The Best Places in the United States

A wood flame burns in the hearth, thin slats line the ceiling, and a gleaming copper bar anchors the room, which tells you everything about where Cotogna sits on the rustic-to-refined spectrum. This is an Italian restaurant where the suited FiDi crowd fills tables at lunch and families slide in beside couples at dinner. The single raviolo, one egg in browned butter, is the move. Deep Italian wine list, lovely outdoor parklet.

A mural of Fillmore Street circa 1962 covers the wall, which makes sense given that the chef grew up in the neighborhood and spent years dreaming of bringing her soul food restaurant here. The rosemary fried chicken, fragrant with fresh herbs and marinated in housemade spices, is the reason people line up, though the butter cornbread and mac and cheese give it real competition. Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2025.

Peter Chang has quietly turned the D.C. suburbs into a Sichuan outpost, and Mama Chang is his tribute to the women of his family who actually did the cooking. The warm-wood dining room is upscale-casual Chinese, the kind where dry-fried cauliflower seems to land on every table without anyone admitting they ordered it. The New York Times and The Washington Post have both put it on their D.C. essentials lists, which for a Fairfax strip mall is a flex.

Pressed tin ceiling, globe lights, and worn wood floors set the mood at this seafood restaurant on South 20th, where the menu stays tight enough that everything on it feels deliberate. The raw bar anchors the room, oysters and scallops up front, while the gumbo pulls in lobster, crab, and Carolina gold rice. Grab a seat at the back bar if you can, the chefs are right there. A James Beard semifinalist in 2026.

Slow-roasted cochinita pibil is the anchor here, available as a plate with rice and beans or folded into tacos at this Mexican cafe and market in Houston's East End. Weekend brunch draws a crowd for chilaquiles and a loaded breakfast platter, while the daily agua frescas change with whatever fruit is in season. The chef behind it is a two-time James Beard semifinalist. Before you leave, the market sells frozen tamales and her cookbook.

CherCher is an Ethiopian spot that took over what was once a rowhouse living room, and the platters still arrive like someone's relatives are visiting. Expect injera for scooping, berbere-spiced meats, and a vegan combination so sprawling it could feed a small congregation. There are no reservations, so go on a weekday and bring friends who don't mind sharing from one big plate. It's casual, loud in the right way, and easy on the wallet.

Smoked brisket finished with awaze, an Ethiopian spice sauce, is the move that separates this casual Arlington barbecue joint from every other spot selling half-pounds off butcher paper. The team built it from a trailer smoker and weekend pop-ups into something the New York Times noticed and a James Beard semifinalist nod confirmed. Order a platter if you want range, and reach past the mac and cheese toward the lentil stews.

The wood-burning oven runs the show at this Italian restaurant tucked inside the Manhattan West development, where everything from onion torta to pasta passes through its heat. It's a Danny Meyer production, so the room is handsome and the service moves like it has somewhere to be. The chef keeps the menu generous and designed for sharing. The New York Times named it among the 100 best restaurants in the city.

Tucked behind a parking lot, Han Oak is the kind of Korean restaurant where you might have to step over a toy truck to reach the courtyard. The chef runs it next door to his own house, which tells you everything about the register: clamorous, buzzing, and genuinely homestyle. The seasonal menu leans into braised short ribs and bold pantry flavors, and the cocktail list throws gochujang into a mezcal drink without apologizing for it.

Lyons is a small river town north of Boulder where you wouldn't expect to find a contemporary French restaurant this precise, yet here it is. The menu shifts constantly, chasing whatever the chef is curious about, and the wine list leans into small Old World producers working with native grapes, which the floor staff navigate with you rather than at you. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mountain.

Carlo Lamagna built out much of this corner dining room himself, and that DIY spirit still reads in the space. Magna Kusina is a modern Filipino restaurant on a quiet Clinton Street block, with a bar program and chef's counter rounding out the room. The squid ink noodles with crab fat have become one of those Portland dishes people bring up unprompted. The chef was a James Beard nominee in 2022.

