The Best Places in the United States

Chilaquiles made with dark, thick mole rather than salsa are the reason El Mil Amores draws a line on weekend mornings in the Mission. It's a brunch spot doing Mexico City-style cooking, the kind of place where the tortilla chips stay crunchy long enough to matter and the mole carries real bitterness alongside the heat. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best brunch restaurants, which the regulars already knew.

Mesquite-grilled carne asada is the throughline at this modern Mexican steakhouse in downtown Tucson, where exposed brick and wooden beams split the difference between industrial and hacienda. The menu pushes traditional Mexican cooking into unexpected territory, lobster stuffed inside masa, chile verde stirred into mac and cheese, surf and turf riffing on enchiladas. A long tequila and mezcal list means no one is leaving dry.

The barbari bread is baked fresh each morning, which tells you something about how seriously this casual Silver Lake cafe takes Iranian cooking. Azizam runs on the kind of labor-intensive prep that doesn't announce itself, from herb-packed sandwiches to the kofteh Tabrizi, a single family-size meatball in tangy broth. Named to the New York Times Restaurant List and the L.A. Times 101 Best, it landed on Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants list, too.

Wood-paneled walls, beers on tap, a game on the TV, and then the menu arrives and reminds you that the chef grew up in the Pacific Rim. The Duchess reads like a neighborhood pub but cooks like something else entirely. The shrimp and corn patties, crisp and spiced with Chamorro chile paste, landed on the New York Times list of best dishes eaten across the country in 2025. Wear whatever you'd wear to a bar.

The ceiling, bar, and floors are all wood, giving this Northern Vietnamese restaurant a sleek, downtown-polished look that suits its Mason Street address. Lunch runs toward phở and bún chả for the neighborhood office crowd; dinner opens into turmeric cakes topped with caviar and braised short rib that take their time. The sugarcane juice with calamansi is the move if you're not sure what to drink.

The chandelier-and-tile dining room reads like a 19th-century brasserie someone quietly upgraded from the inside. This is a modern American bistro on Magazine Street where the chef folds global techniques into the Creole tradition without making a fuss about it. The New York Times named it among New Orleans' 25 best right now, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed. The food moves forward; the room pulls you back. Both things are happening at once, and that's kind of the point.

A restored church that now serves bagels, flatbreads, wine, and boozy coffee drinks instead of sermons, The Congregation is the kind of all-day cafe and community hub where dropping in for an hour routinely becomes three. The outdoor deck and yard fill up on warm Thursday evenings when there's dancing. Food trucks, a farmers market, and yoga classes round out the calendar for a place that takes the "third place" idea more literally than most.

Antler chandeliers and rough-hewn timber done with enough restraint that it stops short of kitschy, which is harder than it sounds. Alpine Falls Ranch is a mountain-lodge resort on the western edge of Montana, where the Rockies do the decorating and the hotel has the good sense to stay out of the way. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys. Guests who came for the landscape tend to linger longer than planned.

A Victorian inn tucked into the White Mountains woods, with gas fireplaces and two-person whirlpool tubs in every room, which should tell you something about the vibe they're going for. Rooms in the main house each have their own layout, and private cottages are available for those who need more distance from the world. The spa, a dining room with upscale American cooking, and a tavern with serious cocktails round it out. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

A Gothic Queen Anne mansion built for a 19th-century saloon king, this bed and breakfast holds a Michelin two-key distinction and looks every inch of it. The divided staircase, three-and-a-half-story corner tower, and stained-glass skylight do most of the decorating before you even reach your room. Suites add jacuzzis or balconies, and every room is named for a local historical figure, which is a more charming touch than it sounds.

A BYOB tasting-menu spot on a quiet South Boston corner, small enough that you can hear the chef narrate every course from the stove. No sommelier, no ceremony, no acres of white tablecloth: just a handful of seasonal courses, meat or vegetarian, with a cooking style that wanders wherever it likes. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, which makes the bring-your-own-wine, share-with-the-next-table looseness feel like the whole point.

