The Best Places to Eat and Drink in the United States

The building alone stops traffic: a swooping, neon-trimmed Googie landmark designed by Helen Liu Fong, sitting minutes from LAX like a postcard from 1958 that never got mailed. Inside, Pann's is a classic diner with high ceilings, linoleum tables, and a boisterous cross-section of Angelenos who all seem to know exactly what they're ordering. Mornings run to chicken-fried steak; afternoons tip toward patty melts and fried chicken. Come for the architecture, stay for the food, or reverse the order.

The big tray chicken arrives in a wok the size of a hubcap, bird parts submerged in hot oil with enough Sichuan peppercorns to rearrange your face. This tiny Chinatown noodle cafe runs on Henan hand-stretched wheat noodles, and the brisket topping is the move. The room is small, the tables fill fast, and the bill stays low enough that you can afford to order the garlicky cucumbers without doing any math.

12 Stories is a rooftop cocktail bar on the twelfth floor at the Wharf, with a DJ, a dancehall and R&B soundtrack, and a view of the whole Potomac. The food is slider-and-truffle-fries territory, so eat beforehand and treat the menu as a courtesy. It's a place to debut a new outfit, with a gingery rum-pineapple Story Teller in hand and a dance floor that rewards commitment.

A wall of waving Maneki-neko cats stands guard outside, which is either good luck or a lot of eye contact before dinner. Inside Circa, 8 East is a sit-down Asian restaurant built around small plates, skewers, and family-style dishes, so it rewards showing up with people willing to share. Come hungry, dress casually, and expect the pork belly to have been slow-cooked far longer than your commute.

82 Kimbap is a weekday-only stall in Sterling Food Hall, and it exists so the Loop's office workers have something to eat at noon that isn't a sandwich. The rice rolls come stuffed with spicy pork, bulgogi, or braised tofu, wrapped around egg, vegetables, and purple rice. Add-ons include instant ramyun and giant fishcake skewers, though the line is there for the rolls. Expect to eat at a food-hall table under fluorescent lanyard energy.

Aa Sushi is a casual Ballard sushi spot where the money that would buy one person an omakase fills the whole table with nigiri, rolls, and a startling amount of miso soup. The rice is kept just warm enough to go soft against a slice of yellowtail belly. The menu also lets you add tamago Spam musubi or lemon-squeezed chicken karaage, which feels less like ordering and more like giving in.

A downtown Reno dive bar named for the highway that used to run through town, with old signs, vintage photos, and the occasional auto part on the walls. Out back, a fire pit sits beside a silver Airstream that turns out soup dumplings and bao after 5 p.m. There's pool, live music, karaoke, and a house ritual involving steak seasoning, Jameson, and Worcestershire. Dress for a bar, not a brunch.

A chalkboard the size of a garage door lists three dozen craft beers at this Arts District brewpub, which is a lot of decisions before you've had a drink. Communal wooden tables fill up fast on weekends with card-playing post-grads nursing a single pint for hours, and the new patio takes some pressure off. A food window sells bánh mì, fish tacos, and a bacon-loaded hot dog best kept from your doctor.

Alma is a Balkan dinner spot on Northeast MLK where everything arrives built for sharing, so you'll be passing plates and negotiating over the last bite of octopus. Seafood runs through the menu, alongside an eggplant dish that makes a quiet case for vegetables. Strong black tea starts the meal and cubes of Turkish delight end it, which is more hospitality than most places manage. The cocktails include a lamb fat-washed mezcal, in case that was your next question.

Apna Chat Bhavan is a casual counter-service Indian spot in Beaverton, tucked between a food market and a micro cinema, serving the kind of range most places would split across three restaurants. A "half" order of biryani arrives as a mountain of rice, and the dosa is roughly the length of a small runway. Order at the counter, ignore your better judgment, and save room for the pastry case. Eater included it on its list of Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

Arario is a second-floor Korean restaurant in Midtown where the portions run large and the pickled banchan arrives whether you asked or not. The menu splits between traditional dishes and fusion, which is how a bulgogi cheesesteak and a Korean Loco Moco with black bean gravy end up on the same page. There's room for big groups, a terrace for decent weather, and a Negroni made with Japanese gin, because why not.

This Greek restaurant started in suburban Winnetka and then crept into the city, which is the opposite of how chains usually migrate. The River North room is all plants and pale wood, built to feel like a long lunch on an island with a better ferry schedule than yours. The menu goes past the gyros-and-flaming-saganaki starter pack, though you should still order the saganaki. Eater lists it among the area's best.

