The Best Places in the United States

Sonny's is a bright counter-service spot in the Highlands where the whole decision tree fits on one hand: pita, salad, or plate, then falafel, chicken, or both. The chef came over from Safta, and the sauces are all made from scratch, so an extra cup of harissa is the move. The zhoug is for people who have lost an argument with their taste buds before and want a rematch.

The team once competed on Food Network's Cupcake Wars under a different name and won, which tells you something about what's happening at this bright, family-run bakery near Seventh and Camelback. Frosted cupcakes and cookies rotate with the seasons and holidays, so there's almost always a reason to stop in. The signature brown boxes travel well and double as a gift when flowers feel lazy.

Élephante lets you print a photo on top of your espresso martini, which is either the future of cocktails or a sign we've collectively lost the plot, possibly both. This lively Mediterranean restaurant on the sixth floor of Scottsdale Fashion Square draws a crowd that skews festive and photograph-ready. The espresso martini comes with a choice of vodka, mezcal, or tequila as the base, and the mocha variation leans into creme de cacao and vanilla.

Our Green Affair is a counter-service salad shop in Solana Beach where the menu is a pun-off and the bowls are the punchline. You'll find the Hot Chick, the Thai Me Up, and a Caesar called the Seize Her, which is a lot of wordplay to absorb before noon. Order at the counter, add toppings if the mood strikes, and join a lunch crowd in athleisure. Eater has named it among San Diego's best salads.

A tiny pink-and-white bungalow in West Phoenix, family-run since the parents first opened it, now in the hands of their five kids. The pho here is the reason to show up, arriving in oversized bowls with the full spread of garnishes, and the broth is the kind that takes all day. Closes at five, shut on Tuesdays, and full of regulars who know better than to overthink the menu.

A Cortez Hill omakase counter where the whole evening is decided for you, which is the point, and the point costs $180. You get about two hours and twenty courses, with appetizers up front, nigiri in waves, a warm dish for a breather, and soup and dessert to close. The staff leans hard into omotenashi, so you'll be looked after more attentively than you've been in years. Reserve ahead and wear something nicer than gym shorts.

Sundubu jjigae arrives at the table still at a full boil, in a black earthenware bowl that stays screaming hot long after it lands. This Korean tofu house in Mesa's Asian District is the kind of place where a server drops off a raw egg and you crack it straight into the broth. The house-made tofu is silky, the broth is deeply red, and the white-shirt warning is sincere. Bulgogi and bibimbap round out the menu for anyone not ready to commit to the fire.

The cumin lamb buns alone might justify a drive to Englewood, but this lively Sichuan restaurant on South Broadway is stacking reasons to come. Dry pepper eggplant, pickled pepper beef, and wok-fried lotus root all land on the table with serious color and contrast. There's a full bar running fruity retro cocktails, which somehow fits. Westword named the mapo tofu among Denver's best in 2025, and the room tends to agree.

A former billiard hall that now keeps the lights low and the candles lit, so it feels more like a speakeasy than a pool room, though nobody's chalking a cue. It's a Mexican small-plates and cocktail spot on Halsted, with a menu that riffs on a few classics and a bar that leans on Chicago-based, Mexican-owned brands. The tequila espresso martini is the drink people keep ordering, naturally.

A Mexican steakhouse on Sixth Avenue where the dish everyone's talking about costs twelve dollars. The Taco Richi, named a favorite by the New York Times critic, is an open-faced flour tortilla loaded with rib-eye ribbons and salsa verde pork cracklings, finished with a crust of seared cheese. The porterhouse is enormous and beside the point. Order one taco, get warned off a second, ignore the advice.

State of Grace is a polished American seafood restaurant on Westheimer, plated for the River Oaks lunch-and-dinner set. A bright side room puts the raw bar front and center, so you can watch someone shuck oysters while deciding how many dozen is socially acceptable. The chef grew up across the street at the high school, which makes this one of the few homecomings that comes with a wine list. Dress like you meant it.

This is a fried-chicken counter on West 72nd with no seating, so the plan is to order, take a bag, and eat on a bench like a person with nothing to prove. The chicken goes into bubbling skillets to order, which is why the wait exists and why nobody is allowed to rush it. Ribs, turkey wings, and smothered chicken are on offer too, along with lima beans that are a quiet scene-stealer. The chef was a James Beard Best Chef: New York State semifinalist in 2024.

Cooks wield handheld fans to coax heat from a fire-only range, which tells you what kind of restaurant Hamdi is before a dish arrives. The chef came up through a three-Michelin-star kitchen in California, and the Turkish menu, pide, kebap, kofte, and a 42-day dry-aged porterhouse, carries that technique without tipping into fussiness. Prices are ambitious, and the kitchen knows it. Ballard's most serious dinner out.