Challah soaked in Grand Marnier, griddled until the sugar crust cracks like a crème brûlée top, is the thing people come back for at this Southern brunch spot in Scottsdale. Catfish and grits, chicken and waffles, and a waffle so light it barely holds its own weight round out a menu that swings comfortably between sweet and savory. Weekends bring a DJ and mimosas on every table; weekdays are quieter and the wait is shorter.

The jalapeño cornbread waffles have held a spot on the menu since day one, which tells you something about the kitchen's confidence. This Wesley Heights New American spot has a Michelin listing and a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the food roams freely, from pork belly dumplings with shiso to Outer Banks scallops over couscous. The room feels unhurried, the sourcing is local without being preachy about it, and the three-course option is the move.

Shoji is a Japanese cafe in SoMa that does a quiet costume change once the offices empty out, trading lattes for a short menu of small plates and cocktails. By day the move is matcha, particularly the einspänner under a drift of whipped sweet cream. At night there are oysters, a fried chicken and egg salad sandwich, and a uni donburi, all of it easy on the wallet and the dress code. It has a few coffee honors, which seems fair.

The name is a sociologist's term for the gathering spots between home and work, and the owners take it literally. This daytime coffee shop and café shares a kitchen with the restaurant Jun, run by Top Chef alums, and rotating chef residencies mean the lunch menu shifts week to week. Pastries, salads, and matcha drinks anchor the everyday offerings, but the rotating kitchen keeps the regulars checking Instagram before they order.

A white bungalow on a quiet stretch of Second Street, with string lights on the porch and climbing plants inside, that happens to be one of Phoenix's better French brasseries. Marble tables, exposed brick, and a vinyl record spinning somewhere set the mood for oysters on the patio or baked brie and beef tartare by candlelight. The wine list pulls from around the world, which keeps the date-night crowd very happy and very unhurried.

Large metal bowls of steaming pho arrive trailing the scent of anise, and the broth is sweet enough that people come back for it the way some people return to a therapist. This Westminster pho shop splits its menu into beginner and adventurer sides, with noodle style and cut of beef chosen at the counter. The Los Angeles Times named it among California's 101 best restaurants, and the Michelin Guide has it listed too. Bring patience; the room fills fast.

The rooftop pool catches the sea breeze off the bay, which goes a long way toward explaining why guests tend to linger up there longer than planned. This Kimpton hotel sits right in the middle of downtown, with the Gaslamp District's low-rise Victorian blocks and their bars and restaurants essentially at the door. The vibe is what San Diego does well: polished without being stiff, comfortable without being forgettable. A Michelin Selected Hotel.

Stained glass windows and terrazzo floors survive from the original train depot, and the hotel built around them leans into that legacy without apology. Rooms run mid-century rather than Edwardian, but the real draw is the Grand Hall, where a gilded arched ceiling towers over The Bar at Asher Adams. Classic cocktails under that ceiling feel less like a hotel amenity and more like the whole point of the stop. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A downtown Houston hotel where the saddle-colored leather headboards and earth-toned rugs make it feel like a ranch house that somehow ended up on the 20th floor. The whole place is a tribute to trailblazing Texan women, and every room and the chic lobby bar was designed by female talent. Rooms are spacious, rocking chairs sit by floor-to-ceiling windows, and the top-floor suite comes with a formal dining room and soaking tub.

Philippe Starck designed this Autograph Collection hotel, and it shows, in a way that's meant to be noticed. It sits in Downtown Miami rather than the beach, which locals will tell you is a feature. Rooms run spacious, the Dua Spa by K'Alma handles recovery, and the pool deck has the kind of energy that makes checkout feel like a personal failure. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A classical-revival tower that locals know as part of Birmingham's "Heaviest Corner on Earth," the Elyton is a hotel with actual bones, its 117 rooms running tall and light in a building that was turning heads long before the neighborhood caught up. The arts district hums outside; inside, things stay polished without feeling stiff. The Yard handles brunch and bistro duty downstairs for when you don't feel like venturing far.

A skylighting system engineered to flood the lobby with natural light is a bold promise for a Minneapolis hotel, and the greenery and tall columns do sell the bit. Rooms lean contemporary with generous windows, and some look out over the skyline. Giulia handles Northern Italian and wood-fired pizza downstairs, while Spyhouse draws the neighborhood in for coffee and pastry. The fitness center runs Peloton bikes for guests who travel with ambitions.