The whole fish, selected by the diner and cooked to order, is the move at this airy, high-ceilinged Greek restaurant in the heart of Beverly Hills. The room leans into an easy Aegean elegance without trying too hard, and the crowd obliges by dressing accordingly. Seafood does the heavy lifting, but the Greek salad and roasted peppers with barrel-aged feta hold their own. Bring someone you want to impress, and let the pacing do the work.

Greyhound statues loom over a room that looks like a wealthy socialite grandmother's vacation home, which is exactly the vibe Quality Branded, the group behind Don Angie, was going for. This maximalist Italian restaurant moved into the old Palm Steakhouse space and brought the New York original's cheeky energy with it. Daily-made pastas, a seafood tower, and roasted garlic babka that people apparently talk about unprompted fill out a menu that never takes itself too seriously.

A converted tourist kiosk steps from the Air and Space Museum that happens to be the only place on the National Mall where you can order a glass of wine with your pizza. The team behind Sonny's Pizza runs this casual counter, pouring natural wine, beer, and spritzes alongside grandma-style pan slices and focaccia sandwiches. Mornings lean espresso and pastries. The footnote writes itself: museum gift shops sell astronaut ice cream; this place sells Aperol spritzes.

This is the hotel lobby bar at the Pendry on the Wharf, all brass, espresso wood, and dim velvet, the sort of room where a Louis Vuitton-print jacket would blend right in. Hotel guests and the well-funded settle into the lounge with coffee-and-rum cocktails while complimentary nuts and olives arrive unprompted. Entrees exist, but most people stick to truffle fries and a charcuterie board. It's a nightcap spot.

Batch Gastropub is a casual pub in a neighborhood where most bars seem to require a reservation and a point of view. Here the main decor is televisions, plenty of them, which makes game day the natural habitat. The beer list runs deep on craft pours, the whiskey shelf is serious, and the pub fare leans burgers and wings. Happy hour and weekly trivia give the regulars a schedule, and nobody asks you to dress for the occasion.

This is a red-sauce Italian joint a block off the Strip, with celebrity headshots, old records, and a wedding's worth of chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling. The kitsch is not subtle, and it suits big, loud group dinners where nobody checks the menu prices. Entrees come in under $50 and include unlimited house red and white, which is the real plot of the evening. Plan on leftovers and a lively walk back.

Beaujolais Bistro is a proper French bistro in a vintage brick building on a leafy corner near the Truckee River, where tables sometimes spill into the front yard for what passes as a dinner party under the stars. Big groups get the moody wine cellar, and the list leans Burgundy with a few Napa bottles on standby. It holds AAA Three Diamonds and a spot on Eater's Reno list.

Beloved's Bread is a bakery-cafe south of Midtown, where the first sign you've arrived is a patient line outside, obeying a posted rule that only six people may be inside at once. The loaves run from sourdough to Japanese milk bread and a proper pretzel, and the cafe turns to eggs in the morning and sirloin burgers later. Order at the counter, eat on the move, and keep an eye on your place in line.

Bencotto is a sit-down Italian restaurant in Little Italy, run by a Milanese kitchen with no interest in reinventing lasagna. The showpiece is pasta tossed inside a giant wheel of Parmesan, which is exactly as theatrical as it sounds. Expect housemade noodles, ossobuco, and a pink pancetta sauce, plus a weekday happy hour where the Aperol spritzes are cheap enough to make the early start feel like good judgment.

Bereket is a casual Turkish spot in the Loop that inherited a counter-service space, so the bright yellow room still has drop ceilings and a retired metal cafeteria station. It looks like a place for a ten-minute lunch, but the bread, manti, and döner-topped iskender are all made in-house and ask to be eaten slowly. It's open all day, every day, which removes your last excuse. The Infatuation lists it among the Loop's best.

Dim enough to feel genuinely clandestine, with tall dripping candles and banquettes you sink into and forget to leave, this Iranian restaurant in the Arts District is the LA outpost of a London original. The menu leans into the Iranian diaspora, with kebabs doing the heavy lifting. It sits inside Soho Warehouse, so the corner booth may or may not contain a movie star, which is either a draw or a reason to keep your eyes on the bread.

Bin 702 is a laid-back wine bar in Container Park that treats France as a loose suggestion, mostly because you can ask for Flamin' Hot Cheeto crumbles on top of things. The bottle-and-board deal pairs a cheese board with a bottle of wine at a price that drops further during happy hour. Expect small plates and mini sandwiches meant for sharing, plus beer, cocktails, and aperitivos for anyone not committing to a bottle.

A coffee shop in Downtown Columbus built around Tanzanian beans that are hard to find and roasted on-site in a machine you can practically lean against at the counter. By day it serves the statehouse crowd across the street; by night it pivots to espresso martinis and hosts comedy or poetry with low-key ease. The shift is seamless enough that nobody questions it, which might be the whole point.

