The Best Places in the United States

A cheesecake baked to order from three cheeses, landing somewhere between dessert and a philosophical argument, is a fitting way to close a meal at this upscale Mexican restaurant in East Austin. The kitchen leans into complex sauces and careful technique, with moles and ceviches that clearly have something to prove. Cocktails are inventive enough to hold their own. The Michelin Guide has it listed among its selected restaurants.

A handful of bar seats hovering over a kitchen the size of a closet sets the whole mood at this East Village izakaya from the team behind Odo. Rustic wood counter, exposed brick, a menu that moves through sashimi, grilled fish, wagyu, and things fried or simmered over rice. The food is meant to be shared, the pacing is unhurried, and the room seats enough people to make a reservation feel like a small victory.

The booths at this Beverly Hills Hotel restaurant have been hosting power lunches and quiet deal-making for about as long as anyone can remember. The menu leans American with a nod toward Italian, built around local and organic ingredients. In the evenings, a pianist keeps things warm and a little old-fashioned in the best way. The crowd tends toward people who don't need to check the prices.

Fresh pasta rolled in-house daily anchors the menu at this casually upscale Italian restaurant in Sandy. The room lands somewhere between date night and neighborhood staple, where charcuterie boards make a reasonable case for never ordering a main course. Bone-in ribeye and seared scallops with saffron emulsion suggest the kitchen is happy to range past the pasta, which is admirable restraint given how good the pasta is.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the Pacific from a rocky bluff at Post Ranch Inn, which means the view is doing a lot of work before the food arrives. Sierra Mar is a prix-fixe dining room where the four-course dinner menu leans hard into California seasonality, the service stays warm without hovering, and the whole room seems calibrated for people celebrating something they'll want to remember.

Tucked inside the Cherry Lane Theatre, this intimate cocktail bar and bistro from the Frenchette team runs a roving menu that moves from raw bar to steak tartare to fried frog legs with garlic butter, and somehow also a cheeseburger that regulars order without apology. Amber globe lights, curved bar, green banquettes: the room is doing its job quietly. Frozen custard or another round of cocktails closes things out. Reservations are scarce, so plan accordingly.

The roaster works in plain sight at the back of this Brazilian crop-to-cup coffee shop, which pulls beans from the Peters family farm in Minas Gerais. No flavored syrups, no blenders, just coffee, milk, and water in various combinations, which sounds austere until you taste it. Pastries come from a local bakery and empanadas round out the food side. A second location sits inside Epicenter at Agritopia.

Plants climb the walls beside murals of a fish and a rooster at this Venezuelan restaurant in Station North, where Latin music keeps the room from taking itself too seriously. The chef plates things like Caribbean scallops and stuffed arepas with a careful hand, and much of the menu skews gluten-free with strong vegan options. A James Beard semifinalist spot that Baltimore Magazine has landed on its best restaurants list.

The central bar is the anchor here, and the cocktails come first by design. Kingfisher is a Vietnamese restaurant and cocktail bar in Golden Hill where the kitchen treats the cuisine with serious technique, pulling flavors from canh chua and congee into something more considered than traditional. The Michelin Guide has it listed, and the Los Angeles Times placed it on their California 101. A dressed-up neighborhood crowd that clearly knows the menu by heart.

A U-shaped bar anchors this Danish coffee shop, where streamlined taps for cold drinks share space with a proper V60 setup and a counter lined with pastries worth stopping for. La Cabra built a following in Copenhagen before planting roots on the Lower East Side, and the East Village original still draws a crowd that treats croissants and a carefully pulled espresso as a reasonable reason to leave the house.

Deborah VanTrece's modern Southern restaurant in a Westside industrial strip is the kind of place where the bar program is as serious as the kitchen, a James Beard semifinalist on both counts. The menu takes the food your grandmother made and runs it somewhere she probably didn't, with collard dip alongside pimento cheese fondue and fried chicken arriving with a collard green roll. The New York Times put it on their Atlanta list, and the room earns the attention.