A boutique hotel that rents you skis and snowboards from its own shop before sending you toward the Wasatch Mountains, which are minutes away. It sits inside a campus built by a Seattle outdoor retailer, so a bouldering gym, an indoor skate park, and a yoga studio are all on site. The hotel itself has a café and a rooftop bar, which keeps the après-mountain portion of the day well covered too.

A former bank building in Nashville's Arts District, the Fairlane Hotel leans into its Seventies origins rather than apologizing for them. Where most boutique hotels default to cool grays and mid-century safe choices, this one goes warmer, with the color accents that decade actually favored. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for one of the more considered stays on the north edge of downtown.

A Greek Revival mansion in the Garden District, built by the Irish architect whose columns and Roman arches still define half the neighborhood. The 18-room boutique hotel layers antiques and hand-painted furniture against boldly patterned wallpaper and geometric canopy beds, so the rooms feel less like preservation projects and more like someone with very good taste actually lives there. Polished wood floors, gilded oil paintings, and Beekman 1802 bathrooms.

A wall of vintage speaker cabinets anchors the lobby of this art deco boutique hotel, a Hyatt property a short walk from the Ryman. The bones are old-school, neon marquee and octagonal windows intact, but Stonehill Taylor updated the interiors with leather and velvet that nod to Nashville's musical past without leaning too hard on it. Rooms feel considered rather than themed, and there are two bars, one off the lobby and one on the rooftop pool terrace, for when you need both.

The cellar bar has been a notorious local nightspot for longer than anyone will admit, which tells you something about the Hotel Havana's bones. This boutique hotel on the Riverwalk keeps its century-old structure intact and layers on a pre-Castro Cuban romance that feels lived-in rather than themed. Rooms start compact but climb quickly toward something genuinely plush. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and one with actual character to justify the billing.

Built from scratch on the South Congress lot where Willie Nelson once ran the Austin Opry House, Hotel Magdalena is the newest piece of Bunkhouse Group's quietly growing neighborhood takeover. The design leans into a gentle 1970s warmth without tipping into theme-park nostalgia. It's the kind of hotel that earns its street by knowing exactly where it is, which, on this particular stretch of Austin, counts for a lot.

Complimentary shoe shines, which most hotels quietly retired sometime around the flip phone, are still on offer here. This full-service downtown hotel leans into classic materials, marble bathrooms, leather sofas, and dark varnished hardwood, without feeling like a time capsule. Nightly turndown service rounds out the picture of a place that simply hasn't bothered cutting corners. Minneapolis gets underestimated by the coasts, and so, probably, does this hotel.

A river taxi pulls up right to the front door, which tells you something about where this hotel sits on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Rooms run to walnut paneling, teal accents, and gold hardware, with the Presidential Suite adding a marble dining table and floor-to-ceiling city views for anyone who needs convincing. The rooftop pool has a tiki bar, Cavalier does upscale American brasserie downstairs, and the Convention Center crowd is a short walk away.

Eight stone-walled suites with freestanding tubs occupy what was once a 19th-century schoolhouse dedicated to Friedrich Schiller, which is either poetic or a little on the nose. This 347-room boutique hotel blends that preserved historic shell with a tower that layers Bauhaus and Spanish colonial details in together. Ten floors up, the open-air Tenfold rooftop bar has unobstructed views over downtown San Antonio, which does a lot of the selling all by itself.

Check-in here comes with a craft cocktail, which sets the tone for this 172-room Marriott Moxy in downtown Oakland. The pink neon sign and a multi-story mural mark the building from a block away. The bar that handles arrivals doubles as an all-day lounge and co-working space, so the lobby is reliably animated. Rooms run modern boutique, with subway-tile bathrooms and wall-mounted storage keeping things compact and intentional.

Check-in happens at Bar Moxy, which doubles as the lobby, so you're handed a drink before you see your room. The hotel is Marriott's budget-forward brand done with personality: compact rooms in moody charcoal, walk-in showers, motion-activated lighting, and names like Vibe and Groove that are corny enough to circle back around to charming. South Lake Union puts Pike Place and the Space Needle within easy walking distance.

