The Best Places in the United States

Floor-to-ceiling windows in the library look out over Chicago Avenue, which sets the tone for a hotel that frames the city as part of the decor. It sits on the Magnificent Mile in the Gold Coast, and the rooms and public spaces carry the cool, contemporary feel of a recent top-to-bottom renovation. The art collection leans Chicago, the staff leans warm, and the whole thing earns its Forbes Four Star without ever seeming to try.

Wooden apples sit in every guest room, a nod to Blue Duck Tavern's famous pie downstairs, which tells you this hotel has its own personality. The Park Hyatt Washington sits quietly in the West End, with Tony Chi's neutral, minimalist interiors making 220 rooms feel closer to a private residence than a convention block. Forbes Four Star. A Tea Cellar stocked with global varietals keeps things interesting between monuments.

The salmon-pink Champagne lounge and the sky-blue rooftop bar tell you everything about this hotel's register before you even check in. Sitting right on Marion Square in the heart of Charleston, Hotel Bennett is a new build that wears its Southern elegance without apology, from the mural-lined rotunda to rooms so soft they feel like sleeping inside a cloud. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key round out the credentials.

Pine trees and a three-acre lake frame this Forbes Five Star hotel in Cary, close enough to RDU that a delayed flight barely stings. The Umstead is the kind of full-service resort that earns a weekend on its own terms, with a spa, an upscale restaurant, and hiking trails threading through an adjacent nature park. The crowd tends toward quiet money rather than loud occasion.

Formica tabletops and vinyl chairs set the scene at this Garden District breakfast spot, which serves nothing but breakfast and takes that mandate seriously. The menu runs from yogurt and granola to loaded grits, biscuits and gravy, and a riff on the fast-food McMuffin with sage sausage and gooey American cheese. A James Beard semifinalist that manages to feel nothing like one, in the best way.

Kwame Onwuachi named this pan-African Caribbean restaurant after his older sister, and it carries that kind of personal weight through every dish. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap the dining room inside Lincoln Center, the kitchen is open, and the playlist runs hip-hop while oxtail arrives in a pot big enough to make a scene. It's fine dining without the hush. North America's 50 Best Restaurants lists it among its top 40.

A ten-acre Italianate estate in the middle of Austin, which is either an absurd premise or a great one depending on how you feel about Ken Fulk's maximalist touch. The mansion, satellite buildings, and formal gardens have been folded into an Auberge Collection hotel without scrubbing any of the old glamour out. The oval pool sits among manicured hedges, and the whole place operates like a country house that simply refuses to acknowledge the city outside. A Forbes Four Star and two Michelin Keys.

This is a French fine dining room on the 11th floor of a half-size Eiffel Tower, which means you eat duck confit while the Bellagio fountains do their thing below. Window tables face The Strip, and the staff has seen enough dessert proposals that a ring on a plate barely registers as news. Dress like you're being photographed, because you will be. AAA gives it Four Diamonds, and the bar handles the cheaper, quicker version.

The beef pho kolache alone explains why this Cambodian-influenced bakery and coffee shop landed on the New York Times' list of best bakeries in the country. Chef Vanarin Kuch, a Top Chef alum and James Beard Outstanding Bakery semifinalist, builds a menu where Southeast Asian flavors drift easily into French, Mexican, and Brazilian territory. The Salty Cambodian latte, finished with condensed milk and sourdough butter, has regulars skipping the cortado for good.

Four private floors tucked inside the Fairmont Austin, the Gold Experience is essentially a hotel-within-a-hotel, with its own reception desk, its own lounge, and a quieter remove from the rest of the building's thousand-plus rooms. Guests still get access to the wood-fired Garrison and the other restaurants below. A Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star suggest the upgrade is not purely theoretical. Downtown Austin sits just outside.