The grilled pizza here goes directly onto the flame, which does something to the crust that an oven simply cannot: a char-edged, smoke-threaded base that's thin enough to feel light but sturdy enough to carry its toppings. This is a full-menu Italian restaurant, not a slice shop, so come ready for pasta and roasted vegetables too. The room is bright, the pace is brisk, and the drinks list is short but chosen with care.

A repurposed garage on the east side doing dinner-only, with Indiana pork tenderloin and pan-fried walleye anchoring a menu that takes Midwest agriculture seriously without taking itself too seriously. The sommelier's global wine list is the kind of thing you don't expect to find alongside fried local smelt. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025, which tracks for a room that manages to feel both neighborhood and occasion at once.

Coffee drinks topped with salted egg yolk set the tone at this all-day French-Vietnamese cafe in Fountain Valley, where the kitchen leans into the Vietnamese morning routine and the iced coffee is strong enough to renegotiate your afternoon plans. The menu runs to things like curry crab omelet, and the room fills fast with people who clearly know something you don't. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: California.

El Molino del Sureste is a Yucatecan restaurant where deep jade walls and patterned benches make you briefly forget you're a few minutes from Lindenwood Park. The namesake molino sits front and center, grinding nixtamalized corn into the tortillas that show up with nearly everything. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Midwest, which tracks for a place that treats a turkey-and-sausage relleno as a weeknight option.

A twenty-seat BYOB in Grays Ferry where the menu runs fewer than a dozen small plates, almost all of them seafood-leaning and swapped out with the seasons. The kitchen pairs familiar things in ways that quietly surprise you, carrots with crab, mussels over miso and chili oil. Bring something good to drink, because the food asks for it, and book ahead, because twenty seats go fast.

The burnt banana coconut tapioca pudding is a little ugly and completely beside the point, which is almost the whole story of this Vietnamese restaurant on Washington Ave. The menu runs bright and chili-forward, with shrimp cakes wrapped in butter lettuce and twice-cooked eggplant that quietly steals the table. A James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Northeast and a New York Times Restaurant List pick, it draws the kind of crowd that orders everything.

The entrance is around the corner from the address, at Florida and Mariposa, which feels like a metaphor for the restaurant itself. Ernest is a New American spot in the Mission where the chef pairs kaluga caviar with tater tots and means it. The menu is small and seasonal, with raw bar, snacks, and a few mains. Walk-ins can post up at the bar, which has a cocktail program worth the detour on its own.

A snug Georgetown lunch counter where the glass case does most of the talking: lentils with smoky eggplant, leek-and-walnut tarts, spinach-feta börek, and a dairy-free zucchini soup that has no business being that good. Order a sandwich on the crackly focaccia to eat on the spot, then quietly stock your fridge from the rest. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2025, which explains why a takeout counter feels like such a considered place.

By day, Beast & Cleaver is a Ballard butcher shop where you can walk out with chops and links for the home stove. After hours it turns into a whole-animal steakhouse under the alter ego "The Peasant," running a tasting menu, which is the sort of double life usually reserved for superheroes. Steaks, house sausages, and even the salads draw a meat-minded crowd, and the chef was a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist.

The Peking duck arrives whole or halved, which is the kind of choice that quietly tells you what sort of restaurant NiHao is. A contemporary Chinese spot in Canton, it draws from Sichuan traditions and dim sum alongside more ambitious plates, with a menu wide enough that vegetarians and serious heat-seekers end up equally occupied. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, it landed national attention fast and has held the room ever since.

The fry bread here comes out puffy and golden, stuffed with ground beef and beans or finished with chocolate, and it gives the whole menu its name. This family-run Tohono O'odham restaurant has been an anchor in Phoenix's Melrose District long before the neighborhood got interesting, serving tacos, stews, and tostadas alongside it. The kind of spot where out-of-towners finally understand what Arizona actually tastes like.