The name is optimistic: you're a few minutes' walk from the water, not on it. But in Waikiki, where the default is a 500-room resort charging fees for breathing the air, a 125-room indie hotel with a rooftop pool, no kids' club, and no mineral-water-misting attendant by the pool feels like a negotiated peace. Rooms are white and wood, with Wegner wingback chairs and oversized showers. A ground-floor café handles coffee and drinks for the beach run.

The red-brick facade on Westminster Street is old Providence; the 47 rooms inside are decidedly not. This luxury boutique hotel keeps things intimate by local standards, with enough style to make that feel intentional rather than accidental. Rooms come with curated book bags on request, which tells you something about the clientele. The rooftop bar and a modern Italian restaurant mean leaving is genuinely optional.

Brutalist concrete and pecan wood beside a pool ringed by pecan trees, the Carpenter Hotel sits behind the old Carpenter's Union Hall on the south side of Lady Bird Lake, close enough to Zilker Park and Barton Springs that outdoor plans make themselves. Bunkhouse Hotels runs it, which explains the local instincts baked into a building that reads as a love letter to Austin without begging it for approval.

The Dagny is a boutique hotel inside a 1928 Art Deco tower whose ornate ceilings and brass fittings survived intact while the sensibility around them got considerably sharper. Faneuil Hall and the waterfront are a short walk, which keeps the lobby purposeful on weekdays. Tradesman Café handles breakfast, Fin Point handles the seafood, and the building's rumored history of hidden revolutionary cannons handles the small talk.

The Nash Collection is a boutique hotel that gets Nashville right, trading the honky-tonk clichés for something genuinely stylish without feeling like it's trying too hard. The kind of place where the lobby crowd looks like they flew in for a show and decided to stay an extra two nights. It fits the city's new energy perfectly, warm and a little flashy, but with enough taste to back it up.

Three 19th-century buildings on the National Register of Historic Places anchor this 253-room hotel spread across four and a half garden acres between Downtown and Southtown. The River Walk is a short walk, but the shaded pathways, big pool, and the Anaqua Garden Bar tucked under the trees make leaving feel optional. A daily tea ceremony under an ancient anaqua tree is the kind of quiet ritual guests mention long after checkout.

A converted brick warehouse in the River Arts District, The Radical is a hotel that leans into Asheville's creative-counterculture identity without having to try too hard. Street art-inspired rooms share the building with a café, a wood-fired restaurant called Golden Hour, and a rooftop bar. The name is technically slang for "very good indeed," which is either self-deprecating or extremely confident, depending on your mood when you check in.

The pink Moorish palace on Waikiki has been there so long it basically predates Waikiki. This resort splits between a historic building, where the Moorish detailing and coral stucco run deep, and a contemporary tower for guests who want the postcard view without the period atmosphere. The spa sits in a garden, the pool has cabanas, and the beach puts surfing and sailing right outside. A Michelin Selected Hotel.

A row of 18th-century warehouse buildings stitched together into a hotel, The Vendue calls itself Charleston's art hotel and means it, with serious contemporary work hung throughout rather than the usual decorative shrugs. Every room is different, the rooftop bar has been a neighborhood fixture forever, and the restaurant, Revival, runs on seasonal and heirloom ingredients. The kind of boutique hotel that gives the concept a good name.

A hotel with over 1,500 rooms that somehow still has a personality, Virgin Las Vegas leans into its brand's irreverence rather than the usual Vegas gilded-palace routine. The pool situation is a full beach club, there's a Nobu on property, and the entertainment calendar runs more interesting than most strips along the Strip. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for a place that treats design as something other than an afterthought.

A six-room B&B tucked into a stately red-brick Georgian house in Portland's quieter, more residential West End. The rooms are handsome and distinct, the décor classic without feeling like a period piece, and the cooked-to-order breakfast is a proper morning. An automated wine bar is an odd and welcome touch, and afternoon cheese boards keep things civilized. Downtown is a short walk northeast when you need it.

A three-story walk-up wrapped around a palm-lined pool, White Sands calls itself the last of the vintage walk-up hotels in Waikiki, and the claim is easy to believe. The towers that swallowed the beachfront decades ago never touched this low-rise compound, where the vibe is unapologetically 1970s Hawaii, laid-back and a little overgrown, the kind of place that makes the glassy resorts next door feel slightly embarrassing.