The butcher case up front, stocked with antelope salami and wild boar terrine, gives you a fair warning about what kind of restaurant this is. Dai Due is a supper club-style Texan spot where nearly everything on the plate, from the meat to the olive oil, comes from within state lines. The chef takes that constraint as a creative challenge rather than a marketing line, and the results run pleasantly strange. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

Reservations are required on weekends, which tells you something about how seriously Tulsa takes this farm-to-table restaurant. The chef behind it is a James Beard Outstanding Chef nominee who left the West Coast to actually farm before pivoting to feeding the city. Multicourse tasting menus anchor the weekends, while Wednesday and Thursday open things up to a la carte. Tuesday is burgers and Barbera, which is either brilliant or a fever dream, and possibly both.

White tablecloths and cream walls give Crevette the look of a classic European brasserie, but the cooking runs along the coasts of Spain and France with enough color to make you forget Manhattan is outside. This is a proper seafood restaurant, lively and full, with the bar pulling its own crowd. The team behind Lord's and Dame keeps the room humming and the martini list pointed.

A library with working fireplaces sits at the heart of this alpine resort, which puts it squarely between the gondola and lift at the base of Aspen Mountain. The 179 rooms lean into dark woods and leather club chairs, and the St. Regis butler service means someone is quietly attending to details you hadn't thought to request. The kind of crowd that plans a ski trip the way others plan a wedding fills the place all season.

The hotel occupies the upper floors of Mandalay Bay without sharing its casino floor, which is the whole point. Rooms run to desert-toned calm and Strip views; the private pool stays mercifully quiet by Vegas standards. Veranda handles California-brasserie duties, PRESS pours the cocktails, and the spa holds a Forbes Five Star. A Michelin Key and Forbes Four Star for the hotel itself.

One seating a night, about twenty guests, and chef Ling Qi Wu cooking in front of you: that's the whole deal at this dinner party-style Chinese tasting menu tucked into a strip mall on Research Blvd. Dumplings arrive shaped like animals with fillings like steamed lobster and crawfish with XO sauce, and duck with foie gras and caviar shows up alongside a bao bun with a cutout in it, somehow both silly and serious. The Michelin Guide has it listed.

Soup dumplings, made by hand, are the reason to find this Chinatown storefront, which has been a Philadelphia institution for long enough that regulars still refer to the old address. It's a casual Chinese restaurant with a broader menu than the xiao long bao headline suggests, running through stir-fries, noodles, and a full roster of house-made dumplings. The newer space added a bar and private dining room, but the vibe stayed mercifully unfussy.

The chef spent a decade deep in ramen research on Reddit before opening this tiny Logan Square shop, and the menu reflects that obsessive focus: four ramens, a monthly rotating special, and nothing else. Everything, noodles through broth through tare, is made from scratch. Reservations drop and vanish within hours, which is its own kind of endorsement. Bon Appétit named it one of America's best new restaurants in 2024.

Rooms here start at 500 square feet, which in downtown Denver is its own kind of statement. The Ritz-Carlton is a full-service luxury hotel dressed in navy, cream, and dark wood, with Frette robes, deep soaking tubs, and rainforest showers doing the heavy lifting. Elway's steakhouse runs from breakfast through dinner on the ground floor. The Forbes Four Star property draws suits on weekdays and the charity-gala crowd on weekends, with staff sharp enough to handle both without missing a beat.

Kelly Wearstler designed every inch of this 32-story hotel in the Second Street District, and it shows, in the best way and the slightly self-conscious one. Where most Austin hotels lean into their scuffed boots, the Proper is unapologetically urban, with locally inflected decor that never lets you forget someone very stylish made every decision. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key back up the polish. Dining and cocktails keep it lively well past checkout hour.

A barely-there sign on Beacon Hill marks this casual Guamanian restaurant and bar, which is either accidental humility or the universe's way of filtering out TikTokers (it has not worked). The menu follows the chef's biography through Filipino chicken adobo tacos and Guam-style corn soup, but the achiote-orange empanadas, stuffed with raisined beef and served in a pool of fina'denne', are what drew a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025.

The color-splashed facade in Wynwood is hard to miss, and the line of regulars out front means you won't either. This all-day kosher bakery and cafe runs on naturally leavened breads and pastries, with sandwiches, soups, and salads filling out the menu. The seasonal concha tends to disappear fast. A James Beard nominee for Outstanding Baker, Zak Stern trained on organic farms across Europe before bringing the whole project back home to Miami.