A café in the old Astro space that kept the soufflé egg sandwich on brioche on the menu, because the neighborhood would have revolted. Coffee comes from Anthology in Eastern Market and Grand Coffee Roasters in San Francisco, and the café de olla, made with piloncillo and canela, is the kind of order that makes you feel slightly smug about your choices. Handmade journals from a local printmaker line the shelves for those who pretend they'll journal more.

Sandwiched between carburetor and machine shops on Buckeye Road, this cash-and-linoleum Mexican diner has been feeding the neighborhood long before the concept of "hole-in-the-wall chic" existed. Breakfast is the reason to show up: chilaquiles drowning in red or green salsa, Sunday menudo, and hearty caldo stews that have no interest in being photogenic. Phoenix New Times has named it Best Mexican Diner, and Eater flagged the machaca as one of Phoenix's most iconic dishes.

The banchan arrives before you've ordered anything, which tells you what kind of place this is. Ban Chan is a small, grandma-style Korean restaurant in Mesa where the menu leans hard into soups, stews, and hot pots built for sharing. The chef has been running Korean restaurants since forever, and that depth shows in broths that take time. A new generation found it recently, but the regulars who've been coming for years never left.

Sonoran white wheat, no oil, no sugar: Don Guerra's bagels are stripped down to grain and craft, and the lines in Gilbert form accordingly. This pop-up bakery at Hayden Flour Mills, where Guerra sources his flour, sells boules, loaves, and Sonoran bagels, with a preorder form online so you don't drive out empty-handed. Guerra holds a James Beard Award, and the crowd that shows up on bake days acts like it knows exactly why.

La Fillette is a French bakery in Montclair, wedged between a 7-Eleven and a nail salon, which is about as Parisian as East 14th Avenue gets. The pastry case holds croissants, kouign-amanns, and chocolate-dipped eclairs, and lunch means sandwiches on house-made bread. There's also green chile soup, apparently a legal requirement for any Denver menu. Order at the counter, eat with flaky sleeves.

Habanero is an old-school Mexican cafe on Oltorf that does breakfast and lunch and then goes home, so dinner plans need to be made elsewhere. The fajitas come ranchera style, tossed with charred jalapeños, onions, and tomatoes, and the room fills with longtime Austinites and recent transplants who've learned to arrive early on weekends. The Infatuation lists it among Austin's lunch spots, and the huevos gringos are a decent consolation for the wait.

Glamping resort an hour outside Austin where the tents sit on elevated platforms and come with king beds in 1,500-thread-count linens, wood-burning stoves, and en-suite bathrooms, which is not what most people mean by "roughing it." Activities run from horseback tours and e-bike rides to an Axe & Arrow Club, whatever that entails. The lodge handles everything from made-to-order breakfast to a five-course dinner, courtesy of a chef with serious fine-dining roots.

Winters has been quietly assembling the pieces of a wine-country destination, and this 78-room boutique hotel sits at the center of that project. The style is classic and unshowy, which is the right call for a small town trying not to oversell itself. A full-service spa and an Italian restaurant with wood-fired pizzas give you reasons to stay on property, while Yolo County tasting rooms are a short walk from the front door.

Monochrome rooms with a Bauhaus lean sit inside this boutique hotel on Chattanooga's Southside, selected by the Michelin Guide. Artwork covers every wall, bunk beds handle the overflow, and the café quietly pivots to cocktail bar after dark. Downstairs, the speakeasy-style restaurant serves modern Southern food with more ambition than the format usually promises. The city has grown into exactly this kind of place, which is either encouraging or a little on the nose.

Every room has a record player, fed by a vinyl library in the lobby, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ethos here. This 29-room hotel sits on the Wallkill River with private balconies over the water and radiant-heated bathroom floors. The self-guided spa moves at your pace through sauna, steam, frost room, and mineral pool. Kayaks and bikes are on hand, and Water Street Market, with its bookshop and wine bar, is right next door.

Safari-style canvas tents made in South Africa, parked under red Zion cliffs on 80 private acres, give this glamping resort its whole argument. You reach it down a long dirt road near the park's far west border, which is either romantic or inconvenient depending on your mood. Five miles of trails run right from camp, the Guacamole mountain-biking route is close, and an upscale restaurant means you never have to pretend roughing it was the point.

Prospect Lake does most of the work here, catching the light across a quiet corner of North Egremont at whatever hour you wander out. This small resort pairs hand-built Scandinavian-style cabins with a restored wetland property and a suspended porch on the Cliff House that frames the Taconic Range. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. Come without much of an agenda; the place seems designed for exactly that.

