The Best Places in the United States

The skylight in the lobby dates to the 1920s, hidden until a renovation uncovered it. The Jefferson is a luxury hotel two blocks from the White House, decorated throughout as a quiet monument to its namesake: custom furniture based on Monticello originals, framed maps of places the third president loved, rooms with his words on the walls. The staff can hold a proper conversation about all of it. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

A bare-bones counter-service tortilleria in South Phoenix, the kind of place where the building has never once tried to impress you. The flour tortillas are the draw, soft but sturdy with a flaky edge, wrapped around machaca, eggs, and potatoes for under ten dollars. The move is dumping the smooth tomato salsa inside the burrito rather than treating it like a dip, which the regulars figured out decades ago.

Seats at the chef's counter let you watch the whole operation unfold at this sleek DTLA tasting menu spot from the husband-and-wife team behind it. The look is concrete floors and black-and-white walls, the format is modern Korean, and the pairings run alcoholic or not. The Los Angeles Times ranked it third on their list of the city's best restaurants in 2025, and the James Beard Foundation nominated the chef for Best Chef: California.

Anthony Mangieri runs the wood-burning oven himself, every service, at this airy Lower East Side pizza shop tiled in black and white and lined with canned tomatoes. The Neapolitan pies come out with fluffy edges and thin, papery crusts, topped with not much more than mozzarella di bufala and sweet tomato sauce, which is the whole point. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and ranked first in the country by 50 Top Pizza USA. Reservations are scarce, so arrive early and queue.

East Texas-style barbecue joint that also does breakfast, which tells you something about how seriously Houston takes its mornings. The smoker runs through brisket, ribs, sausage, turkey, and chicken, and the sides, dirty rice and baked beans among them, hold their own. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2023. Been a neighborhood staple long enough that ordering without looking at the menu is a point of local pride.

The antojitos here lean into Aztec culinary tradition that most Mexican restaurants skip entirely, which gives this Logan Square neighborhood spot a menu worth reading slowly. The chef has earned James Beard nominations and a Michelin Bib Gourmand while running what is, at its heart, a warm, unpretentious antojeria. Seasonal cocktails, knowledgeable servers, and a room that stays lively without tipping into loud.

Iron four-poster beds and colonial furnishings fill a building that was, not so long ago, a saddlery. The Mokara is a boutique hotel on the River Walk with a Forbes Four Star rating, a rooftop pool overlooking the water, and a spa serious enough to count as a destination on its own. Ostra, the in-house restaurant, leans into international seafood. A compact, well-appointed stay for people who find the big chain hotels depressing.

A Beaux Arts landmark on Broadway that has been putting San Diego on notice since long before San Diego had a scene. The US Grant is a grand downtown hotel with high ceilings, burnished wood, and the quiet authority of a building that has never felt the need to explain itself. Forbes Four Star. Convention crowds and weekend arrivals fill the lobby, but the place absorbs them without breaking a sweat.

A cave à manger on 17th Street where you order at a counter, find somewhere to stand, and immediately wish there were chairs. The menu is Mediterranean-Italian, the wine selection leans natural, and the kitchen behind it all has DNA from Komi, the couple's storied tasting room. Griddled pita and olives are constants; a Japanese sweet potato with koji butter somehow fits right in. The ice cream flavors, polenta-cassis among them, suggest nobody here makes easy choices.

The electric pink neon sign is your landmark, and the shareable platters are the reason you came. This Sonoran taqueria from James Beard Award winner Rene Andrade runs on big, festive plates of ribeye or carnitas surrounded by beans, elote, and salsas, all meant to be wrapped into soft tortillas at the table. The cocktail program runs wilder than you'd expect from a taqueria. Bring people; the portions assume you did.

Each month brings a single fixed menu, two entrée choices, no walk-ins, and reservations that open on Tock a few days before the month turns, so planning ahead is part of the ritual. Spencer is a neighborhood wine restaurant with family-style seating that reads less like a dining room and more like someone's very well-stocked kitchen. The wine list is a James Beard Nominee for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program, and it earns the attention.

