The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the United States

Kono's is a beachside breakfast counter on Garnet Avenue where the line forms by 7am and the kitchen doesn't close until 3. It's mostly surfers who've been up for hours and tourists who've read the same lists you have. The burritos come in five sizes, and The Infatuation ranked the #1 the top breakfast burrito in America, which is also the smallest, so ordering up is a choice, not a necessity.

This is a frozen custard stand where the staff wear white paper hats and the burgers hold their own against the dessert. The custard gets its golden richness from egg yolks, and the flavors rotate daily, so you can get a swirl of Bailey's Irish Cream Coffee or apple streusel and call it dinner. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best ice cream in America, and the line proves nobody here is eating salad.

La Victoria is a casual Dallas Mexican spot on Haskell Avenue where the main event is a griddled 10-inch breakfast burrito, wrapped in a chewy tortilla and sturdy enough to survive the walk back to your car. People order the Don's Delight with eggs, bacon, and avocado, and add peanuts, a move that sounds like a typo until the first bite. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best breakfast burritos in America.

Liberty House is a casual daytime cafe wedged between a juice shop and a yoga studio, which is Asheville's version of a perfectly balanced breakfast. The sourdough blueberry pancake is the draw, proofed overnight, seared in cast iron, and finished in the oven until the outside crackles like a croissant. It comes as a single cake with butter and flaky salt, and The Infatuation named it the best pancakes in America.

Ludi's is a Filipino diner a few steps from Pike Place Market, which means a line of people who skipped the fish-throwing and went straight for breakfast. The headliner is the ube pancakes, rice flour flapjacks under a coconut glaze the color of a highlighter, with a sweetness that stays on the right side of dessert. It's a casual, counter-and-booth morning spot, so wear whatever you had on.

This is a soft-serve stand just outside Lake George, parked across the street from a Six Flags, which means the line is part sunburned families and part people who've had enough of roller coasters for one day. The menu runs long, from birthday cake to an orange creme twist that tastes like a creamsicle. The cremewich is the move if you're racing the drip. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best ice cream in America.

Nhu Lan is a Vietnamese bakery on Lawrence Avenue where the baguettes are made in-house and the sandwiches get built straight into them. The house special stacks ham and head cheese with pâté, pickled vegetables, cucumber, and jalapeño. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best bánh mì in America. Ordering both sandwiches is the usual move, since choosing one apparently can't be done.

A wall of windows faces the Atlantic, which does a lot of the heavy lifting at this fine-dining room inside the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island. The contemporary tasting menu threads European and Asian influences, and the service team remembers returning guests by name, a small touch that lands bigger than it sounds. Book an early table if you want the sunset doing its thing behind your wine glass. AAA Five Diamonds.

Smash Jibarito is a counter-service burger spot on Division Street where the bun is a flattened, fried plantain, which turns lunch into a mild argument about whether this counts as a sandwich. It's the Puerto Rican jibarito run through a smashburger press, with thin, crisp-edged patties and a tangy house sauce that nods toward In-N-Out. It's a casual, order-and-grab operation, so wear whatever you were already wearing.

St. Coffee is a neighborhood coffee shop on St. Claude Avenue, a mile or so downriver from the Quarter, where the breakfast burrito comes stuffed with boudin, because this is New Orleans and the tortilla has to pay local taxes. It's counter service, pastries and espresso, the sort of place where you order in a hoodie and nobody asks questions. The Infatuation put the burrito on its national breakfast burrito list.

A hotel lobby bar in a Gothic downtown landmark, where a smash-style burger with a cream cheese and white cheddar blend and house-pickled onions is the draw. It's a dim, vaulted room with bar-food prices, and the crowd runs from packed to tumbleweed depending on the night. Service can wander. The Infatuation put the burger on its list of the best in America, which is a lot of pressure for something that tastes a little like a drive-thru.

The Oaks Pub is a neighborhood pub in Sellwood, the kind of place where you order at a bar and nobody dresses up for it. It's credited with inventing totchos, which is nachos built on tater tots, a swap so obvious that you wonder who was in charge of nachos before. The Infatuation put the dish on its list of the best potato dishes in America, which is a list that exists and is taken seriously by someone.

This is a breakfast diner in a chalet-style building with a candy cane-striped awning, which gives off strong "ski lodge that only serves syrup" energy. It's the parent of 150-plus locations, so the name is a claim, not a joke. The Dutch baby is the order, a puffed golden thing with crisp edges and a custardy middle. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best pancakes in America.