Kate Pierson of the B-52s once gave this creekside motel its kitschy makeover, and the current owners have since turned it into a boutique inn with rustic-chic rooms, locally roasted coffee, and Apotheke bath products. It sits in Mount Tremper, quietly selected by the Michelin Guide, and draws the kind of guests who pack a Patagonia vest and call it roughing it. The creek is real, at least.

The check-in desk is a cocktail bar, which sets the tone for what The Nevada is doing. This 21-room motel on Long Sands Beach has been gut-renovated by a husband-and-wife team, and the L-shaped building now runs art deco through a nautical filter: clean lines, ocean views, private terraces on every room. The beach is right there. Checking in early, staying late, and ordering another drink all feel equally reasonable.

Stock Island sits close enough to Key West that the distinction feels bureaucratic, which is roughly how the Perry Hotel gets away with being the freshest place to stay in a neighborhood that almost never builds anything new. The marina-side hotel has the bones of a well-designed resort without the theme-park finish, and Architectural Digest flagged it on arrival. A good base for people who'd rather dock a boat than fight for parking.

Perched on a bluff above the Pacific on the Sonoma Coast, Timber Cove Resort earns its reputation as a digital detox not through any posted policy but through pure geography: the cell service just doesn't reach. The wi-fi is famously spotty too, which turns out to be the amenity. Long walks, actual books, conversations that go somewhere. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Nubble Lighthouse from every room, which means the view does most of the decorating at this 18-room boutique hotel on the York coast. A former motor lodge, now redesigned into something that feels genuinely considered, with private patios, coastal-modern interiors, a pool, sauna, and beach access. Bikes and yoga classes are on offer when staring at the Atlantic stops being enough.

The lamb goes into a pit lined with maguey leaves, comes out fall-off-the-bone tender, and lands on your table alongside consommé and a cactus salad. This casual Mexican restaurant on a resolutely unglamorous stretch of Long Point Road in Spring Branch specializes in the cooking of Hidalgo, which means the barbacoa de borrego is the thing to order. The New York Times put it on their 2023 Restaurant List, which is a long way to travel for a pit-smoked lamb, and not far enough.

Oysters on Pearl Street, which is the kind of sentence that shouldn't work in a landlocked mountain state but here we are. Jax is a lively seafood restaurant that has been feeding Boulderites raw bars and sustainably caught fish for decades, banking on Denver International's role as a coastal shipping hub. Come for the oysters, raw, grilled, or fried, and stay for whatever the kitchen has pulled in that week.

Nashville hot chicken shop tucked inside TRVE Brewing on Broadway, where the menu runs from classic spicy tenders to a green chile heat option that leans decidedly Colorado. The sandwiches are big and juicy in the way that requires a full stack of napkins and no white shirt. Vegan versions and a lineup of sides round things out for groups who can't agree on anything except that they're hungry.

The menu has a section called "America's Popular," which tells you everything you need to know about where the kitchen's heart actually lies. This counter-service Sichuan spot runs a long list of chile-heavy, mouth-numbing dishes built around Sichuan peppercorns, and the portions are sized for sharing. Come with people, order widely, and leave the safe column alone.

Lines form outside this Turkish-inspired bakery and cafe before the doors open on weekends, drawn by za'atar and caramelized kouign amann scenting the street. Pastry chef Maura Kilpatrick builds her pastries from New England grains, so the simit, a sesame-crusted braided ring, tastes a little local even when it doesn't look it. The brunch and mezze menu runs to poached eggs over green garlic yogurt and baked feta, and the shelves of Mediterranean spices make the wait useful.

Fluted columns, plush banquettes, and a hand-painted dance-hall mural above a mahogany bar: Bix has been doing Great Gatsby glamour in a Gold Street alley since forever, and it has no interest in updating the brief. The cocktail menu plays it classic, which suits the room, since no one comes here for novelty. The crowd tends to dress for the occasion without being asked, which tells you most of what you need to know.

This is an upscale but easygoing California restaurant on Highway 101 in Solana Beach, where the produce is local and seasonal and the salads get more attention than most people give their entrees. Expect a chopped salad with soppressata in it and soup you'll order on purpose. Dress is beach-adjacent nice, and the room is full of locals who treat a Tuesday lunch like a small occasion. It holds three AAA diamonds.

The pasta is made in-house every morning, which sets the tone for the rest of the menu. Locale is a meat-forward Italian American restaurant where red sauce is taken seriously and the charcuterie board arrives before you've had a chance to look around. Dry-aged steak and bone-in short ribs share space with eggplant Parmigiana, and the kitchen sources from small American farms alongside Italian imports. Out on Blue Diamond, far from the Strip's noise.