Five hundred acres of manicured Florida grounds sit at the headwaters of the Everglades, which is a strange and quietly wonderful fact about a resort this polished. The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, with championship golf, a Five Star spa, lakefront trails, and a celebrity chef restaurant on site. Disney is close enough to be convenient and far enough to feel optional.

The rib cap roulade sitting in a shallow queso-ish pool of Jasper Hill cheese, acidified with miso chimichurri, tells you everything about what's happening at this seasonal Colorado dining room. The chef calls the cooking "seasonal Colorado cuisine," which means Southwestern and Mexican flavors running through a menu that keeps proposing combinations you're not sure will work. They do. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Chef followed.

A wood-burning oven anchors this fast-casual Levantine cafe in Georgetown, where the line out the door reorganizes itself around whatever Michael Rafidi's team pulled from it most recently. Mornings run on pastries and shakshuka; afternoons shift to stuffed pitas and batata tots with urfa sauce. By night it flips to table service and a dinner menu. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

A petite East Village tasting menu spot where the produce comes from local queer farmers and the recipes go straight online for anyone who wants them. Chef Telly Justice runs two menus, one vegan and one omnivore, and Sunday brings a pay-what-you-want seating that fills fast. The kitchen leans hard into seasonal vegetables either way. Food & Wine named Justice a Best New Chef in 2025.

The car lift and air pump are still there, which gives this French bakery in a former auto body shop a particular kind of credibility. The laminated pastries are serious, the canelés are delicate, and the seasonal produce finds its way into croissants and Danish that justify the line. A James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery, it has also landed on The New York Times' list of the best bakeries in the country.

The line forms on Third Avenue before the door unlocks, which tells you most of what you need to know about this no-reservations Vietnamese neighborhood spot in the East Village. The baguettes for the banh mi come out of the oven fresh, and the pho runs on housemade noodles. The New York Times named the banh cuon among its favorite dishes of the year, and Michelin handed it a Bib Gourmand.

A separate menu devoted entirely to Northern Thailand, with dishes that lean toward Myanmar, Laos, and South China, is the thing that separates this Thai restaurant from every other Thai restaurant in Las Vegas. The room is a casino-scale take on temple architecture, all red brick and paper lanterns, but the cooking predates the glamour by a long stretch and has never chased it. Wine Enthusiast put it in their Restaurant Hall of Fame, which tracks.

Ramen del Barrio is a counter-service ramen stall inside an Austin food court, where Mexican and Japanese cooking get blended without apology. Think carnitas tonkotsu and mole tsukemen, with paper lanterns overhead doing their best to convince you you're in Tokyo, provided you never turn around. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, which is a lot of résumé for something served in a food hall.

Barista Del Barrio is a counter-service Mexican spot on Grande Avenue where the burritos get pressed on the grill until they could pass for paninis, then arrive two to an order. The house chorizo runs heavy on red chile and sheds orange oil down your wrists, so grab extra napkins. The chef was a James Beard Semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest, which the paper-towel-and-cup-of-coffee setting politely ignores.

The Art Deco murals were under plaster for years while the restoration crew worked, which is its own kind of story. Now back on Park Avenue after a long absence, the Waldorf Astoria is a grand full-service hotel with residential-style suites, the Guerlain Spa, and a brasserie from chef Michael Anthony. The public spaces are the main event: silver corridors, soaring ceilings, and a Grand Ballroom that still knows exactly what it is.

Wahoo salami and cobia sausage are the calling card at this airy raw bar and seafood lunch spot in downtown Birmingham. The team behind the neighboring restaurant Helen runs it with the same eye for Gulf Coast ingredients and seasonality, turning a raw bar into something closer to a feast. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list, and the Michelin Guide awarded a Bib Gourmand. Come hungry enough for small plates and dessert.

