The Best Places in the United States

Hanging ivies, bamboo lanterns, and a menu that opens with raw blue crab tucked into an Isaan papaya salad, which is either the dish that converts you or sends you to the safer side of the menu. This Thai restaurant in San Carlos leans hard into northeastern Thailand, where the food runs funky, sour, and intensely aromatic. The grilled pork jowl with its house fish sauce dip is the kind of thing regulars order before they sit down.

Isla Detroit is a fast-casual Filipino spot in Sterling Heights, with rice bowls, noodle bowls, and entrees drawn from the cooking of Iloilo. You order at the counter, so no one will ask how your evening is going. The pastry chef co-owns the place, which explains the ube cakes in that unapologetic purple, and the Buko Halo-Halo for dining in, a tower of crushed ice, milk, and jellies. Eater has listed it among metro Detroit's top restaurant desserts.

The menu calls itself "mukokuseki," a Japanese word for stateless, which is one way to describe a Scotch egg that riffs on Hawaiian loco moco with a side of mac salad. This International District izakaya keeps the menu rotating, but the throughline is confident genre collision: fried pork katsu sando tucked into garlic shokupan with spaghetti marinara and mozzarella. The New York Times named it among Seattle's best, and the shochu highball list gives you something to do while you figure out what just happened.

An izakaya tucked into a Concord strip mall, with the emphasis firmly on kobachi, the small bites meant to be eaten slowly alongside sake or shochu. The menu front-loads little plates that pair well with drinks, while heartier bento sets and grilled meats occupy the back half for anyone who came hungry. When you order a shochu sour, the proprietor walks over and squeezes the citrus at your table, which sets the tone immediately.

The handwritten daily specials sheet is the first thing to read at this intimate Honolulu izakaya, where the fish changes with the season and the kitchen takes both seriously. Foie gras over braised daikon and egg yolk rice with uni and truffle butter signal the general direction: indulgent, a little theatrical, no apologies. The baby sardine chips do the work of a bar snack, but with more personality than a bar snack has any right to expect.

Jackson Drug is a restored soda fountain, the kind with swivel stools, Art Deco ceiling tiles, and tilework underfoot that looks cleaner than most of the town's good intentions. It's a casual, cheap-ish diner dinner, with a burger from local beef, tater tots, and milkshakes sized for a small ranch. Families and sunburned hikers fill the stools, and The Infatuation lists it among Jackson Hole's best restaurants.

A rosemary-honey cortado tells you everything about what kind of coffee shop this is. Jadu is a Jamaica Plain cafe pulling Counter Culture espresso alongside masala chai sourced from Boston's own Madhrasi Chai, with seasonal drinks that lean into unexpected flavor combinations. Pastries come from a nearby nut-free bakery, and there's a breakfast and lunch menu to keep you longer than you planned.

Jaunt is a roast-to-order coffee shop tucked into an industrial park in Miramar, which is not where you'd expect to find an ube latte, but here we are. The drinks run from standard espresso to panela and lemon drop matcha experiments, and the empanadas make lunch a legitimate plan. A pay-it-forward board lets you buy a coffee or a meal for a stranger who's short on cash.

A coffee shop and pie counter in a genuine ghost town, Java Junction is the unofficial heartbeat of Madrid, the scrappy artist village strung along the Turquoise Trail twenty minutes from Santa Fe. The beans are roasted nearby and brewed in house, and the homemade pies rotate daily. An adjoining shop and a bed-and-breakfast mean you can arrive for an iced coffee and, through some series of small decisions, still be there tomorrow morning.

Jet Black is a vegan coffee shop in Gateway, named after a Jawbreaker song, which tells you roughly what's on the stereo. They roast their own beans, default to two shots of espresso, and stock enough plant milks that hemp gets a seat. The front deck is spacious, the breakfast sandwich is an English muffin with a sausage patty and Mama Lil's peppers, and nobody seems to be performing anything.

The Bowl Club membership tells you everything: this is a ramen shop with regulars who show up multiple times a week and never look at the menu. Jimoto does tonkotsu, soup dumplings, and poke in a town where most restaurants treat a reservation like a moral commitment. Low-key, no-fuss, and one of the few places in Aspen that does takeout well, which matters more than it sounds in a city with basically no food delivery.

