Foster mattresses. Two restaurants and a bourbon bar handle most needs, and the rest of the district handles the others.

A 1929 Art Deco skyscraper in Wicker Park, repurposed by Mexico's Grupo Habita into 89 rooms with the brand's signature low-key cool. A Belgian design team carved the old North Tower offices into spare, elegant guest quarters, and the 13th-floor indoor-outdoor bar is the kind of thing that makes you forget you came here on business. Tokyobike rentals at the door nudge you toward the neighborhood rather than the lobby.

The team behind Boia De runs this wood-fired New American spot a few doors down, with no gas stove in sight. What's surprising is that vegetables do most of the heavy lifting: the lasagna sheets are made from mustard greens, and the menu treats produce with the same care you'd expect from a proper steakhouse. Pizza and some meat round things out, but the room is casual enough that kids and couples share tables without anyone feeling out of place.

A slice counter at the entrance means you can be in and out before the circular bar crowd even finds a seat. Pizza Rock is a big, loud, rock-and-roll pizza shop spread across multiple rooms, with booths for two and communal tables for everyone else. The menu runs several regional styles, and the staff can actually explain the differences. Named among 50 Top Pizza USA's excellent pizzerias, it draws a crowd that didn't want to eat on the Strip.

A massive retro mural reading "Welcome to Leucadia" covers the outside wall, and honestly that sets the tone. Coffee Coffee is a casual coffee shop right on the 101, all big windows and easy light, with seating inside and out. The menu runs the usual espresso route plus an extensive tea list and light breakfast and lunch bites. Surf-town regulars and the unhurried crowd from nearby Bing Surfboards both seem equally at home here.

Three coffee trees grow out of a circular planter in the middle of the room, which tells you something about how seriously this coffee shop takes its atmosphere. The half-moon bar looks borrowed from a boutique hotel, and through the sliding glass doors at the back you can watch the team roasting and cupping while your pour-over is pulled. The menu runs to passionfruit ginger espresso tonics and a sweet corn cream Americano for the adventurous.

A small, bright restaurant on Aurora where the kitchen turns out somewhere between 700 and 800 momos on a busy weekend, which tells you everything about the pace. The six-page menu covers Indian and Nepali cooking, with dumplings in ten styles, a full vegetarian slate, and enough bread to require a decision. The dal bhat thali is where to start, a sampler of traditional foods that the team describes as the closest thing to a home-cooked dinner in Nepal.

Lobster chow mein on the menu is your first clue that the kitchen at this Hayes Valley dinner spot isn't playing it safe. The room is rustic-chic and compact, distressed wood and a light-dark palette, and it books out well in advance, so the bar is the move if you show up without a plan. California cooking with global detours and fine-dining precision runs through the whole menu, delivered by a staff that keeps pace with the crowd.

The cantilevered rooftop pool jutting out over Main Street like an afterthought someone forgot to pull back is the image that stays with you. The Joule is a design hotel in a Gothic bank building from the 1920s, and the tension between those two facts is kind of the whole point. It's the kind of lobby you wander through even when you're not staying there, which Dallas apparently does, given the 2025 Best Hotel Lobby nod from the Dallas Observer.

Tortillas pressed from heirloom corn varieties anchor the menu at this lively Mexican restaurant tucked into a Woodlands strip mall. The chef, a James Beard semifinalist, grew up in Jalisco and cooks like it, with lamb shank slow-braised in agave leaf and a tableside al pastor that gets lit on fire, because apparently subtlety is optional. The crowd that fills this place on a Friday night suggests the mall address puts nobody off.

Pillowy pita, blistered or fried, arrives alongside hummus and baba ghanoush worth skipping the entree for, though that would be a shame. Bavel is a stylish Middle Eastern restaurant from the team behind Bestia, set in a high-ceilinged Arts District warehouse that smells exactly like somewhere you want to be. The menu draws on Israeli, Moroccan, Turkish, and Egyptian cooking, and the room fills with people who booked ahead and dressed accordingly.