Marufuku is a ramen shop on the second floor of Japantown's Japan Center mall, and the line snaking out before they open tells you everything about how the neighborhood feels about it. The Hakata-style tonkotsu runs cloudy and deep, with thin noodles and slow-cooked pork belly. The chicken paitan is lighter but no less serious. Expect a wait, and consider using that time to decide whether you're ordering the deluxe.

Avery is a hotel brasserie up front, with cassoulet and the white-tablecloth French the genre promises, plus a British-style pub out back that does shepherd's pie and Guinness. Both rooms run on old Brunswick bars, and the pub's is reportedly the oldest in Boise, so it has seen things. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mountain, and Eater lists it among Boise's essentials.

Terroir is a bistro on Boise's 8th Street restaurant row, where steak frites and chicken Lyonnaise sit on the same menu as sablefish in miso broth, which is the French equivalent of a friend who studied abroad and came back with range. It began as a butchery, then a wine store supper club, then a winery food trailer, so a permanent address counts as settling down. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Mountain semifinalist.

The kitchen opens by warning you it's not a chips-and-salsa situation, which either excites you or sends you down the road. This modern Mexican restaurant inside the Camptown Hotel takes its cues from regional Mexican cooking, turning out tetelas stuffed with seasonal fillings, pig's head barbacoa with fresh tortillas, and a blood sausage tamale that regulars order at both brunch and dinner. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2026.

The view from the top of Reunion Tower has been making Dallas look good for years, and the steakhouse that lives up there now leans into it hard, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a dress code keeping things appropriately sharp. Sushi shares the menu with steaks from local farms, and the triple-cooked fries are the kind of side you order again before the first plate is cleared. Book well ahead; 200 seats fill faster than you'd expect.

Sitting inside the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale, this modern Mediterranean restaurant earns its own reason to show up, with a menu that pulls from Levantine cooking and slips in Floridian touches along the way. The room faces the pool and the Atlantic beyond it, which is either inspiring or distracting depending on your dining companion. The kitchen leans into spreads, skewers, and the kind of food that makes a long dinner feel easy.

A 1960s motor lodge on the road between North Adams and Williamstown, now reborn as a boutique hotel with a decidedly hip second act. The Berkshires revival, fueled largely by MASS MoCA around the corner, gave someone the good idea to rescue this roadside relic rather than raze it. The result lands somewhere between nostalgia and design magazine, the kind of small country hotel that earns two Michelin Keys without making a fuss about it.

The dining room is built to look like a Soviet dacha, complete with turquoise shutters and diagonal wood paneling modeled on the owner's great-grandparents' cottage. Kachka is a full-service Eastern European restaurant where the menu runs from happy-hour zakuski and herring salads to Siberian pelmeni and rabbit braised in a clay pot. Horseradish-infused vodka from the team's own distillery handles the rest. The New York Times named it among Portland's best.

The old Atlantic Bank building on Michigan Avenue, a downtown landmark, now runs as a lifestyle hotel with Millennium Park views from many of the contemporary rooms. The gym is properly equipped, and the in-house restaurant, About Last Knife, folds West African and Latin American flavors into an American bistro menu. A solid base for anyone who'd rather walk to the lakefront than deal with a cab.

The old stockyards and rail lines that once defined West Midtown are still in the bones of this hotel. Rooms come with folding writer's desks and window seats angled at the skyline, and suites add Japanese soaking tubs for anyone who needs to decompress after a day in the galleries. Drawbar handles cocktails and Southern food with city views, and a lobby market covers the rest. The Garden Courtyard offers outdoor air in a neighborhood that traded freight for creative industry.

A former chain hotel that Provenance Hotels quietly stripped down and made over, the Dossier is a luxury boutique stay in the thick of downtown Portland. The hotel leans into local, with Oregon wines, regional beers, and an all-day bar pulling the neighborhood inside. Powell's Books is a short walk away, and so is most of what makes Portland worth visiting, which does a lot of the hotel's work for it.