The Pickled Pig is a casual deli in a city that once called itself Porkopolis and still has the fiberglass pigs to prove it. The kitchen breaks down whole local hogs, then grinds the trimmings into a loose-packed pork burger on a potato bun, topped with nearby gouda and house kimchi. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best burgers in America. Order at the counter, and don't ask where the beef is.

Tsujita is a ramen shop on Sawtelle, known for tsukemen, where thick noodles arrive separately from a concentrated pork and seafood dipping broth. It has a sister spot, Tsujita Annex, directly across the street, so the neighborhood runs a quiet civil war over thick noodles versus thin. Expect a line, a counter-service pace, and a casual, slurp-forward room. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best ramen spots in America.

Two Goose is a counter-service barbecue market on North Lamar that understands Austin's two great loves, brisket and breakfast tacos, and quietly introduces them in burrito form. The Big Honkin' Burrito packs soft eggs, potatoes, cheese, and falling-apart brisket into a tortilla roughly the size of a throw pillow, with a cup of spicy Sunrise sauce on the side. Come hungry, and plan on a nap.

Yeh Yeh's is a casual bánh mì counter in Lynnwood, a few miles north of Seattle proper, where your order arrives as a baguette held together by a rubber band. The grilled pork gets charred edges and a salty marinade, the tofu version is flash-fried and strangely persuasive, and a Vietnamese iced coffee comes strong enough to rearrange your afternoon. The Infatuation put it on a national bánh mì list. Bring cash-register patience and a few napkins.

Yume Wo Katare is a tiny ramen shop near Porter Square where the menu is one enormous bowl of thick, chewy noodles in heavy pork broth, and your only real choice is two slices of chashu or five. Expect a line out the door and a counter packed shoulder to shoulder. When you finish, the staff invites you to stand and announce your dreams to the room, which is less awkward than it sounds, mostly.

A taxidermy mountain goat watches over the dining room, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Avize is an Alpine French wine bar and restaurant where the menu pulls from France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, all filtered through Southern ingredients. Frog legs nod to an Atlanta wing institution. The drinks program is serious enough to earn a James Beard semifinalist nod, and North America's 50 Best ranks it at number 29.

The kitchen closes for a month every year so the team can travel and recharge, which sounds like a reasonable excuse until the vegetable-forward menu comes out and you understand why. Harbinger is a creative dinner spot on Ingersoll where the cooking leans seasonal and a little unexpected, pulling from Japanese and Korean influences without making a fuss about it. USA Today named it one of its Restaurants of the Year in 2024.

The historic two-story Queen Street house has its own garden out front, which tells you something about how seriously this Southern restaurant takes its sourcing. Seafood arrives in seasoned broths, the cornbread has inspired genuine reverence, and the pimento cheese with country ham is the kind of opener that makes the rest of the menu feel like bonus rounds. Reservations are scarce, and a sidewalk queue forms before the doors open most evenings.

A 15-foot wood-fire hearth anchors the kitchen at this modern steakhouse and seafood spot in West Des Moines, and the chef runs nearly everything past the flames, including the salads. Roasted bone marrow with brisket jam sits alongside reserve cuts that venture into A5 Kobe territory, so the range is real. Iowa takes beef seriously, and this place takes that seriously back, without feeling like a monument to red meat.

A renovated gas station surrounded by cornfields is not where most people expect to find a Texas-style barbecue joint worth a half-hour drive, but here we are. The pit runs daily, turning out brisket, pulled pork, double-smoked sausage, and ribs, with sides like campground beans and pimento cheese pasta salad filling the gaps. USA Today named it a Restaurant of the Year.

The wafer-thin crust crackles and snaps under toppings loaded on with no apologies, and the fennel sausage quietly reminds you this used to be Milwaukee's Italian quarter. Zaffiro's is a tavern-style pizza bar that has been doing this for what feels like forever, red-checkered tablecloths and Blatz on tap and all. Circle pie, square cut, built to be eaten beside strangers under neon light.

The wide black awning stretches almost the full width of Park Avenue, which tells you everything about the register this hotel is playing in. It's a luxury Upper East Side property with an old-money residential feel, rooms styled like Manhattan apartments, and the kind of quietly confident lobby that makes newcomers stand up a little straighter. Central Park is a short walk, Madison Avenue boutiques are closer still.

Bungalows carved into black lava rock replace the usual hotel tower here, which tells you a lot about the Four Seasons Hualalai's approach to resort life on the Big Island. The saltwater pool has cabanas that close for full privacy, and a separate encounter pool lets you swim alongside eagle rays. The adults-only pool and a Jack Nicklaus golf course exist for those not chasing fish. A Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.