This is a casual ramen shop in the Eddy Street Commons strip just south of Notre Dame, which explains why a former Cowboys linebacker co-owns it and why current players wander in between practices. Expect creamy tonkotsu in a bowl, a few spicier takes on it, and a bar program with a smoky old fashioned for the post-game crowd. Dessert is a layered crêpe cake, if you've got room after the noodles.

A bright red food cart parked in Napa, Joella's built its reputation on a fried chicken sandwich that audibly crunches when you bite it. The chicken is fiery and sweet at once, tucked into a sesame-topped potato sourdough bun with peppers and ranch slaw. The craggy nuggets with hot honey and cool ranch are the move if you're skipping bread. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best fried chicken spots.

Tucked into a San Jose strip mall between a clothing store and a tattoo shop, Kategna is a spacious Ethiopian restaurant that leans into the communal spirit of the cuisine, with traditional Messob basket tables for eating together the way the food was meant to be eaten. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's finest Ethiopian spots. Cold Ethiopian beer or a pot of warm tea keeps the spice in check.

Free jazz plays while you eat aged fish at an eight-seat bar, which tells you everything about the vibe before the first course lands. This is an Edomae-style omakase counter in Mountain View where the chef, a veteran named in the restaurant's own title, treats restraint as a philosophy: a piece of ikura arrives with zero seasoning, letting the ocean do the talking. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best sushi restaurants.

An Ethiopian coffee shop in Midtown, Kefita takes the origin story of coffee seriously. You can go the purist route with a pour-over or drip, or lean into house lattes built around honey cardamom or Ethiopian spice syrups. The sambusas and vegan monkey bread are worth the detour from your usual coffee-and-laptop routine. Once a month the team holds a traditional coffee ceremony, which turns a Tuesday into something worth rearranging.

Panuchos and salbutes, those fried corn tortillas piled with slow-roasted cochinita pibil, are the reason to come to this Yucatecan spot on NE 82nd. The dining room is modest and unassuming, the kind of place that would never brag about itself, which somehow makes the food feel even more surprising. Order broadly and share: the menu rewards the curious, and the soups, when they appear, are not to be passed over.

A fish market display near the entrance sets the tone: this is a Greek seafood restaurant where the day's catch gets filleted tableside if you want the show. The menu leans Mediterranean coastal, with braised short ribs in cinnamon tomato and squid ink linguini alongside whatever came off the boat. It sits in a shopping center, but the room doesn't feel like it. A good place to arrive hungry and in no particular hurry.

Pork belly rolled tight with lemongrass and garlic, skin so crisp a fork won't crack it on the first try: that's the draw at this fast-casual Filipino counter in a Rockville strip mall. The lechon belly comes in sandwiches with atchara, over rice, or paired with other meats from the chef's rotation. Save room for desserts from the pastry shop run by his sister next door. The New York Times put it on its D.C. restaurant list, which tracks.

A red velvet curtain meets you at the door of this Duboce Triangle bistro, fully separating the street from a dim, burgundy-and-dark-wood room that could pass for a family hotel in Dijon. Coq au vin, duck confit, and house-made pâtés hold down the menu, and the île flottante is the kind of dessert that makes you briefly forget you're in San Francisco. Stepping back through that curtain afterward feels like returning from somewhere farther away.

A Spanish tapas bar in downtown Santa Fe where the kitchen runs New Mexico ingredients through Iberian technique, landing somewhere that feels less like fusion and less like either place than it probably should. Small plates anchor the menu, and the wine list leans Mediterranean and South American. James Campbell Caruso has been at this long enough that the weekend crowd skews toward people who knew him before you did, so book ahead.

A torta shop on the Peninsula with over 20 variations stacked into crusty telera bread, grilled until the crust is crosshatched and the inside is a soft collapse of queso fresco, refried beans, caramelized onion, avocado, and chipotle. The Cubana piles on breaded steak, ham, pork leg, chorizo, and turkey sausage, which is either excess or the point, depending on your appetite. Seating is sparse, so most people take theirs to go.