A boutique hotel in LoDo, steps from the restored Union Station, with rooms that balance mountain-lodge warmth against proper city-hotel polish. The common spaces lean into it: Citizen Rail does wood-fired cooking downstairs, and Tavernetta handles pan-Italian next door. The neighborhood does the rest, since LoDo has quietly become one of those districts where you barely need to plan anything.

A rooftop bar with a Latin-Caribbean lean, a pool bar that explains itself, and a diner that eats healthier than it looks: the East Austin Hotel packs a lot of personality into one address on East 6th. The rooms lean into classic Americana with a modernist eye, and the whole place has that particular Austin quality of caring about the good life without making a production of it. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

The hand-operated elevator that has been ferrying people up this 1926 flatiron building since long before it was a hotel is a reasonable clue about the vibe. A 71-room boutique hotel at Asheville's sharpest corner, it converted former offices into rooms with Bellino linens and mountain views, keeping the bones intact. A wood-fired Italian restaurant, a rooftop bar, and a Prohibition-themed basement bar round out the floors between.

The timber beams running floor to ceiling were load-bearing long before this became a hotel, back when trains rolled through the basement hauling farm equipment across the Midwest. Now it's a boutique hotel in the Warehouse District, dressed in dusky mid-century rooms with industrial bones intact. The rooftop sauna is a sincere amenity in a Minneapolis winter, and Tullibee downstairs does locally sourced New American when you're ready to come in from the cold.

The name isn't a coincidence: this boutique hotel on the Magnificent Mile took Einstein's formula as its organizing thesis, and the stacks of books in the lobby are there to prove it. Rooms lean into an art-meets-science conceit with Deco-inspired design that manages to feel clever without being exhausting about it. The kind of place where the décor has a point of view, which is either appealing or a lot, depending on your mood.

A boutique hotel on Broadway where the staff seem to have actually read the memo about being helpful, which turns out to be rarer than it should be. The rooms won't break your Instagram, but the place has a genuine personality and the kind of attentive service that makes a downtown Portland stay feel less transactional. Selected by the Michelin Guide, which rewards exactly that combination.

A converted seed factory in the Union Market district, Hotel Nell is a boutique hotel where the horticultural past shows up in deep greens, live foliage, and a rooftop bar called the Treehouse. Rooms have exposed beams and art from local artists. The farmers market down the street supplies breakfast, and green roofs keep the building cool, because of course they do.

The frosty blue glass crown on the Olive 8 tower makes the building easy to spot from most of downtown Seattle, which is convenient because the Hyatt inside positions itself as a business-boutique hotel with a wellness lean, clean lines, and a general Pacific Northwest calm. It sits about halfway between Pike Place Market and Capitol Hill, which is as central as Seattle gets. Guests who need a tidy, modern base without much fuss tend to like it here.

A converted Beaux-Arts building in the middle of downtown makes a strong first impression, and the Monaco leans into it with bold, pattern-heavy rooms that feel more like a friend's well-traveled apartment than a chain hotel stay. It's a Kimpton property, so expect the pet-friendly door policy, the hosted evening wine hour, and a staff that's notably hard to rattle. Salt Lake surprises visitors more than its reputation suggests, and this hotel is part of why.

A few blocks from the Capitol, this Irish-owned hotel chose to name itself after a Dublin park rather than lean into its politically charged zip code, which tells you something about its personality. Guest rooms run deep indigo against silver and white, elegant without being stuffy. The Dubliner downstairs is exactly the Irish pub you'd conjure if you closed your eyes and wished hard enough. Lobbyists tend to book elsewhere, which is probably a point in its favor.

A quiet courtyard with fountains and palm trees sits at the center of this boutique hotel, which makes the corner of Meeting and Market streets feel like a country house someone forgot to move to the country. The rooms wrap around that courtyard rather than face the street, so the noise of downtown Charleston mostly stays outside. Old-school Southern hospitality, a handsome historic building, and a location that puts you in the middle of everything without the feeling that you're in the middle of everything.