Red-brick facade, wrought-iron balconies, mosaic tilework, and the Pacific about twenty feet away: Casa del Mar is a grand beachfront hotel in Santa Monica that has been drawing California's well-heeled to the sand since the Roaring Twenties. The eight-story property holds restaurants, a spa, and an outdoor pool overlooking the waves, plus a beach concierge who can sort you a surfboard. It holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star, in case the ocean view left any doubt.

Shutters on the Beach is a luxury hotel sitting right on the Santa Monica sand, designed by Obama White House decorator Michael S. Smith in a style that mixes California ease with a little Northeast polish. Hockney and Oldenburg hang on the walls, fireplaces anchor the cozy corners, and the sea air follows you through the lobby. It holds a Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key, and the crowd that books it tends to already know that.

Kristi Brown's modern soul food restaurant on Capitol Hill runs on a certain gravitational pull, the kind where strangers at the bar invite you to art openings and the neck-bone stew, all smoky shredded meat and tender lima beans in a deep broth, makes conversation stop mid-sentence. The menu rotates seasonally, landing on catfish and grits or local clams in coconut milk depending on when you show up. A James Beard nominee, and on the New York Times radar too.

The Tavern is a downtown Tulsa pub built around a two-handed burger of short rib, chuck, and brisket, wearing stilton, a cognac-mushroom cream, and a challah bun like it's dressing for a wedding. The recipe hasn't changed in ages, and the neighborhood's dining scene more or less grew up around it. Expect pub prices, napkins in bulk, and a restaurateur nod from the James Beard semifinalists.

The dough here is made by hand in the Neapolitan tradition, soft enough that a margherita lands on the table looking almost too relaxed to be pizza. Partenope is a full-sit-down Italian restaurant on Main Street, the kind of place that takes its time with both the pasta and the service. It landed on 50 Top Pizza USA, which for Dallas is a meaningful data point. The room feels warm rather than scene-y, which in this city counts for something.

A neon green peace sign marks the door on a narrow Fishtown lane, and inside what used to look like an auto repair shop, the room opens into light wood and clean lines, somewhere between a pizza bar and a Scandinavian chapel. The menu is short, the dough is organic, and the crust stays crisp and chewy to the last bite. Natural wines and snacks keep you busy while you wait. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Bare wood farm tables, whitewashed brick, and a risotto cacio e pepe that regulars will happily order twice: Via Carota is a West Village Italian restaurant where the room feels like a farmhouse and the cooking feels like someone's very talented relative took over the kitchen. Reservations go fast, so plan ahead. The James Beard Awards named it an Outstanding Restaurant Semifinalist, and the lines outside suggest most of the neighborhood agrees.

This Lower East Side ramen shop is built around tsukemen, where thick cold noodles come alongside a hot, bonito-heavy broth and you dip them yourself like a person with a plan. The line out the door moves fast, and the people in it start swapping bowl reviews with strangers before they've sat down. If dipping feels like too much work, the milky tonkotsu-style ramen is right there. It's cheap, casual, and shows up on the New York Times 100 list.

Bar-Bill is a wing tavern in the postcard village of East Aurora, where the sauce goes on with an actual paintbrush, which sounds like a bit until you see how evenly everything gets coated. It's a casual, paper-towel kind of room, the sort where locals argue about the cajun honey butter BBQ versus the hot. Josh Allen once put away 40 wings here in a single sitting, so consider your own order a modest one.

The line out the door at 5 p.m. is not a fluke; it's people waiting on the country loaf that Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt pull from the oven each afternoon. This Mission District bakery and cafe has been rewriting the rules on sourdough since forever, and the morning buns and cream tarts move fast enough that showing up early is less a suggestion than a strategy.

The menu credits local farmers by name, which tells you what kind of small-plates restaurant this is before the food even arrives. Reclaimed wood, subway tile, and a patio backed by a bold flower mural set the room; the kitchen turns whatever's in season into inventive rustic-American plates that change often enough to reward repeat visits. The chef was a James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2023.

A few steps below street level on East Tenth, this French-inflected New American restaurant runs on shared plates and an open kitchen that keeps the room honest. The cooking touches the familiar at a slant: grilled cabbage, tempura squash blossoms, and a six-layer chocolate cake soaked in vermouth and evaporated milk that nominally serves two. The New York Times placed it fifteenth on its list of the city's hundred best. Reservations are a project, but the bar absorbs the overflow gracefully.