The bread basket alone sets the tone: sheet-pan biscuits and jalapeño johnnycakes before you've even decided anything. This is a sleek Modern Southern restaurant in Summerhill, where the menu keeps one foot in tradition and one somewhere unexpected, think berber-spiced fried chicken or a dish cheekily called lamburger helper. A James Beard semifinalist and a New York Times pick, Southern National reads as a neighborhood spot that just happens to be cooking at a different level.

Bardot is a Michael Mina brasserie tucked inside Aria, a windowless black-and-white room where it's always a flattering 8 p.m. and fresh flowers cover every surface. A shellfish cart rolls past, a martini program has its own national press, and at brunch someone sings Shania Twain over the croissants. It's a dressy-casual, mid-to-upper price French spot, and it holds three AAA diamonds.

Wild Fig is a no-frills BBQ takeout counter in Summerlin that started life as a commissary kitchen, and it still has the energy of one. The smoked pastrami goes toe to toe with the East Coast versions, and the pickles are homemade. Most of it sells out by mid-afternoon, so ordering ahead is the move. A few picnic tables face the parking lot, which the people eating there have decided not to mind.

The skylight over the dining room does most of the heavy lifting at this Latin American restaurant and rum bar on Sansom Street, flooding plates of vaca frita with the kind of light that makes you briefly question which city you're in. The daiquiris are serious, the ceviche keeps pace, and the piña coladas have a small but devoted following. A James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist runs the kitchen.

A boutique hotel installed in a pair of mid-century buildings on Camelback Road, RISE Uptown runs the room spectrum from deliberately snug to balcony-with-firepit. The courtyard pool is the real draw: Lylo Swim Club handles cocktails, Cartel Coffee Lab handles mornings, and a popsicle stand handles the argument that boutique hotels have run out of ideas. Rooms are colorful and comfortable without trying too hard.

Royal blue booths, an open kitchen you can pull a counter seat at, and a baked Alaska that arrives on fire make the room feel like it has something to prove, in a good way. Bludorn is a New American restaurant and bar where the menu swings wide, from oysters (some Texan) to cioppino to seafood towers. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, and the hospitality is the kind that makes you notice it without being able to say why.

A Malaysian Indian tasting menu restaurant tucked into the Tenderloin, Azalina's trades the neighborhood's gray palette for the saturated colors and layered textures of a Penang night market. The chef grew up there, and the seasonal prix fixe traces Malaysian cooking's Chinese, Indian, Malay, and European overlaps through a California lens. A James Beard semifinalist and listed in the New York Times and Condé Nast Traveler, it earns the attention without announcing itself.

This tiny Chinatown dumpling house on Spring Mountain Road has a glass window where you can watch the staff fold your future soup dumplings while you wait, which is either entertainment or torture depending on your blood sugar. There are no reservations, and you may be asked to order before you sit, so study the menu in line. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist, and the xiao long bao are the reason the line exists.

Half the rooms share a bathroom, and the Ace Hotel will tell you so without flinching. This Belltown hotel pitches itself squarely at travelers who'd rather have 14-foot ceilings and whitewashed brick walls than a private shower. The lobby reads like an art gallery that wandered into the hospitality business, all dark walnut floors and retro-futuristic white walls. Expect a crowd that owns interesting jackets and has opinions about fonts.

Thirteen rooms, each one a little different, wrapped in original fireplaces, forest greens, and Victorian wrought iron that feel genuinely of this neighborhood rather than borrowed from it. A small hotel in the Lower Garden District, the Blackbird leans into Southern Gothic without costuming itself. The pool bar runs craft cocktails and occasional live jazz, and the café handles food better than a room count of 13 has any business doing.