The sweeping double staircase in the lobby sets the tone: this is an old-school grande dame hotel, the kind Charleston practically wrote the manual on. Rooms have been refreshed without losing their ornate classical details, and a pool with a retractable roof sits alongside a fitness center and designer shops. Forbes Four Star. It sits squarely in the historic district, within an easy walk of gardens and antebellum mansions.

A 130-foot smokestack rising from your hotel is either a red flag or a very good story, and here it's the latter. The Ritz-Carlton Georgetown occupies a converted incinerator building, red brick and black ironwork intact, tucked quietly between the C&O Canal and the Potomac. Inside it reads more loft than grand hotel, with a wood-burning fireplace in the lobby and Frette linens upstairs. A Forbes Four Star property.

The small tables at this modern New American restaurant come fitted with little drawers for your cutlery, which tells you something about how seriously things are taken here. Chef Randy Rucker runs a monthly multicourse tasting menu with a seafood lean and a French-Japanese sensibility, all from local ingredients. Counter seats face the kitchen. A James Beard semifinalist, and the floor-to-ceiling corner windows make the room feel like a decent consolation prize.

The cheese trolley alone could stop traffic, and at Gary Danko it arrives with the gravity of a state visit. This is old-school prix-fixe fine dining near Fisherman's Wharf, the kind where servers wear dark suits and the wine list requires a commitment. Three to five courses, ample choices at each turn, or hand it all to the kitchen. An AAA Five Diamond, and on Wine Enthusiast's Wine Restaurant Hall of Fame, if that helps justify the occasion.

Copper, oak, marble, and brown leather set the tone in the 297 rooms of this 21-story luxury hotel in SoBro, where the Pizzuti family's art-collecting instincts show up everywhere from the lobby to the porte cochère. Tennessee artists get prominent wall space, the rooftop pool draws a well-dressed crowd, and there's a full-service spa when Nashville catches up with you. A Forbes Four Star property.

The beach here is the widest strip of sand on the island, and the resort knows it, orienting everything around that fact. This is a Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key property done in pistachio and rose, with a spa, multiple pools, and a beach club that quietly absorbs most of your plans. Mauro Colagreco runs the flagship restaurant, Florie's, where South Florida produce meets his Italian and Argentine instincts. Palm Beach is already the opposite of hustle.

Perched on a bluff above Watch Hill with the Atlantic laid out below, Ocean House is a Victorian resort that feels like someone's very grand great-aunt never quite let go of the Gilded Age, and you're glad she didn't. Croquet lawns, a private beach, and rooms done in a quietly luxurious register that earns its Forbes Five Star without announcing it at every turn. Open year-round, which the old summer-colony crowd never managed.

Pandan waffles and fish sauce bacon on the same menu sounds like a dare, but this counter-service Vietnamese brunch spot on Alberta Street pulls it off without a second thought. Rice bowls, breakfast burritos, and rotating pastries like matcha cinnamon rolls round out a menu that treats Vietnamese American cooking as brunch's natural home. The Vietnamese iced egg coffee reads as dessert and caffeine simultaneously, which covers two needs at once.

Stone pathways wind through lush gardens on a clifftop bluff above Laguna Beach, which sets the tone for this full-service luxury resort. The Arts and Crafts movement is the organizing inspiration, and original works from that era share walls with contemporary pieces throughout. Rooms and bungalows have private balconies with ocean views, fire pits burn at dusk, and the pool sits improbably blue below the Pacific sky. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.

The brass footrest running the length of the bar sets the tone: this is a proper neighborhood tavern in Red Hook, the kind with exposed brick, floral wallpaper, and candles wedged between wine bottles on tight-packed tables. The menu is short and the cooking leans classic, which is a polite way of saying the dry-aged cheeseburger with cottage fries is not something you'll talk yourself out of. A James Beard Semifinalist for Outstanding Hospitality.

The menu at this Mystic restaurant is organized by port of call, so any given dish might trace itself to Casablanca, Shanghai, or, improbably, landlocked Torrington, Connecticut. The beef empanadas, a James Beard-nominated Outstanding Chef nominee's childhood recipe, arrive with a tender homemade crust and ground beef from a nearby farm, made juicy with sofrito, olives, and American cheese. The NYT named them among the best dishes eaten across the country in 2024.