Gas fireplaces, four-poster beds, and heated limestone floors set the register at this boutique hotel tucked into a red-brick Mount Vernon mansion. One of the few Black-owned boutique hotels in the country, it holds a Michelin two-key distinction. A courtyard handles breakfast and afternoon tea; the on-site restaurant, Magdalena, draws its own following. The spa is small and the whole operation is quiet, which is rather the point.

The building was the Federal Reserve Bank once, and The Langham has kept enough of that fortress-grade exterior to remind you money used to feel serious. Inside, it's a full-service luxury hotel done in softened British style, which sits amusingly well in Boston's Financial District. A lap pool, Italian dining at Grana, and a New England-inflected pub called The Fed cover most moods without ever leaving the building. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Beacon Hill is the kind of neighborhood that eyes new arrivals with suspicion, so a boutique hotel on Charles Street has something to prove. The Whitney pulls it off with red brick on the outside and interiors that split the difference between old-money Boston and something you'd actually want to photograph. It holds two Michelin Keys, and the Longfellow Bridge is right there if you need a walk to justify the room rate.

Mandalay's tea leaf salad skips the cabbage most Bay Area Burmese spots default to, landing closer to what you'd find in Myanmar, layered with sesame, peanuts, tomatoes, and fried garlic. It's an old-school Burmese restaurant on California Street that's been around forever without feeling tired. A 2024 James Beard America's Classics winner, it draws regulars who clearly have a usual order and aren't changing it anytime soon.

Nong's is a counter-service Thai spot built around one dish, chicken and rice, which started life as a food cart before the paper-wrapped parcels earned it a brick-and-mortar home. You tear open the package and a cloud of ginger, garlic, and pandan fogs your glasses. Soft winter squash dissolves into the broth on the side, and the whole meal costs about what a movie ticket did in 2009. Eater put it on its All-Time 38 list.

Whole pies only, no exceptions, which has annoyed exactly the kind of person who deserves to be annoyed. Chrissy's is a slice-free NY-style pizza shop in Greenpoint where the chef spent pandemic years perfecting thin-crust pies in his apartment before graduating through pop-ups to a permanent counter. The New York Times put it on their best pizza in New York list, which is not a short list to land on.

The neon sign and wrought-iron balconies have been drawing poets, musicians, and general troublemakers to this West Chelsea hotel for generations. A recent restoration brought it back without sanding off the mythology, which is a harder trick than it sounds. Rooms feel like somewhere a person could actually live, which many people famously did. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Dylan Thomas drank here; Taylor Swift wrote a song about it.

A 30-foot teal wall inscribed with Marcel Proust greets you in the lobby, which sets the tone for this Gold Coast boutique hotel with more personality than most. The 180 rooms lean midcentury, with a warm gold-and-teal palette and guest room doors in mismatched colors. A rooftop bar handles cocktails and skyline views, and Oak Street Beach is a short walk. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Yachts outnumber cars in the parking situation here, which tells you what kind of hotel this is. The Ritz-Carlton sits on a large man-made marina about five miles from LAX, and the water views are relentless, from the pool deck to the guest rooms. A Forbes Four Star property, it offers paddleboarding, parasailing, and jet-skiing alongside a spa for those who prefer their recreation horizontal. LA's beach chaos feels surprisingly distant.

A Strip diner that has been waving off the casino buffets for decades, with fake trees, flamingo lamps, and enough neon to make the omelets feel like a decision. Out back, the lounge has sunken booths, water features, and scorpion bowls, a James Beard America's Classics winner that somehow still runs all night. Hungover tourists and bikers split plates of marinara-soaked eggs, and no one finds this strange.

Fratesi's is a neighborhood pizzeria, the kind that feels like it's been on the corner since before you were born, even though it landed in downtown Miami fairly recently. The bar pies come out so thin they look drawn on, with cheese all the way to the edge, which leaves crust-skeptics with nothing to complain about. Stained glass lamps hang over springy booths, and the tahini caesar is the one salad people will order on purpose.

Three pizza styles under one roof: puffy Neapolitan, fried montanara, and the thin Roman scrocchiarella. This Palms pizzeria is the grown-up version of a beloved Pico-Robertson original, now with a proper sit-down dining room and a menu that stretches to supplì and broccolini with bagna cauda. The kind of neighborhood spot that gets written about in cities far from Los Angeles, so booking ahead is wise.

Dhamaka means "explosion" in Hindi, and the kitchen takes that seriously, sending out smoky goat belly wrapped in cedar wood and mutton in clay pots swimming in dark chili oil with a whole roasted garlic bulb. This is a sit-down Indian restaurant in Essex Market that goes deep into rustic, regional dishes rarely spotted on menus here. The chef holds a James Beard Award. Tables are comically small, so bring people you like close.