The atrium lobby rises eight stories, all wrought iron and stained glass, and has been doing so since presidents started treating the place as a second home. This grand old Denver hotel has hosted every commander in chief since Teddy Roosevelt, plus Elvis, John Wayne, Buffalo Bill, and at least one burlesque star, which covers a decent range of American ambition. The rooms are exactly as formal as the history suggests.

Clawfoot tubs in the loft suites and reading nooks in the singles give The Frances Modern Inn a range that most boutique hotels never bother with. It sits in Central East Austin, a neighborhood where small businesses have held their ground forever, and the in-house restaurant, Siti, runs an unexpectedly focused Southeast Asian kitchen. The Michelin Guide has selected it among its hotels, which tracks for a place this considered.

Three robin's-egg-blue cottages tucked right where Frenchmen Street meets the French Quarter line, this 27-room boutique hotel is the right base if you're here for the music and not the minibar. Rooms vary wildly in size and shape, the best ones with loft bedrooms or balconies over the street below. The in-house bar, Midnight Revival, doubles as a jazz venue, and there's a rooftop bar for when you need air.

Rotary telephones on the nightstands and antique elevator buttons set the tone at this boutique hotel inside a Beaux Arts bank building in downtown Miami's financial district. The 126 rooms lean into the nostalgia with white oak parquet floors and tufted headboards, while the rainfall showers and craft spirit minibars keep things from tipping into period drama. A rooftop cocktail lounge and a ground-floor restaurant make a strong case for skipping South Beach entirely.

The Art Deco exterior belongs to what was once home to Chicago's two biggest banks, which tells you something about the scale of ambition inside. The LaSalle Chicago is a luxury hotel in the Financial District where the retro styling isn't a costume but a genuinely fitting one, from the lobby lounge built for deal-making over cocktails to suites sized for people who sign things. Grill on 21 handles the steakhouse duties upstairs.

A rooftop garden bar with Blue Ridge Mountain views anchors this boutique hotel in downtown Asheville, selected by the Michelin Guide. Rooms lean industrial-chic, with exposed brick, velvet loveseats, and bar carts stocked with craft spirits. The lobby's archways and towering bookshelves nod quietly to the Biltmore Estate. Downstairs, an all-day café and a basement bar with a bowling alley keep guests from wandering too far into the mountains.

Breakfast comes in a picnic basket each morning, which sets the tone nicely for a fifteen-suite hotel that behaves more like a borrowed apartment than a place to stay. Exposed brick, original hardwood floors, and full kitchens make up the bones, with well-chosen antiques keeping things from feeling like a loft conversion. It sits in the old downtown district, right in the middle of Charleston's restaurant scene, and the Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Rolling garage-door windows that open flush to the Colorado air are the detail that makes this RiNo boutique hotel click. It sits on an old ironworks site in Denver's River North arts district, and the 100 rooms lean into that industrial past with polished concrete, Baltic birch, and spare Japanese-influenced furniture. The neighborhood's warehouse-and-mural energy is right outside, which is exactly why people book here instead of downtown.

Open-flame cooking runs through everything at this cozy Levantine restaurant in Redwood City, from spiced chicken to cauliflower roasted until it's tender inside and crisped at the edges. The menu leans into Jordanian-style street food, with falafel, baba ghanoush, and shawarma slicked in garlicky toum alongside larger sharing plates. A James Beard semifinalist in 2025, it draws families into a plant-filled dining room where the light comes in from above.

The open kitchen takes up half the dining room at this cozy vegan restaurant in Northern Liberties, which runs on foraged produce, small local suppliers, and the chef's own ferments and preserves. The menu is shareable Italian-inflected plates, around three per person, with a casual Northern Liberties crowd that books the place solid most nights. A James Beard semifinalist, and one of those spots that makes vegetable-forward feel like a choice rather than a compromise.

Two million crystals drape from floor to ceiling across three floors, which is either maximalist or just correct for Las Vegas. The Chandelier is a cocktail lounge inside the Cosmopolitan, and each level is technically its own bar, from the casino-facing ground floor up to the quieter top lounge. Ask for the Verbena, an off-menu drink with a buzz button flower that momentarily numbs your mouth before the cocktail lands.