Six seats, one counter, no menu to study. This omakase spot runs at a lofty price and leans into it, pairing Toyosu-sourced fish with truffles, foie gras, and wagyu tartare piled onto toasted brioche like restraint was never on the table. The nigiri, though, pulls back into a quieter edomae register where the rice does the talking. A James Beard semifinalist and Michelin Selected, it sits steps from a larger sibling that presumably lets you breathe a little more.

Beans sourced from Coffee Collective in Copenhagen anchor the menu at this coffee shop on 1st Ave South, where the space is all clean lines, blocky type, and royal blue plastic stools that somehow look intentional. The crowd skews artsy and laptop-laden, with a side of Seattleites in skinny sunglasses who came to work and stayed to stare into the middle distance. Bright, unhurried, and very Scandinavian about it all.

A miso and brown sugar oat milk latte sounds like it was invented by a committee, but the savory-sweet balance at this tiny Austin coffee trailer makes the weekend line feel reasonable. The drip and cold brew hold their own for anyone keeping things simple. Desnudo has been named among the best coffee shops in Austin by both Eater and The Infatuation, which tracks with the crowd that keeps showing up.

Antique stained glass windows filter whatever light San Francisco's summer fog is willing to spare, and the room is cheerful anyway. Early to Rise is a brunch spot in NoPa where the daily doughnut arrives warm while you wait, the French toast comes loaded with seasonal fruit and a few things creamy and crunchy, and the ambrosia salad quietly signals the chef's Southern roots. The owner does his own table rounds, coffee pot in hand, which keeps things easy.

This is a full-service American restaurant inside the Park MGM, set in a dim, two-story library lined with thousands of books that no one is allowed to check out. It feels like a movie set where someone is about to be accused of something in the study. Expect popovers, a roast chicken built for sharing, and cotton candy with the check, which is a very Vegas way to say goodnight to a room full of literature.

A scarlet lobster logo, shells painted gold and silver on the wall, and half the tables splitting one at any given hour make the signature self-evident at this Cantonese restaurant in Alhambra. Henry's is an unassuming room doing homestyle cooking that's increasingly hard to find, selected by the Michelin Guide and named to the LA Times' 101 best. Come at dinner when the full menu opens up, and ask what vegetables are in season.

The chef makes an early-morning run to a local fishmonger before most people have had coffee, and that rhythm shows in the tacos. Fish Guts is a casual taqueria where the Baja-style fish taco, battered in Modelo and French mustard, gets made to order on fresh masa tortillas. San Diego Magazine named it the city's top fish taco in 2025, which will surprise no one who has eaten one. The smoked fish dip and michelada round things out nicely.

The dining room inside La Jolla's Grande Colonial Hotel is more beach-casual than grand, which suits a crowd that keeps sunglasses on through dinner. Nine-Ten is an elegant restaurant with a Caribbean lean, running from sandwiches and salads at lunch to a tasting menu at dinner that the kitchen calls "mercy of the chef." The pastry program punches above its hotel-restaurant weight, from brunch pastries through a creamsicle dessert worth the wait.

A strip-mall Northwest Chinese spot on Convoy where you order from a QR code and then forget you were ever annoyed about it. The menu leans on lamb, hand-ripped noodles, and aged vinegar with real tartness, and the cumin lamb arrives smelling like it has opinions. It's casual, cheap, and loud with the clatter of people ordering more than they should. Plan on leftovers, because the magic travels well.

A working seafood market sits at the center of the dining room, which tells you everything about what ends up on the plate. This casual Pacific Beach seafood restaurant occupies a restored mid-century warehouse, and the menu follows whatever came off the boat, including house-made fettuccine with locally caught San Diego rock crab. The Michelin Guide has it on their radar, and the crowd skews toward regulars who know to skip the menu and ask what's freshest.