Sfincione is Sicilian street food, something between focaccia and pizza, and this focacceria in the Gulch has built its entire identity around it. The dough gets folded in an open kitchen, then topped with fontina, breadcrumbs, and pecorino before rotating varieties like roasted potato cream or spicy tomato with burrata take over. The menu is short by design. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and Esquire named it among the best new restaurants in America in 2024.

A tiny tiki bar tucked into Wailuku well off the resort circuit, Esters Fair Prospect pours tropical cocktails from a patio that feels like it was built for lingering. The drink list leans into local ingredients, including okolehao, a plantation-era spirit made from tī root. Food & Wine named it one of the top bars in the US in 2025. Bar snacks, ceramic mermaid cups, and happy hour daiquiris round out the picture.

Firefly is a Studio City American restaurant built so two people can stare at each other without interruption. Outside, cabanas draped in fairy lights circle a see-through fireplace, and the patio stays quiet enough for whispering. Inside is a candlelit room that feels like a sexy library, flickering enough that a waiver wouldn't be out of line. Come with a date, not your friend from work. The Infatuation put it on its most ridiculously romantic list.

The carriage house bones are the whole point: a fireplace center stage in winter, and windows that swing open onto a cobblestoned side street in summer, letting Barrow Street essentially become part of the room. This is a fine dining institution that New Yorkers bring people to when they want the city to do the heavy lifting, which it does without much trouble. The kind of place that makes a Tuesday feel like an occasion.

Fried chicken wings stuffed with andouille dirty rice tell you everything about this Southern-leaning cocktail bar and dining room in the Jay Hotel. The chef's Alabama roots show up in pimento cheese dressed with trout roe and banana cream pie reimagined as a chocolate-pretzel tartlet, dishes that straddle Sunday supper and something more deliberate. The room is dusky and quietly glamorous, the kind of place that makes a Tuesday feel like a reason to dress up.

Sierra Nevada's East Coast brewery comes with a sprawling taproom where the beer list runs from flagship lagers to whatever they're playing with this season. The on-site garden supplies the kitchen, which does wood-fired pizza and duck-fat fries alongside the pints, but drinking is the point. Outside there's a patio with a fire pit, a bocce court, cornhole, and an amphitheater, which sounds like overkill until you're on your third flight.

The line wraps around the corner off Palumbo Park at any hour, which tells you what you need to know before you even smell the place. Angelo's is a cash-only, no-seating slice shop and cheesesteak counter in South Philly, meaning you'll be eating on a bench or a curb like everyone else. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which the sesame-seed hoagies loaded with Cooper Sharp do nothing to contradict.

Dangling greenery and cozy booths set the mood at this Cuban diner in Coconut Grove, where the kitchen opens early, closes late, and never seems to slow down. Chef Michael Beltran runs the room with something close to organized chaos, and the menu swings from oxtail ajiaco to towering sandwiches on fluffy Cuban bread. The guava and cream cheese pastelitos alone tend to decide the next visit before you've finished this one. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Original artwork lines the walls of this elegant Buckhead fine dining room, where the menu shifts with the seasons and braised meats are something of a calling card. The wine list runs deep, and a sommelier is on hand if you'd rather not go it alone. A James Beard nominee for Outstanding Hospitality, which gives you a sense of how the room reads the room. AAA Four Diamonds.

A warm chocolate chip tahini cookie arrives at the end of a meal that was never really about restraint. This boisterous Mediterranean restaurant in San Diego's East Village was opened by a chef who spent years running kitchens for Daniel Boulud in New York before heading home. Vegetables and seafood share the menu with enough spice and char to keep things interesting. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

The name nods to silver, the element on Aspen's mining-town coat of arms, and the room inside the Little Nell lives up to the metaphor: sleek and modern, with a fireplace in the lounge and a wall of bottles behind glass that signals the wine program's seriousness. It holds a spot in Wine Enthusiast's Wine Restaurant Hall of Fame. Fine dining at altitude, with a contemporary menu that runs from duck to Wellington when the sun goes down.