A diner-style Asian restaurant where a giant strawberry guards the door sets the tone for everything inside: Formica tabletops, red velvet couches, and a menu that bounces between hand-pulled noodles topped with brisket and a la zi spiced smash burger on a bao bun with beef fat fries. The retro fever-dream aesthetic is very much the point. The New York Times named it among Nashville's 25 best restaurants.

The line down the block on weekends is a reliable feature, and so is the sign that says they've sold out early. Radio Bakery is a small Greenpoint spot where croissants get shaped like Danishes and filled with whatever's good that month, focaccia sandwiches come stuffed with smoked salmon and cream cheese, and the brown butter corn cake is the thing to grab for later. Frustrating in all the right ways.

Hotel rooms here come with a catch: booking one makes you a temporary member of the private club downstairs, which is otherwise invite-only. The Battery is a boutique hotel tucked inside that members' club, with 14 suites done in a dark, bohemian register that owes more to a Victorian drawing room than a startup off-site. Michelin awarded it 2 Keys.

A bright blue facade on a block of red brick Tribeca warehouses is one way to introduce yourself. This Firmdale hotel, part of designer Kit Kemp's signature London-meets-New York family of properties, leans into the collision of country-house comfort and city energy, lots of bold color, and a cozy-glamorous atmosphere that somehow holds together without tipping into theme park. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.

The shucker in a blue apron working the window display is a fixture at this North End seafood spot, where oysters rest on crushed ice behind the glass like a slow-motion invitation. Inside, mosaic tile, white marble, and red leather banquette make a narrow room feel considered rather than cramped. The day's oysters are listed on a small card; the wine list leans European coastal. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list, and the line outside most nights explains why.

D'Andrews is a bakery and cafe on Church Street where the pastry case looks like a jewelry counter that took up baking. There are mousse desserts shaped like fruit, a chocolate cube wearing a white chocolate feather and a bit of gold leaf, and croissants that appear to have nothing to prove. It was a James Beard Outstanding Bakery semifinalist. Expect a line, a lot of phones out first, and forks only afterward.

The pancakes at this Lower East Side diner are available until closing time, which tells you everything about where chef Sam Yoo's priorities lie. The room is full Formica-and-chrome diner, but the menu quietly goes sideways: a Reuben folded into a quesadilla, a wedge salad hit with chile crisp. It lands on both the Times and Eater lists of New York's top restaurants, which for a place serving breakfast all day feels like a flex.

The turquoise Garden District mansion has been turning out Modern New Orleans Creole since Ella Brennan and a young Emeril Lagasse were essentially inventing the genre together. Fine dining in the grand sense, white tablecloths and all, though the room skews festive rather than stiff. Meg Bickford runs the kitchen now, keeping the cooking by turns classicist and a little bodacious. Wine Enthusiast put the cellar in its Hall of Fame, and the weekday lunch martinis go for a quarter.

A modern tower right on the edge of Boston Common, which means the park views from the upper floors are the kind that make you forget you're in a business hotel. The Rockwell Group interiors lean into contemporary luxury rather than Old Boston stuffiness, and the rooms are plush without being fussy. The theater district is essentially at the front door, though the Avery Bar gives you a convincing reason to stay put. A Forbes Four Star property.

A Nashville bakery-cafe in 12 South where the cinnamon cookies come roughly the size of a salad plate and the churro croissants are filled with dulce de leche cream. The fast-casual counter up front handles the pastry situation; the cafe in back does soft scrambled eggs with chili crunch and lattes for anyone who secures a seat. Midcentury-sunny room, long lines of people who planned ahead, and beignets that won Nashville Scene's city-wide vote.

Mindy's is a Wicker Park bakery where the menu shifts often enough to keep regulars guessing, running from donuts to pot pies, with the occasional turnover stuffed with mortadella and giardiniera. The bagels get plenty of attention too. The room is tiny and there are only a couple of window seats, so most people end up eating in the car, which is fine, since crumbs are cheaper to vacuum than to explain.