Two blocks from the actual White House, this extended-stay hotel trades nightly-rate thinking for full kitchens, in-suite laundry, and enough square footage to forget you packed a suitcase. Suites run from one-bedroom to penthouse, all dressed in the kind of restrained luxury that suits a city where everyone is here on business. The in-house lounge doubles as bar, workspace, and informal meeting room, for when self-sufficiency only goes so far.

The Aloft chain has a reputation for identical rooms in identical buildings near identical highways, which makes this one genuinely surprising. It occupies a 1920s Classical Revival landmark on North Broad Street, and the bones of the old Liberty Title Building give it the kind of character most Aloft properties have to fake with accent walls. A midrange Marriott hotel that actually has somewhere to be.

A glass-enclosed rooftop bar with unobstructed Manhattan skyline views is a reasonable argument for crossing the bridge. This Wythe Avenue hotel occupies a striking eight-story building in brick, glass, and weathered steel, with double-height guest rooms fitted out in custom furniture that leans toward retro modernism with a bit of prewar New York texture. An Eastern Mediterranean restaurant sits off the lobby for when you'd rather not wander far.

The brick building on Poydras Street has been feeding and housing New Orleans since forever, and Copper Vine keeps that streak alive with eleven rooms above a wine-focused pub in the Central Business District. Ceilings soar, windows run floor to ceiling behind locally made Pavy drapes, and original artwork fills every corner. The Terrace Suite, carved from the old attic with exposed brick chimneys, is the one to request.

A vinyl collection the size of a small record store sets the tone at this boutique hotel on Fisherman's Wharf, the neighborhood locals love to warn you about. Named after rock-and-roll poster artist Alton Kelley, the Kimpton Alton leans into San Francisco's countercultural past with a bohemian-modernist look that earns the reference rather than just wearing it. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

A downtown Denver hotel that manages to be colorful without leaning on spurs and tumbleweeds. The rooms pull off local flavor with some actual restraint, and the Spa Rooms add soaking tubs for anyone who wants to edge toward full luxury. Kimpton's daily hosted wine hour is a genuine institution across their properties, and the in-house Italian restaurant, Panzano, punches well above hotel-dining expectations. The Michelin Guide has it among their selected hotels.

A boutique hotel sitting essentially next door to Independence Hall, the Monaco is Kimpton doing something a little looser and more playful than usual: brighter colors, a whimsical streak, less corporate gravitas than you'd expect from a building in the heart of Philadelphia's business district. Center City has no shortage of stiff, conservative hotels, and this one cheerfully ignores that tradition. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Your pillowcase will feature Bill Murray or David Bowie rendered as a Napoleonic general, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Belltown boutique hotel. Nicole Hollis designed the rooms to play the building's century-old glamour against something wry and contemporary, so the bathrooms manage to feel both vaguely Victorian and quietly modern at once. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and a solid base just north of downtown Seattle.

Rooms here are styled after the classic North Brooklyn apartment, which sounds like damning with faint praise until you see the hardwood floors, the kitchenettes, and the art books chosen with actual care. This boutique hotel in Williamsburg keeps an in-house gallery for good measure, since framed prints apparently weren't enough. Union Pool is steps away, so you'll know by midnight whether that's a selling point or a warning.

A ten-story glass atrium sets the tone for this Capitol Hill hotel, which hangs commissioned artwork where most business-district properties hang generic prints. Rooms are spacious by DC standards, with pillow-top beds and Egyptian cotton sheets, and the gym and yoga studio are genuinely solid. Bistro du Jour turns out French classics in a room ornate enough that you almost believe it. Union Station is a short walk; the Supreme Court, a little less so.

The Allegro Royal Sonesta sits inside the Loop connected directly to the Cadillac Palace Theater, which tells you something about its disposition. This is a hotel for people who want to see a show, or who just want a room that feels like one. The Art Deco interiors nod to the era when Chicago's skyline was still an argument in progress. Atelier Bloem bath products and a lounge serving all-day dining round things out.

