The Best Places to Eat and Drink in the United States

A family-owned donut shop in the West Valley that keeps things classically in their lane: yeast, cake, apple fritters, bear claws, and a roster of filled options generous enough to cause real indecision. The vanilla cream version rolled in toasted coconut is a regular argument-settler. Smoothies and ice cream round out the menu for anyone who wandered in looking for something else and stayed for the donuts anyway.

Sweet Magnolia is a counter-service barbecue spot in an Ahwatukee strip mall, and the smoke announces it from the parking lot before you've found the door. It cooks Mississippi-style, so the sauce runs sweet and pork gets its due in a Valley otherwise devoted to Texas brisket. It started as a food truck, which explains the order-at-the-counter, grab-a-tray ease, and the mac and cheese is a side that behaves like a main.

Ordering here means choosing a station based on what you want, which feels like a small logistics exam before you've had a single taco. It's a casual counter spot on South Eastern, so come hungry and dressed for salsa. Fillings run from carne asada to buche, cabeza, and tripe, with soyrizo for vegetarians, all on soft corn tortillas with up to eight salsas to sort out. Eater lists it among the best tacos in Las Vegas.

The chilaquiles burrito, stuffed with saucy corn chips, grilled panela, eggs, and pork en chile verde, is the reason to know this compact south San Jose taqueria. The walls are turquoise, the menu runs to genuinely oversized tortas and Flamin' Hot Cheetos tacos, and seating inside the narrow room fills fast. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the best restaurants in San Jose, which tracks with the line out front on any given morning.

A sharkskin grater, some earthen ceramics, and knives that could plausibly start a conflict: the counter at this sushi shop tells you everything before a piece of fish appears. The chef trained at Morimoto's before opening this intimate spot in the Fairway Shops, where you can order a la carte most days. Weekends, the omakase seats about a dozen people for a long, unhurried dinner with fish flown in from Toyosu Market.

Murals and Black-inspired art cover the walls of this cafeteria-style Southern spot on the Northside, where the steam trays are loaded with fried chicken, oxtails, and mac and cheese that earns its reputation. The desserts, peach cobbler and lemon meringue among them, come from the owner's mother, which explains why the room fills with the kind of regulars who already know what they're getting before they reach the counter.

Fifty wines on self-service taps is the organizing idea here, a wine bar inside Chattahoochee Food Works where you load a card and pour your own 1.5-ounce samples until something clicks. A sommelier runs the place, so the selection is serious without being precious. Bottles on tap are available to take home, and a small food menu of charcuterie boards and paninis gives you enough to keep going without turning it into dinner.

Mismatched tablecloths and cloth napkins set the tone at this cozy Mediterranean-leaning tea room and cafe, where the menu runs to sandwiches, salads, and sampler plates with a light Greek accent. The house iced tea is steeped with clove, and the patio, tucked behind a fountain, manages to feel like someone's backyard despite sitting right off the street. A good spot for a slow Saturday lunch with no particular agenda.

Tekka is a walkup hand-roll counter inside The Cosmopolitan, built for people with somewhere louder to be. Each temaki arrives one at a time, so the nori stays crisp, with warm rice and the friendly basics like salmon, yellowtail, and spicy tuna. A set of three runs under $30. There's a nitro matcha on tap for a gentle buzz, and the seating line moves fast, which is the right speed for a Strip pit stop.

Gazpacho arrives in a glass porrón, and the oysters come buried in a cloud of smoke, because a Barcelona group opening a tapas spot in a Palo Alto shopping center was never going to be subtle about it. The menu runs through pintxos, paella, and Catalonian standards, with a small shop stocking Spanish wines and tinned goods near the door for the ride home.

A bright pink Tex-Mex restaurant in the Heights, covered in murals, beer posters, and neon, with a parking lot that has been full for as long as anyone can remember. The queso arrives at the exact drippy consistency fajitas and flautas demand, and the margaritas work faster than the service, which is saying something. It handles birthday crowds, a two-person booth, and the odd pancake breakfast with equal calm.

The wood-fired oven runs hot enough that the Neapolitan crusts come out blistered and light, with char spots that mean someone is paying attention. Terún is a pizza shop on California Ave that has been a gathering spot for the Italian expat crowd on the Peninsula for a while now. The black and white dining room is spare, which makes the olive oil and the colors on the plates look even more vivid by contrast.

The Birria Queen is a taco truck in Third Ward, and the name spares you any guesswork about the menu. The tacos come crisp and stuffed with cheese, with carne asada, chicken, or a vegan filling inside, and most people grab theirs to go. Park at the picnic table instead, dunk each one in the consomé while it's still hot, and order the jalapeño crema on the side if you're feeling brave.