Rust-colored casitas tucked into Boynton Canyon, with red rock formations close enough to feel like they're listening. Mii amo is a destination spa resort, the kind where you check in for several nights and leave having done a reflexology path and reconsidered your entire morning routine. A Forbes Five Star property, it pairs serious wellness programming with 23 rooms and suites, a movement studio, and a sensory garden that makes the word "garden" feel inadequate.

A ramen omakase in the Richmond where the noodle is the main character, not a supporting act. The team built their name through pop-ups and global competitions before landing in this small corner space, and the tasting menu shows the range, broths that shift from delicate to deeply rich across several courses. It runs at a fine-dining pace and price, so dress one notch up from your usual bowl-of-ramen energy.

One of the Gilded Age mansions lining Newport's Cliff Walk, this small luxury hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin two-key distinction. No two rooms share a period: Tudor, Georgian, and Renaissance suites each come with a fireplace, most with a Jacuzzi, and some with ocean views dramatic enough to justify the whole trip. Two restaurants, one fine-dining and one slightly looser, pull in locals alongside guests.

Sixteen manicured acres and views of the Santa Cruz Mountains make it easy to forget you're minutes from the Google campus, which is probably the point. This Forbes Five Star resort hotel on Sand Hill Road runs a sprawling pool deck, a full Sense spa, and rooms with vaulted ceilings that lean urbane rather than rustic. The suites and villas are firmly in tech-baron territory, comfort-wise, but the setting is serene enough that nobody's talking about valuations by the pool.

The Jucy Lucy, spelled without the "i" and stuffed with molten cheese between two beef patties, is the whole reason Matt's Bar exists and possibly the whole reason Minneapolis exists. This divey neighborhood bar on Cedar Avenue has been doing exactly one thing forever, and the pleather booths and unadorned bar haven't changed to accommodate anyone, including a former president who stopped in. Order the burger, wait for the cheese to cool slightly, and learn from whoever's nearby why the spelling matters.

Five rooms in downtown Healdsburg, each stocked with the kind of comforts that make you forget you ever owned a house. This boutique inn is the work of chef Kyle Connaughton and his wife Katina, whose farm supplies the kitchen downstairs. The modern-classic rooms come with an extravagant breakfast, and guests get preferential access to the three-Michelin-starred restaurant below, though advance planning is still required. Michelin awarded it 3 Keys.

A steakhouse in Ketchum that's been feeding ski bums and ranch hands since the 1940s, and the decor has not been asked to change. It holds a James Beard America's Classics award for the Mountain region. The famous order is the Jim Spud, a baked russet roughly the size of a toddler's head, piled with teriyaki beef and cheese, listed as an appetizer by someone with a sense of humor. Plan to split it or pack leftovers.

A no-frills Mexican spot on Santa Fe Drive where the green chile-smothered burrito has its own spot on Eater's list of Denver's most iconic dishes. Denver takes breakfast burritos seriously enough to hold an official holiday for them, and this counter has been feeding the faithful forever. Come for the chile-relleno burrito, stay for the flautas and enchiladas, and when they ask about smothering, say yes. Cash-friendly prices, no dress code beyond pants.

The line stretching down the block in North Beach is not a fluke. Butter & Crumble is a pastry and cake shop that built its name on laminated dough, and the croissants are the draw, from a plain version so flaky it barely holds together to cruffins stuffed with seasonal cream. Options rotate often enough that regulars have a reason to come back, which they do, loyally, before the case sells out. A few bar seats exist, but this is a takeout operation at heart.

The sourdough, pasta, and pizza all come from a dedicated production area you can see from the dining room, which tells you something about how seriously this Arts District Italian restaurant takes the basics. Dark walls, vintage silver trays, and a big welcoming U-shaped wood bar give it a rustic warmth that feels nothing like the Strip. The seasonal menu leans farm-forward and the Michelin Bib Gourmand makes the price-to-pleasure math easy.