A boutique hotel planted steps from Coors Field, The Rally is what happens when a city's downtown revival actually takes hold. The LoDo neighborhood around it fills with bars, restaurants, and a game-day crowd that knows exactly where it's going, and the hotel sits at the center of McGregor Square's mix of shops, event spaces, and nightlife. A Michelin Selected Hotel, so the rooms won't let the location down.

Rooms on the river side look straight down onto the Riverwalk and across at Tribune Tower, which is a better alarm clock than most hotels can offer. The Royal Sonesta is a luxury hotel on the Chicago River, right where it bends around the Magnificent Mile, and that address is rarer than it sounds. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels. Pack accordingly for the architecture views alone.

A Gold Coast hotel that was doing the boutique thing before anyone called it that, the Talbott has the bones of an older, quieter Chicago and a recent overhaul by local designer Kara Mann to keep it feeling current. Rooms are residential-scale rather than grand, which suits the neighborhood, where the vibe runs more old-money discreet than convention-circuit splash. A solid, unfussy base for the North Side.

The minibar charges corner-shop prices, a small act of decency that sets the tone for this Loop hotel inside a restored building that's been around forever. Rooms split in two with sliding doors for travel companions on different sleep schedules, and the beds convert into lounge configurations, since apparently a chair that works is too much to ask of most hotels. A rooftop bar and two restaurants round things out.

Warm, eclectic interiors that feel like someone actually collected the pieces rather than ordered them from a mood board. Yours Truly is a boutique hotel in Dupont Circle that belongs to IHG's Vignette Collection, pitching itself somewhere between high-design cool and genuinely livable. The industrial bones nod to an earlier era of design hotels, but the result reads more like a well-traveled apartment than a set piece. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Thirteen rooms tucked into a pair of former South Street rowhouses, Yowie is a boutique hotel from a designer who spent years at Ralph Lauren before coming home to Philadelphia. The brick exterior is classic Queen Village, but inside it runs minimalist and colorful, full of the same eye that built her homewares shop downstairs. There's no front desk, just a self-check-in that feels less like hospitality protocol and more like borrowing a very stylish friend's apartment.

The name means "heart, captured" in Persian, which sets the tone before you've even sat down. This sceney Inman Village restaurant is built around sharing, with spreads and house bread to start, a dedicated section of tahdig on the menu, and slow-cooked meats for the table. The crowd arrives dressed to be seen, but the food is the kind that makes people stop talking mid-sentence. A Michelin Guide selection.

1111 is a Montrose cocktail bar and restaurant that takes its cues from Mexico City, which explains the cave-like room and the oval bar at its center. It's pronounced "eleven eleven," a favor to anyone who'd otherwise say it four ways. The margarita comes crystal clear under a cloud of salty lime air, and it sits next door to a jazz club, so the evening practically plans itself. Expect cocktail-hour prices and a good outfit.

A Neapolitan pizzeria in the Heights where the reservation book fills so fast that the walk-in line starts forming early, which is a lot of ceremony for a pie. The wood-fired menu leans on Texas farms and seasonal produce, with tortelloni and polenta tots filling out the table. Upstairs, a 16-seat Italian Deco bar pours things like a Biscoff espresso martini. Eater counted it among Houston's best new restaurants.

A disco ball spins over the dining room at this Graham Avenue pizzeria, where the thin-crust pies share the bill with house pasta and focaccia made in the open kitchen. The Italian wine list runs to two pages of sparkling alone, which tells you something about the ambitions here. The Calabrian soppressata and hot honey on the Diavola have a following. Michelin has it in the guide.

Exposed brick, dim lighting, and vintage New York photography set a mood that a taxidermied dog in a birthday hat quietly undermines. Confidant is a sharing-plates restaurant in Brooklyn Heights with a menu that runs from scallop crudo and trout mousse to dry-aged meats and a prawn pot pie worth leaning across the table for. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and the food takes the whole thing more seriously than the decor lets on.

Florence Supper Club is a red-sauce Italian-American restaurant done in dark wood, roomy booths, and checkered tablecloths, lit low enough that everyone looks like they have a good alibi. The menu sticks to clams casino, towering Caesars, and chicken Parmesan, all of it heavy, so bring friends with appetites. Reservations run scarce, but the bar takes walk-ins, and waiting there with a drink is no hardship.