Buddy Valastro, the Cake Boss himself, turned his Jersey deli upbringing into a sandwich counter on the Strip, where the mozzarella is made in house and every sandwich arrives on toasted ciabatta with your choice of sweet or hot peppers. It's casual and counter-service, the kind of stop where you can wear the same shirt you wore on the plane. Eater has put its sandwiches on a best-of list.

The Boys' Deli is a sandwich counter tucked into the back of Polk Street Market in Russian Hill, and the rotisserie chicken turning near the entrance does most of the recruiting. It's an order-at-the-counter, wrapper-and-napkin lunch where the Spitfire pairs chicken with bacon, jalapeños, and sriracha mayo. The specials rotate, so the menu changes while the faint smell of chicken on your jacket does not.

A buffet inside a medieval-castle casino, which means you can fill a plate with sushi, smoked brisket, and beef birria before noon and nobody in a plastic sword will question it. Six stations cover American, Asian, Italian, and Latin, with made-to-order omelets, iced shellfish, and a dessert counter running to crepes and frozen custard. Dress code is whatever got you through the casino floor, and prices stay in the low-to-mid thirties.

A line snaking out of a Thruway Shopping Center storefront at noon is the surest sign something is working. This family-owned sandwich and salad shop has been a Winston-Salem lunch fixture for decades, with regulars who come for the three-salad plates, spicy sesame noodles, and chicken salad, then linger over the daily specials board hoping the orange ginger grilled shrimp has shown up. Save room for a lemon bar.

The apothecary shelves and absinthe selection set the mood before you order anything. This cocktail bar in Winter Park has been doing serious, seasonally sourced drinks long enough to have inspired a generation of imitators, and the bartenders here still treat the work like a graduate seminar. Patience is part of the deal; a well-built drink takes as long as it takes. Literate regulars seem to mind the wait least of all.

The Garrison is a seafood restaurant in Ballard from the people behind Le Coin, built around local clams and oysters. The clams arrive in a brothy cured lemon butter, which comes with grilled bread so that no one has to resort to drinking from the bowl in public. The crab puff pastry is a flaky, delicate thing, and the oysters have been known to make strangers at the next table speak up. Eater put it on its Seattle seafood list.

A 10,000-square-foot steakhouse in South Barrington built for the kind of night that ends with someone else signing the check. The menu runs to wagyu, roasted seafood towers, and lobster rolls, all designed to photograph well and eat even better. The chef came up through Gibsons Restaurant Group, so the kitchen knows its way around a serious piece of beef. Suburbs have had the chains; this is the splurge alternative.

The Hornet is a takeout sandwich counter tucked inside London Market in Pacific Heights, which is less a restaurant than a very well-organized errand. The menu of sandwiches and wraps changes daily, so you pick from a handful of options and hope nobody beat you to it. Ordering online helps, since the good ones sell out early and standing in a corner market staring at an empty chalkboard is a bleak way to spend lunch.

A seafood counter in downtown Greenville where the oysters come clean and release easily off the shell. The chef's nod to local pride shows up in the po' boy, dressed with Duke's mayo, which got its start right here in town. Smoked fish dip and a tight list of high-acid whites fill out a lunch that moves fast, since the room runs first-come, first-served. Keep an eye out for the seasonal all-you-can-eat oyster roasts with live music on Sunday afternoons.

A former liquor store turned all-day breakfast diner in the Broad Avenue Arts District, where the name turns out to be the only misleading thing about it. The menu runs pancakes and biscuits alongside Cuban sandwiches and tacos, so you can eat your way through several meals at once without anyone judging you. There's patio seating out front, cocktails on the menu, and banana pudding if the day calls for it.

A tiny donut shop tucked into a shopping center off Hayden, where the menu categories are literally named Classy, Fancy, and Schmancy, so expectations are appropriately calibrated. Yeast donuts, cake donuts, mochi donuts, fritters, and seasonal pastries all share the case, and the creme brulee donut gets a kitchen torch before it reaches you. Phoenix New Times put it on their list of the Valley's top dozen donut shops.

Mules come topped with torched marshmallows and rosemary here, which tells you immediately that this is not your average neighborhood bar, even if it very much looks like one. Mismatched vintage sofas, a fireplace, and bartenders who seem genuinely happy to see you give The Nook the feel of a cozy cabin that someone accidentally stocked with serious cocktails. West Seattle locals treat it like a living room, which is more or less what it is.

The Nori is a handroll bar and izakaya in a Decatur Boulevard strip mall, which is where Las Vegas hides most of its good, cheap lunches. The temaki set puts five different rolls on a platter for about twenty bucks, and they're sized so you could share them with a friend. The nori arrives crisp enough to crackle, so you'll eat fast, and you will stop pretending the sharing was ever a real plan.