The whole Peking duck arrives lacquered and ready for ceremony, and a Chinatown institution like this one has been running that ceremony for a long time. It's a roast-meat Chinese restaurant with a big menu behind the duck, including beef chow fun, egg noodle soups, and walnut shrimp for the table. The bird also turns up in fried rice and spring rolls if you'd rather skip the full production. There's a stall at Reading Terminal Market, but the original room is the move.

The coco bread isn't on the menu, but regulars know to ask for a hunk of it to sop up the oxtail braised in brown sauce. This no-frills Jamaican lunch counter has been an old-school institution in Miami for decades, turning out clamshell containers of curry goat, jerk chicken, and flaky beef patties to a lunchtime crowd that doesn't linger. The New York Times put it on their Miami list.

Live music fills the room most nights at this Cuban cocktail bar and restaurant on Calle Ocho, where the décor slides between Havana and mid-century Miami without quite landing in either. Michelle Bernstein and cocktail veteran Julio Cabrera run the place together, which means the food and the drinks get equal attention. It holds a spot on The World's 50 Best Bars list, and the James Beard Foundation named it an Outstanding Bar Semifinalist.

A whole snapper, deep-fried twice for a crunch audible from across the room, arriving upright as if still swimming, tells you everything about what kind of soul food restaurant this is. Six tables on Staten Island, pitchers of rum punch and sangria on nearly all of them, and a dining room that always feels like a party that forgot to wait for a reason. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024.

Portland's original farm-to-table restaurant has been around forever, and after a near-death experience a couple of years ago, a social media S.O.S. brought the regulars flooding back. The dining room is a proper sit-down affair, seasonal and ingredient-driven, with a rustic bistro in back that runs a serious burger and one of the better beer lists downtown. A block from the Arlene Schnitzer, it's the obvious pre-concert answer.

Sweedeedee is a small all-day café in North Portland where the mugs are pottery, the shelves are hand-tagged, and a turntable plays records the house sometimes trades food to the neighbors at Mississippi Records for. Breakfast runs on griddled corn cakes, a thick Spanish tortilla, and a pastry case that changes daily. It is so thoroughly Portland that you may feel the urge to apologize for your phone.

A spare, unassuming Korean storefront where the chef's résumé includes Saison and Jungsik, and the menu makes no effort to hide it. This is contemporary Korean dining where a broth-poached yellowtail rosette sits a few items from fried rice threaded with squid ink and kimchi. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and the room fills with people happy to order widely and share, which is exactly how you should go.

A historic sea captain's house anchors this boutique hotel on the edge of Kennebunkport's compact town center, with eleven modern cabin suites spread across the surrounding grounds. The design, by Elder & Ash, lands somewhere between old Maine and contemporary coastal, which is a trickier balance than it sounds in a town better known for Bush family compounds and old-money shingle cottages. A Michelin Key holder.

Screened porches overlooking the marsh, gabled roofs, and 2,000 acres of Lowcountry terrain set the tone at this Auberge resort on the Kiawah River. The 72 rooms and suites, plus 19 villas, lean into classic Sea Island design without overcooking it. Days run at the river's pace: oyster-laced shorelines, the occasional dolphin, slow hikes through the wetlands. Charleston is forty minutes away, which turns out to be the right distance. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

The baked Alaska arrives tableside with the kind of theater that makes you glad you dressed up. Mister Charles is an Italian-influenced French restaurant in Dallas where the room is sweeping and the menu runs from fusilli with caviar to wagyu beef Wellington, with canapes and showy presentations filling the space between. The wine list is substantial, the cocktails are deft, and nobody here is pretending this is a casual Tuesday.

The photo wall by the door, stacked with chefs, actors, and politicians, tells you everything about how long Park's has been the go-to Korean BBQ spot in LA. Servers manage the tabletop grills for you, slicing and flipping prime cuts from bulgogi to galbi, with American Wagyu for the committed. The kimchi pancakes arrive on cast-iron skillets, hot and crisp, and the cold noodles cut through all that smoke.

Dollar oysters at happy hour put Jacqueline on the map, but this Pacific Northwestern seafood restaurant on Southeast Clinton has a lot more going on. Hamachi crudo gets grilled pickled pineapple and fermented fish funk; smashed cucumbers come with Oregon dulse and whipped tofu. The room moved to a bigger space recently, which the neighborhood took as good news.