La Perlita is an Overlook coffee shop that treats the latte as a chance to bring in rosewater, cardamom, dulce de leche, and smoky chile pasilla. There's enough room to spread a laptop out, though the menu makes a strong case for abandoning your inbox. The mocha comes with chocolate and warm spices, and a concha under rainbow sprinkles sits next to it. The Infatuation put it on a list of Portland's best coffee shops.

A Mexican grocery and taqueria that has been making its own tortillas and masa since forever, La Tapatia is the kind of place where the carnitas come out of trays in the front and into your burrito in the back. The chile relleno burrito, built around a melty cheese-stuffed poblano, is the move. Everything is made in-house, it's takeout only, and the San Francisco Chronicle has called it one of the Bay Area's finest.

The Pink Lady, as La Jolla calls its landmark hotel, serves lunch in a pink-walled Mediterranean Room, on a terrace over the Pacific, or poolside, and the menu barely changes between them. Wagyu burgers and ahi poke nachos sit beside steak frites, so you can dress as casually as the ocean view allows. It's a resort lunch priced like one, and the palm trees are part of the cover charge.

La Ventana is a minimalist coffee shop in Eastern Market, pouring Intelligentsia espresso from a U-shaped bar built for long chats with the barista. Toddlers get elevated bleacher seating to climb around on, while laptop people claim the two-top tables and pretend not to notice. Pastries and breakfast burritos cover the snacking, and evenings often bring local artists or music, so the place keeps going after the caffeine does.

La Viña is a Cuban restaurant in Hialeah that looks like a grandparent's den, with wood paneling and sunwashed family photos watching you eat. Bring cash, because the card reader is a rumor. Bring an appetite too, since portions are built for leftovers, and the big bottle of vinegar and peppers on the table is meant for pouring on everything. The Infatuation ranks it among Miami's top restaurants.

Persian cooking is rare in San Francisco, and Lavash has been one of the city's few serious addresses for it. The kebab plates arrive piled over rice on wide sheets of flatbread, which is both a practical move and a slightly theatrical one. The tahdig, all crackle and crust, is the thing regulars come back for. Tables spill into a roofed parklet when the Sunset fog cooperates, which is optimistic but charming.

Le Central's neon sign above Bush Street has been announcing the cassoulet day count for what feels like forever, and the number is well into the five figures. This is an old-school French bistro, white tablecloths against exposed brick, curved booths, faux stained glass overhead. The cassoulet, duck and sausage and beans in a sauce that folds in a bit of the previous day's batch, is the reason regulars never open the menu.

A pink-and-purple French bakery in Potrero Hill where the canelés arrive with a deeply caramelized crust and a custardy, rum-scented interior. The menu rotates around French technique with a tropical detour: passion fruit, calamansi, coconut lavender. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best bakeries, which feels obvious the moment the smell of vanilla and rum reaches you at the door.

Bruno Chemel ran one of the Peninsula's more ambitious tasting-menu restaurants for years; this is not that. Le Parc Bistrobar, tucked into a hotel near Union Square, is a French bistro and cocktail bar that leans classic, with oxtails braised in red wine until the meat nearly dissolves into the sauce. Christie Chemel's cocktail list runs deep on Chartreuse and Pineau des Charentes, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your relationship with French liqueurs.

A live tank of crabs and fish greets you at the door of this spacious Cupertino dim sum hall, which hits peak chaos on weekends when families fill the room and steamer crates stack up fast. The taro puff shaped like a swan, stuffed with scallop-flavored taro, is the kind of thing that makes the table go quiet for a second. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best for dim sum.

Lestat's On Park is a 24-hour coffee shop in University Heights, named for the Anne Rice vampire novels, which explains the fake chandeliers, the peeling wallpaper, and the giant corner couch that seems to have outlasted several decades of hairstyles. There's no air conditioning and the decor never left the '90s. The baristas run grumpy but know their espresso, and the sandwiches are there for 3 a.m. emergencies.

The Linebacker Lounge, known to everyone as "the Backer," is a South Bend college bar near campus where students and football fans dance to classic rock and pop hits and pay prices that feel like a clerical error. The kitchen is better than it needs to be, turning out barbecue burgers, a crispy chicken sandwich, and wings in sauces ranging from Caribbean jerk to vindaloo. Go for a postgame meal, or stay and see how late it gets.