Counter-service seafood in Fremont, where the chef sources directly from local fisheries, a supply-chain headache most spots at this price point don't bother with. The menu reads like Pacific Northwest bar food done with actual conviction: rockfish banh mi, salmon teriyaki, home fries tangled with smoked cod. The crab roll on a split-top bun comes out only on weekends, so plan accordingly. The New York Times put it on their Seattle list, which tracks.

A former marine fueling station and lobster pound on the Mystic River, Haring's operates in two modes: feet on the wooden railing, smoked bluefish on Ritz crackers, cold drinks delivered from the package store next door, or retreat into the clapboard dining room for seared tuna and squash curry. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and Yankee named it Waterfront Restaurant of the Year. Both outcomes make complete sense once you're sitting there.

This is a downtown all-day diner that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the menu has a sense of humor about itself. A full Irish breakfast shares space with Korean-style chicken and waffles, as if the kitchen refused to pick a side. Exposed brick and diner furniture keep things unfussy, and two patios handle the overflow. Prices stay casual, so jeans are fine and nobody will check your shoes.

Carson Kitchen is a downtown Las Vegas restaurant with one of the few rooftop patios in the neighborhood, a string-lit second-story perch for people who want a view that isn't a slot machine. Inside, communal tables seat you elbow to elbow with strangers, which suits comfort food that keeps showing up in fancier clothes, like deviled eggs wearing caviar. There's a non-alcoholic list too, and a happy hour worth the bar stool.

The salmon here gets cured and smoked in-house, which tells you most of what you need to know about how seriously this bagel shop takes itself. Schlok's sits just off the Panhandle, turning out traditional malty bagels with a thin, crisp crust and a caper schmear that leans hard into brine. Co-founded by a chef with Michelin-starred kitchen time, it punches well above the cream-cheese-from-a-tub competition.

A colorful bar anchors the pale, airy room on Geary, where Mourad Lahlou's Moroccan-California restaurant has been back and quietly owning the Richmond for a few years now. The menu folds California ingredients into North African tradition, and the basteeya, golden phyllo packed with chicken and spiced almonds, has made the trip back too. Service runs warm and knowing. The New York Times named it among the top restaurants in San Francisco.

The chef behind Lola's spent years doing refined seasonal cooking at a museum restaurant before deciding she'd rather cook food people want on a Tuesday. The result is a Southern-inflected neighborhood dinner spot on 28th Street where the cooking is casual without being simple, and local produce keeps showing up in places you didn't expect. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024.

Sichuan restaurant in a Pittsburgh strip mall where the dan dan noodles arrive loaded with minced pork and the cucumbers come in a garlicky dressing you will spend a week trying to reverse-engineer at home. The kitchen leans hard into Chengdu, and the family-style format makes it easy to cover the table. It's BYOB, which the regulars clearly know, since they tend to arrive with wine already in hand.

A converted meatpacking warehouse in the Westside gives Miller Union its bones, and the kitchen fills them out with seasonal Southern cooking that changes with whatever Georgia is growing. The room is casually upscale, the kind of place you'd take someone you're trying to impress without making it obvious that's what you're doing. The New York Times named it among Atlanta's 25 best, and the pastry program drew a James Beard nomination.

Seng Luangrath more or less put Laotian food on the DC map, and her Columbia Heights dining room is where it started. The menu swings wide, from crispy coconut rice salad to warming soups and curries, and the "jungle menu" keeps things interesting with grilled chicken hearts and rice-fermented pork belly. Sticky rice is non-negotiable. Dinner only, casual, and built for sharing, meaning the more people you bring, the better your night goes.

The rice alone explains why the New York Times put this upscale Persian restaurant on its 2024 restaurant list: the tadig comes out with a shattering crust, and the fluffy sour-cherry version beside it is its own argument. Classic stews anchor the menu, with duck fessenjoon and beef with dried lime doing the heavy lifting. The room is relaxed enough for families, polished enough for a proper date.