The counter seats by the roll-up door are the ones to ask for at this Basque-leaning bistro in Denver's West Wash Park. The chef runs a rotisserie, ships white asparagus from France when it's in season, and keeps a pan con tomate on the menu that nearly every table orders. The New York Times put it on their 2026 Restaurant List, which tracks. The whole place reads like a bistro that skipped the part where bistros become self-conscious about being bistros.

Jantra is an eight-seat Thai tasting menu room carved out of a former private dining room, which makes it the rare restaurant where the whole place is the chef's table. The premise is dinner as seen by someone just landed from outer space, a fitting angle for Houston. It's $175 for eight to 10 courses, one seating at 7 p.m., so show up on time and dressed like you've planned this.

Caramelized onions, sour cream, and chives crown the classic potato-and-cheese pierogi here, and that's more or less the whole argument for visiting. What started as a DeKalb Market stall grew into a lively Ridgewood restaurant and market doing contemporary Polish comfort food. Schnitzel with endive and pickle martinis signal ambition, but the pierogi are still running the show. A casual, cheerful room where the crowd orders like they've been waiting all week.

Half seafood market, half full-service restaurant, The Tides sits in a quiet Safety Harbor neighborhood north of St. Pete and pulls off both roles without apology. The menu runs large with a Southern lean, so fried green tomatoes and pimento cheese show up alongside oysters Bienville and po'boys stuffed with fried grouper. The kitchen is open all day, with weekend brunch, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice.

The name means "grand performance" in Hindi, and the room in North Hills plays along with a striking modern interior that makes dinner feel like an event. This contemporary Indian restaurant works local ingredients through traditional techniques, though the kitchen slides between classic and fusion without much fanfare. The chef earned a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist nod in 2025, which tracks with a menu confident enough to end on a dessert mapping her journey from northwest India to the South.

A glassed-in butchery room off the dining floor sets the tone at this polished American restaurant from Hosea Rosenberg, a James Beard semifinalist. Seats at the counter face the open kitchen, and the bar is well-stocked for lingering. The charcuterie comes from in-house, the pasta is inventive, and the donuts have a way of becoming the whole point of the meal.

The gummy bear chaser that arrives alongside your espresso tells you almost everything you need to know about Brio Coffeeworks. This roastery coffee bar in Burlington's South End Arts District takes its coffee seriously and its atmosphere playfully, with pink and purple fixtures and a rotating cast of microlot single-origins on espresso or drip. Vermont small-business goods fill out the shelves and the drinks menu, and the crowd skews curious rather than caffeinated-and-cranky.

Richly figured Italian marble sets the tone in the lobby, and the rooms follow with a modern minimalism that still manages to feel warm rather than austere. This boutique hotel sits a few minutes from the theme parks but reads more Miami than Orlando, which is either an escape or an irony depending on your mood. Akira Back oversees both the rooftop restaurant and the flagship downstairs. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Hacienda-style beams reclaimed from a 19th-century barn hold up this boutique hotel in the heart of Rutherford, well before salvage chic became a design trend. Built by a salt heiress with enough restraint to stop at 26 rooms, it stays genuinely intimate by wine-country standards, where intimate can still mean a villa. The Michelin Guide has awarded it one Key.

A former private hall tucked quietly off Newport's main drag, The Vanderbilt is a boutique hotel that wears its age lightly. The original building and grand public spaces are intact, while rooms run from classic to contemporary, all brought up to a modern luxury standard without losing the feel of the thing. It holds a Michelin Key, which tracks: this is Newport doing itself without the theme-park version of Newport.

The copper bar catches the afternoon light in a way that makes you want to order a Bloody Mary before you've even sat down. Zuni is a bi-level California bistro that's been a fixture on Market Street forever, shaped like a triangle and decorated like someone with actual taste. The wood-fired chicken for two, served with a warm bread salad, is the dish regulars have been quietly hoarding for decades.