Bodard Bistro is a small, casual Vietnamese spot on Bellaire Boulevard, where the dining room doubles as a greenhouse and nobody seems to mind the foliage getting the best seats. The kitchen leans Mekong Delta, so the tamarind-and-pineapple catfish soup shows up next to pork sausage spring rolls and crisp little shrimp pancakes. It's an easy, inexpensive meal, and The Infatuation put it on its Houston Chinatown list.

The draw here is a pancake that arrives without syrup and doesn't miss it, a thin, oatmeal-based griddle cake with a slight crunch and maple cinnamon butter doing all the work. This casual breakfast spot has been a neighborhood fixture for a while now, with locations scattered around LA. Breakfast sandwiches and housemade sausages fill out the menu, but the pancakes are the reason regulars show up and the reason Eater calls them among the city's finest.

The kulcha arrives stuffed with brie and gooseberry chutney, which tells you immediately where Brick Lane is coming from. This Arts District modern Indian restaurant takes its name from East London's famous curry mile, though the menu owes as much to California as to the subcontinent. Celeriac chapli kebabs and smoked butter chicken come off live fire, sourdough naan lands alongside tandoori roti, and a jaggery Old Fashioned handles drinks.

This is a sourdough slice shop on York, the pizza offshoot of the town's beloved bread operation, taking its cues from Boston, New Haven, New York, and New Jersey. That's four cities' worth of opinions about crust, all settled by one oven. The slice case changes daily, with cheese, pepperoni, and a vegan red pie always on call, plus meatballs, garlic knots, and a Caesar. Eater lists it among the best restaurants in Highland Park.

Cafe Bionda is a red-sauce Italian American spot on South State, where the menu still runs on rigatoni in Nonna's gravy and a carbonara that knows what it is. The bar got bigger after the 2022 reopening, and happy hour now draws a loud, cheerful crowd for $9 cocktails and $10 fried things. The lasagna is enormous and takes half an hour, so order it early and have a second cocktail.

Lemon ricotta pancakes show up on nearly every table at this airy daytime cafe in East Hollywood, indoors and out, full of laptops and Canyon Coffee. The menu stays deliberately short: pancakes, pastries, a handful of sandwiches, tea. It's the kind of neighborhood spot that gets called a community hub without irony, and somehow earns it.

Cafecito is a casual Cuban counter on East Congress, right next to the Auditorium Theatre, which makes it the default pregame for anyone with curtain time on their mind. Sandwiches on crisp pressed bread are the main event, with platters of rice and beans for people who want a fork. The cortaditos and cafe con leche are there to get you through a long first act, and they cost less than a theater snack.

Cantina Bambina is a two-story bar on the Wharf where the main attraction is the sunset, which turns the whole room gold around 8pm in summer. Drinks run to beer, wine, and a vodka-strawberry lemonade, and the food is beef sticks, Moon Pies, and potato chips, so eat dinner first. It suits the stretch before a show at the Anthem across the street, or any sunny afternoon with nowhere to be.

Wood-fired Argentine steaks on Melrose, served with the unhurried warmth of a family room that hasn't updated its aesthetic since Clinton's first term, and means it as a compliment. This intimate steakhouse has been around forever, still run by the same family, with one brother in the kitchen and one working the floor. The postre Gardel, a layered dulce de leche cake, has its own reputation. On the Eater 38 list of essential Los Angeles restaurants.

The ceramic logo bricks are for sale, and so is almost everything else in this coffee shop annexed to Carpet Company's Baltimore skateshop. The concrete counters were poured by a local artist, the C-star tiles commissioned in Egypt, and the lattes lean toward rose cardamom. Every skater and graffiti writer inside is either friends with Turnstile or working on it. Come for the coffee; leave quietly coveting the glass table with giant jacks for legs.

Casale's Halfway Club is a red-sauce Italian joint with checkered tablecloths, and you can still spot old bedroom doorframes in the dining room from when the family lived here. Meatballs lean on breadcrumbs, lasagna is baked to order in single portions, and the ravioli comes split between meat and cheese. Reno regulars treat it as home, the dive label is optional, and Mama Inez is spoken of the way other towns speak of saints.

A Cuban-inspired brunch spot on the second floor in Waikiki where the Cubano and choripan keep locals coming back despite the tourist foot traffic below. The chef leans hard on local sourcing, which is rarer here than you'd think, so the fruit plate runs on farmers market tropicals instead of the usual imported berries flown in from somewhere cold. Sandwiches and braised brisket do the heavy lifting on a menu that reads like it belongs somewhere else entirely.