Korean fried chicken available in three glazes is the kind of menu decision that tells you exactly where a chef's head is at. Miss Kim is a cozy, modern Korean restaurant from Ji Hye Kim, a James Beard semifinalist whose cooking draws a faithful Ann Arbor crowd and the occasional pilgrim from further afield. Reservations go through Resy, and there's a to-go option for nights when you'd rather eat this at home in peace.

The khao soi here arrives in a shade of marigold so vivid it looks like a color swatch, topped with a tangle of fried noodles over chicken that's been cooked into submission. This Northern Thai restaurant in Mount Vernon Square skips the pad see ew and the crowd-pleasing standards entirely, leaning into the regional cooking the chef built her reputation on. The New York Times put it on their D.C. list, and the room fills up accordingly.

Tetsuya Wakuda made Las Vegas his US debut, reportedly because the Strip's energy reminded him of Shinjuku, which is either a compliment or a warning depending on your tolerance for spectacle. This fine dining room inside The Venetian pulls Japanese seafood, Canadian lobster, and Tasmanian oysters into a menu that moves between traditional and contemporary Japanese cooking. A hidden omakase room exists for those who know to ask, with rare whisky alongside the meal.

Latha means "flavor" in Swahili, which the kitchen takes as a brief. Housed in the bungalow-style Silva House in Heritage Square, this downtown Phoenix restaurant traces the food of the African diaspora through Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South, on both prix fixe and à la carte menus. The cooking has range, from piri piri chicken over jollof rice to Southern pound cake finished with tropical marmalade. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

Marvin is a pizzeria on Wickenden Street that dresses like the slice joint of your childhood, checkered paper and bar stools included, then quietly gets weird with the menu. There's a pepperoni negroni, a house pizza wine, and frozen custard waiting by the door for anyone with room left. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast, which the high tops do a good job of hiding.

Pink roses painted floor to ceiling and a Turkish coffee set mounted overhead set the tone before the food arrives. Beit Rima is a casual Middle Eastern small-plates spot where the Lebanese, Palestinian, and Jordanian menu is designed for sharing a little of everything: baked halloumi spiked with jalapeño, flatbread scented with nigella, crispy spiced potatoes. The New York Times named it one of San Francisco's 25 best restaurants right now, and the room makes a convincing case on its own.

Specials scrawled on brown paper rolls and a pastry case worth a long look set the tone at this low-key bakery and brunch cafe on McDowell Road. The kitchen leans on local ingredients, and the menu changes with what's good, so regulars learn to check the case before committing. Patio seating in the Phoenix sunshine makes the wait easier. Easy to miss from the street, which keeps it mercifully manageable on a weekend morning.

The forest-meets-island room on Greenville Avenue hints at the chef's New Zealand upbringing before a single plate arrives. Quarter Acre is an intimate fine dining spot offering both à la carte and a multicourse tasting menu that moves from delicate raw and seafood preparations toward bolder, fire-driven dishes. Classical European technique runs underneath cooking that roams pretty freely across the globe. A Michelin Selected Restaurant, and the kind of room that makes a Tuesday feel like an occasion.

Every one of the 192 rooms comes with a private balcony facing the Gulf, which sets the tone for what kind of resort this is. The 16-story tower sits on the quieter southern end of Clearwater Beach, where the foot traffic thins out and the sand feels like it belongs to the guests. Inside, the mood is hushed and polished, a deliberate step away from the louder stretch of beach to the north. A rooftop restaurant, a spa, and a pool round things out.

Snowbird averages 500 inches of snow a year, and The Cliff Lodge sits right in the middle of it, ski-in, ski-out against the jagged Wasatch peaks. It's a four-season mountain resort, so summer brings aerial tram rides and snowshoeing gives way to hiking, but winter is the main event. Expert runs and heli-skiing attract the serious crowd, though nearly a third of the trails are beginner-friendly for those who prefer their adrenaline at a lower dose.