The rooftop lounge and the sandy palette both nod to Camelback Mountain, which gives this modern Hilton a more coherent design identity than most hotels in the Phoenix sprawl. Rooms are contemporary and quietly comfortable, with Cobre Kitchen + Cocktails and the open-air Outrider Rooftop Lounge on site. The real advantage is the address: Old Town Scottsdale is one of the few genuinely walkable neighborhoods in a metro that treats sidewalks as a theoretical concept.

Czech glass chandeliers and gold-leaf ceilings in a city that built its reputation on reclaimed wood and oat milk. Hotel deLuxe is an old-school, unapologetically ornate hotel in Portland's West End, where art deco mirrors and twinkling lobbies feel like a deliberate provocation. Pack something other than fleece. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A 52-story tower shaped like a ship's prow where the Miami River meets Biscayne Bay, this hotel takes the nautical metaphor further than most: it's the only Miami property with dockside access, handling vessels up to 900 feet with overnight mooring and onboard catering. Floor-to-ceiling bay views show up in most guest rooms, so you're never allowed to forget the water. The Michelin Guide has it on their selected hotels list.

A Perkins + Will renovation turned a landmark Deep Ellum building into this Kimpton boutique hotel, and the bones of the original structure still show. Kimpton does a reliable version of stylish-but-approachable, which fits the neighborhood's mix of music venues and murals better than anything glass-and-tower would. A solid base for exploring a part of Dallas that most conventioneers never find.

Rooms named Ben and Betsy, after the neighbors who made this street famous, set the tone at this low-touch, apartment-style hotel in Old City. No front desk fuss, just an iPad stocked with neighborhood intel and urban-loft interiors with contemporary furniture. It's the kind of place that assumes you'd rather feel like a resident than a guest, which, on one of Philadelphia's most historically loaded blocks, is not a bad assumption.

Apartments with a washer/dryer and live plants in every unit, inside the landmarked Book Tower. ROOST is an extended-stay boutique hotel where the studios and one- or two-bedroom suites run closer to a furnished apartment than a standard room, with full kitchens and a bikes-to-borrow program. Dogs are welcome, and when cooking feels like too much, the building's own restaurant options are right downstairs.

A Fernando Botero bronze in the lobby sets the tone for this luxury hotel in Brickell, where the common areas read more like a gallery than a corridor. Suites come with marble kitchen bars, soaking tubs, rainfall showers, and private balconies over the Miami skyline. The ninth-floor terrace has a rooftop pool for daytime lounging. Guests also get beach and pool access at the Delano in South Beach, which softens the blow of not being on the water yourself.

The walnut-heavy Beaux Arts lobby sets the tone at this downtown Dallas hotel, where the fixtures are bold and the lighting is the kind that makes everyone look like they have a secret. Rooms run toward warm and plush, and the suites are reportedly among the largest in the city. The heated rooftop pool stays open until midnight, cocktails included, which is a civilized policy for which the Adolphus deserves more credit than it gets.

A 121-room boutique hotel on First Avenue that will, without making a fuss about it, lay out a doggie bed for your St. Bernard. Art-forward rooms and a genuinely warm staff make it the rare place that manages to feel upscale without feeling exclusive, drawing business travelers, families, and the occasional touring musician in equal measure. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Two restored Federal-style row houses on a quiet Georgetown block hold just fifteen rooms, which means the staff knows your name by checkout. This luxury boutique hotel sits in Washington's oldest neighborhood, a short walk from the university and well clear of the monumental everything downtown. The interiors run spare and bright against the historic facades. Breakfast and an evening spread of craft beer and local wine are included, and Georgetown handles the rest.

Some of the loft-style rooms here come with spiral staircases separating the sleeping area from a small upper sitting space, which is either charming or mildly inconvenient after a late night on Frenchmen Street. This boutique hotel on the edge of the Lower Garden District went through a full overhaul, with herringbone floors, marble bathrooms, and a saltwater pool with a swim-up bar doing most of the convincing. Magazine Street is a short walk away.