A casual ramen counter in a Charlotte Avenue strip, built around creamy tonkotsu and noodles made in-house, the kind of place you order at and sit down with a fork and a plan. The miso tonkotsu arrives crowded with pork belly and a serious egg, and a dollar more buys garlic or the "hellfire" spice. It's the sort of bowl that makes a hangover feel like a sound investment, and Eater and The Infatuation both keep it on their lists.

A two-story brick former residence just off King Street, Lowland bills itself as a modern take on the 19th-century English tavern, rerouted through the Carolina Lowcountry. The celery salad with dates, cheddar, and walnuts has become the kind of dish people call friends about. Downstairs buzzes; upstairs settles. Food & Wine named it one of the top US restaurants in 2025, and the room seems blissfully unaware of the pressure.

Vaughan's is a Bywater dive where the Mardi Gras tinsel never comes down and Thursday nights mean a brass band that doesn't start until 10:30. The red beans and rice are free, which makes it easier to stay on the dance floor with whichever neighborhood regular grabs your hand first. The owners live nearby and have run the place for decades, so the community events and Pride tea dances feel more like hosting than programming.

The mana'eesh come off a dome-shaped saj grill, thin and crisp, topped with za'atar or wrapped around sumac-marinated chicken. Reem's is a counter-service Arab bakery and café in the Mission, bright and casual, with fatayer pastries and mezze rounding out a menu that works equally well for breakfast or lunch. A James Beard nominee and a fixture on the L.A. Times' California restaurant list, it's the kind of neighborhood spot that travels without losing itself.

A strip-mall address in Scottsdale is doing its best to throw you off, but step inside Course and it's a full tasting-menu restaurant, white-tablecloth intentions and all. The kitchen runs a rotating seasonal menu, five courses on weeknights and eight on weekends, with a James Beard semifinalist nomination for the chef and another for pastry. The Pinnacle Guide awarded it one Pin for 2026.

This is an upscale Mexican restaurant in the Gulch that started life as a food truck and now has a wall of heritage corn kernels behind the bar, which tells you where its loyalties lie. They make their own tortillas from imported and domestic corn, and the portions run generous. Ask about the mole negro, then settle in at the chef's counter. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

This is the downtown branch of a Houston steakhouse dynasty, all dark wood, low lights, and the hush of people who have expense accounts. The wine list is built like a library, with a sommelier who can talk you through it without making you feel graded. Expect crab cakes, a dry-aged rib-eye under bearnaise, and a slab of New York-style cheesecake that locals treat as a civic duty. Dress like you're closing a deal.

The line outside this Austin BBQ shop starts forming before most people have had breakfast, which tells you something. Inside, corrugated metal and cement floors keep things honest while the board above the counter does all the talking: brisket, ribs, sausage, pulled pork, turkey. The brisket comes sliced to order, weighed, wrapped in butcher paper, and set on a blue tray. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which is a polite way of saying the wait isn't the punishment it sounds like.

The tiramisu gets a Miami rewrite here, dulce de leche cream under a cap of espresso granita, and that instinct runs through everything at this snug Italian restaurant on Alton Road. Tufted banquettes and a covered patio set the mood, the wine list runs almost entirely Italian, and the bar pours house-infused grappa in flavors like chai and chamomile. The pasta is made in-house, and regulars fill the room nightly like they never considered going anywhere else.

The lobby, pools, and restaurants all live on the eighth floor, which means no street traffic filters up and no one is cutting through to anywhere. This Waikiki high-rise hotel holds a Forbes Four Star, and every room is a privately owned residence with a kitchenette, laundry, and enough square footage to feel like you actually live here. The upper floors shift color palettes by level to mirror the island's landscape, which is either lovely or a lot, depending on your floor.

The housemade sauces, a tomato-ginger-carrot blend built on West African spices, are so compulsively dippable that chef Fatou Ouattara now bottles and sells them at local groceries. This lively Division Street restaurant draws from across the region: suya-spiced wings, tangy lamb dibi, okra goat stew, and several vegan stews with the same depth. The New York Times put it on their Portland list, and USA Today named it a Restaurant of the Year.