Wide-plank walnut floors, hand-painted wildlife murals on the staircases, and limestone fireplaces big enough to stand in announce that this is a different order of Lowcountry resort. The Sanctuary sits on a barrier island inside a private gated community, with ocean-view rooms done in coastal colonial style and a Grand Lawn that rolls straight to the beach. It holds a Forbes Five Star, and the staff make the hospitality feel less like a script and more like a favor.

There's no sign, just a pink door off Post Alley, and the whole place operates on that same logic: swings hang from the ceiling, silk drapes overhead, murals cover the walls. It's an Italian trattoria that commits fully to the theatrical without forgetting to cook. Pasta, wine, and lively rooms full of people who found the door and feel rather pleased about it.

The Post District address puts it a block from Pioneer Park, which tells you something about how Salt Lake City has been changing. Urban Hill is an upscale, globally inspired restaurant anchored in Utah-sourced produce, meat, and dairy, with a kitchen that takes both seriously. The chef earned a 2026 James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Mountain, and Wine Enthusiast named it a Forward 50 restaurant in 2024. The room reads like somewhere you'd actually dress for.

Luna Fargo is a sit-down American restaurant in a state where potatoes and German-Russian cooking are close to a civic religion. The knoephla soup, a bowl of button-sized dumplings and tender potato in golden broth with chives floating on top, is the dish The Infatuation singled out. The chef has been a James Beard Midwest semifinalist, which is a lot of credentials for a place where soup is the headline.

The lemon-ricotta silver dollar pancakes here have a following that generates a line down the block most weekend mornings, which tells you everything about what kind of brunch spot Plow is. It's a casual, easygoing neighborhood place in Potrero Hill with a tight, unfussy menu built around a few things done carefully. The combination plate covers all the bases at once: crispy potatoes, eggs, meat, and those pancakes, with lemon curd on the side if you want to commit.

Eighty-five rooms and suites spread across low-slung buildings among actual working vineyards in Calistoga, so the wine country backdrop isn't decorative. The style is modernist with a farmhouse lean, the spa has an outdoor garden, and bikes sit ready for anyone who wants to feel virtuous between meals. The on-site fine dining restaurant, Auro, holds a Michelin star. The resort also holds a Forbes Five Star.

The baguettes go fast, so regulars grab two. Evergreen is a bakery and butcher shop in Inman Park where naturally leavened bread shares the counter with whole-animal cuts, and the combination makes more sense than it sounds. The vollkornbrot is dense and serious, the croissants are not, and the fermented hamburger buns exist specifically to cradle the beef ground in back. Atlanta was not a bread town; Evergreen is doing something about that.

Blue velvet curtains pull back at five o'clock, the line outside moves, and the handwritten menu above the open kitchen tells you what the boats brought in that day. Chubby Fish is a no-reservations seafood restaurant in Cannonborough that coordinates directly with fishers, so the raw bar and hot dishes shift constantly. It landed on the New York Times Restaurant List and North America's 50 Best. Skip lunch, get there early, and budget the full hour they'll give you.

A wood-fired brick oven anchors this sprawling bakery and cafe in the Mission, where the bread alone draws a line out the door most mornings. The Scandinavian-influenced dining room is airy enough that waiting feels less painful than it sounds. Coffee beans are roasted in-house, pastries lean contemporary, and the sourdough loaves are the kind people carry home on planes. Go for breakfast or lunch and plan to leave with a bag of something.

A food truck that grew up and got a roof, Odd Duck on South Lamar is a casual, come-as-you-are restaurant built around shareable Southern plates with a roving global curiosity. Chicken heart satay sits near wagyu burgers and stuffed quail with dirty rice, and nobody seems troubled by the range. The Michelin Bib Gourmand recognized it, and the sourdough ice cream with pecan streusel will make you understand why the room is always full.

Chris Bianco is the Bronx-born pizzaiolo who convinced the rest of the country that Phoenix belongs in the pizza conversation, and this snug 42-seat brick room in Heritage Square is where it started. Wood-fired Neapolitan pies come out of an oven that has been running for decades, drawing lines that have shown no signs of shortening. Bianco holds two James Beard Awards, which is two more than most people who make pizza for a living.

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.