Perched on the second floor of Pike Place Market, this compact seafood and Northwest restaurant has views over the market rooftops to the bay and a menu that leans quietly Italian these days. Lunch sandwiches, including a surprisingly good catfish, carry the same care as the dinner plates, which reflect the freshest ingredients the market below can offer. Dinner adds up fast, but nobody seems to mind much.

Nora's is an off-Strip Italian restaurant, the kind of red-sauce room locals have kept going for about as long as the Strip has been reinventing itself. The garlic bread is a dollar and bottomless, which tells you what the kitchen thinks of your appetite. Portions come out sized for sharing and then ignored. It holds AAA Three Diamonds, and the pasta everyone talks about only shows up at dinner, so plan accordingly.

This is a Mandalay Bay steakhouse where the bread basket has been replaced by complimentary duck fat fries, seasoned three ways and sent out with dips before you've touched the menu. The steaks get poached in butter before the grill, then arrive with red wine shallot butter. Tables near the entrance double as a front-row seat for convention badges rushing past, so dress for dinner and a little voyeurism.

SumoMaya is a Scottsdale fusion restaurant that treats brunch as a team sport, with unlimited shared plates and desserts and one entree per person, so pork al pastor pad Thai shows up at the same table as a carne asada scramble. Pan dulce and mini churros kick things off, and the bottomless drinks come with a two-hour limit and no switching mid-session. It's AAA Three Diamonds, in case you needed permission to order a third round.

The prime rib has been on nearly every table since the Ford administration, which tells you what kind of steakhouse this is. Dry-aged beef, clubby atmosphere, golf paraphernalia that appears entirely unironic, and service that runs like a well-maintained engine. The sides menu pulls its weight too, from loaded baked potato to wild rice with mushrooms and thyme. An old-school institution along the El Camino strip.

A Katy Freeway steakhouse that doubles as a Texas history museum, with Alamo chapel doors and Texas Ranger pistols on display between you and your dinner. Order the rib-eye and you get to walk into the butchery, pick your cut, and watch it get trimmed to order. The salad bar draws nearly as much devotion as the beef, which is a sentence you only write about Texas. Expect families and birthdays, jeans and boots.

Ropa vieja made with mushrooms instead of shredded beef sounds like a compromise until you're actually eating it. This Cuban restaurant on Moody Street leans into the roasted-meat-and-tropical-cocktail side of the menu, with drinks running toward guava, smoky rum, and tobacco notes. On a warm night, the patio is where you want to be. A James Beard semifinalist in 2024, it also holds Boston Magazine's Best Cuban nod.

The DJ booth alone is larger than some British bars, which tells you something about the scale Blackbird Ordinary is operating at. This is a sprawling American bar, pool table competing with the DJ for the room's soul, and the unspoken rule is that you do not dance. Out back, a terrace with its own bar and an open-air cinema keeps things properly Miami. Office workers and locals find common ground here without trying too hard.

The bar itself is barely the size of a large closet, which only explains why everyone crowds around it anyway instead of taking one of the many outdoor seats in the palm-shaded courtyard beyond. Broken Shaker is a cocktail bar tucked inside the Indian Creek Hotel, its walls and shelves so thoroughly cluttered with objects it feels less designed than accumulated. The drinks are the point, and regulars seem to treat the tight quarters as a feature.

Hooligan is a small Logan Square bistro that cooks the Great Lakes with French technique, which is how you end up with perch under gribiche and pike dumplings in a sauce that sounds like it has a title. The caviar service comes with crispy potatoes and house dip, a very Midwestern way to dress up fish eggs. Dinner only, a la carte or a two-person spread, and every table gets a nightly treat, so cookies and milk may be waiting.

Taan is a Thai restaurant and wine bar on West Augusta in Humboldt Park, where the menu rotates with whatever produce shows up and noodles are conspicuously absent. Fish, meat, and vegetables get cooked in traditional Thai sauces instead, with wings glazed in fish sauce caramel and a small, shifting wine list that includes bottles from Logan Square's Middle Brow. Expect the kind of neighborhood spot where nobody asks you to dress up.

The Logan Inn is a neighborhood cafe by day and a cocktail bar by night, with 28 rooms stacked overhead like an upstairs neighbor who never complains. Mornings mean Graffeo coffee, pastries, and sandwiches, then the lights drop and the martinis take over, Vesper included, with a nonalcoholic one for anyone driving or pacing themselves. Plan for a casual laptop-and-latte stop that turns into a date.