The campfire pie, an Oreo-crusted chocolate and toasted meringue dessert that a New York Times critic compared to Rothko edges, signals exactly what kind of neighborhood restaurant Charlie's is: Napa Valley wine-country cooking without the ceremony. The menu ranges globally, the room skews community rather than occasion, and the whole thing carries a legacy from Cindy Pawlcyn's old Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in the best, most low-key way.

The line snaking through downtown Palo Alto at noon is the surest sign this ramen shop is doing something right. A Tokyo-based chain with a cult following, it serves rich tonkotsu broth in five varieties, each bowl customizable down to noodle firmness and salt level. The red king, centered with a blazing eye of miso pork and cayenne, is the one people queue for. No reservations, but you can order while waiting, so you sit down to a bowl almost immediately.

Four-poster beds, 18th-century art on the walls, and grounds so carefully tended you half-expect a gardener in a flat cap to materialize from the hedgerows. This Auberge Resorts inn in the Litchfield Hills plays the English country house straight, without irony, and pulls it off. It holds a Michelin Key. Two hours from New York, it draws the kind of guests who pack actual luggage and linger over breakfast without checking a phone.

Brady Williams built his name at Canlis, and Tomo is what happens when a fine-dining chef stops apologizing for also loving a steam burger. The à la carte menu lands somewhere between Japanese comfort food and upscale American, with kakigori towering improbably over its bowl for dessert. The room runs dark and stylish, and the wine list is adventurous enough that the four-glass, diner-paced flight exists as a sensible entry point.

China Mama is a Chinatown Chinese restaurant on South Jones that covers Cantonese, Szechuan, and Dongbei cooking, which makes the menu roughly the length of a short novel. Crispy beef, dry pepper chicken, and mapo tofu share the table with braised pork belly and a taro duck. It's a sit-down, shared-plates affair where ordering for the group turns into a negotiation, and Eater has put it on its Las Vegas lists more than once.

Leather booths, stone and copper accents, and woven rugs on the wall set the tone for a sit-down New Mexican restaurant that skews considerably more swanky than the cuisine's roadside reputation suggests. The marble bar is massive and the patio invites lingering, especially at brunch. Green chile shows up in nearly everything, from eggs Benedict to a pecan-wood-grilled cheeseburger, and the dinner menu runs to rack of lamb and enchiladas.

A ramen shop where the broth might arrive laced with matcha or built around five preparations of garlic in a single bowl. Mensho brought its Japanese noodle concept to Arizona with this Mesa outpost, a light-wood room centered on an open kitchen where handmade noodles go into thick, creamy broths. The kind of place where the bowl keeps revealing itself as you eat, which is a polite way of saying you'll want to stay longer than you planned.

Gondolas glide through the atrium waterways past flamingos, which is either the most Palm Desert thing imaginable or proof that nobody here is thinking small. This sprawling Coachella Valley resort comes with two Ted Robinson golf courses, a 38,000-square-foot spa, multiple restaurants, and tennis on clay, grass, and hard courts. The Santa Rosa Mountains frame the whole scene whenever you step outside.

The dining room pulls from Vienna's Secession movement, all gilded geometry and serious intent, which feels right for a fine dining restaurant inside the Ace Hotel where the food runs Austrian and French with a modern hand. The New York Times gave it three stars, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed. The chef behind the now-closed Bâtard is back, and the room draws people who dressed up on purpose.

Three pools, a harbor view, and the kind of tropical-modern design that manages not to embarrass itself in a town where novelty is usually suspect. The Marker is a waterfront resort on the quieter edge of Key West, and its neighbors, famously hostile to anything new, seem to have made peace with it. Rooms lean into the Caribbean palette without overdoing it, and the water is right there, which in Key West is really the whole point.

A one-acre working farm on the grounds sets the tone for this 22-room boutique hotel on the Hamptons' quieter, less scene-y end. Jean-Georges runs the restaurant, and the kitchen leans heavily on what's growing out back. The rooms are chic and modern without the look-at-me energy that follows money east from Manhattan on summer Fridays. Bridgehampton is a pleasant stroll from here; the Montauk Highway strip is low-key by local standards.