A bakery counter next door, a private dining room in back, and cooking classes on the books make this feel more like a culinary compound than a restaurant. The lunch crowd fills up on hoagies, but dinner is where the kitchen stretches out, turning out pastas and wood-fired pizzas that take real swings. Ellen Yin holds a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, and the open kitchen makes it easy to watch the team earn it.

String lights and climbing vines turn the back patio into the kind of dinner setting that makes you forget you're in the middle of a city. Alta Adams is a Southern restaurant on the West Adams corridor, and the kitchen cooks with the confidence of someone who has been making fried chicken and coconut cake their whole life. Portions run generous, which makes it a natural for groups. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: California.

A Romanesque Revival building that spent its postwar years full of artists' lofts is now a boutique hotel that essentially defined what a SoHo loft hotel looks like. Christian Liaigre's renovation gave the rooms their spare, low-slung calm, and that aesthetic has aged better than most of its imitators. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Style-world regulars still treat it as a default, which is either a recommendation or a warning, depending on your feelings about that crowd.

The corn gets roasted the day before, then ground fresh each morning for the tortillas, which tells you everything about how this East Austin taqueria operates. The menu runs on nixtamalized heirloom corn and swings between ancient technique and something like duck fat refried beans without missing a step. The chef took a James Beard Emerging Chef win and a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Come early, and come however you're dressed.

Caroline Glover won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mountain out of this Stanley Marketplace restaurant in Aurora, and the cooking stays grounded enough that the award doesn't feel like it belongs somewhere else. Annette is a seasonal New American spot where the menu shifts with what's good, though a few things hang around because they've earned it. The room is warm and the hospitality matches it.

A 43-room hotel tucked into Pacific Heights so quietly it reads as a mansion on the block. Wood-paneled lobby, inlaid floors, and actual metal keys behind the front desk telegraph the vibe: old San Francisco, the residential kind, not the tourist kind. Cream-and-white rooms, heated bathroom floors, complimentary breakfast, and a wine reception round it out. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Roman & Williams brought their loft-luxe aesthetic to a 26-story tower in Tampa's Water Street district, and the result is an EDITION hotel that feels less like a Gulf Coast newcomer and more like a confident transplant from somewhere with stronger opinions about lobby design. Seven dining and drinking venues include some built for live performance, with menus overseen by John Fraser. A rooftop pool, a full-service spa, and a Forbes Four Star round out the picture.

Inch-thick pan pizzas baked to order out of a tiny Echo Park shop with a vinyl and cassette collection on the walls. Quarter Sheets draws a crowd serious enough that a wait is part of the deal, and the pastries from the team's baker, a James Beard semifinalist, are a genuine surprise at a pizza counter. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the New York Times put it on their restaurant list. Wear whatever you'd wear to a friend's place.

Each of the 28 rooms and cottages at this all-inclusive Vermont resort is decorated in its own distinct world, from a fishing-themed rustic retreat to a full Moroccan hideaway with painted ceilings and tilework. Set on 300 acres of Southern Vermont farmland and forest, it lends itself to hiking, canoeing, fly fishing, and cross-country skiing. The resort holds a Forbes Five Star. Couples tend to find their way here, which says enough.

A 35-story glass tower with a gem-shaped dome is an unusual choice for a brand associated with white stone and afternoon tea, but Portland is an unusual city. The Ritz-Carlton here holds a Michelin Key and leans hard into the Pacific Northwest, with forest-themed interiors, an alpine-inspired pool, and rooms meant to evoke Oregon's mountain rivers. The 19th-floor spa and Mount Hood views make a persuasive case for staying in rather than exploring.

Spanish Colonial Revival bones dressed up with Moorish tilework and Moroccan touches give this Forbes Four Star hotel a look that's hard to place geographically, which seems to be the point. Three buildings arranged like a small village sit a short walk from East and West Beach, with two restaurants, a rooftop pool, and enough fountains and red-tiled rooflines to make Santa Barbara feel like a foreign country, which Santa Barbara sort of already does.

A stone exterior and courtyard fountain set the tone for this mid-mountain ski-in hotel in Silver Lake Village, a short run from Deer Valley's slopes. The look is French mountain chalet; the amenities are firmly American, including a heated pool, two hot tubs, a spa, and suites with fireplaces, jetted tubs, and kitchens. The Forbes Four Star property houses an Italian restaurant and a lounge with live music for après-ski that skips the pretense.

The corn cake is not corn: it's sponge coated in piped kernels of corn mousse, and it stops people in their tracks. Lysée is a dessert gallery in the Flatiron where Eunji Lee, a Food & Wine Best New Chef, applies French technique to Korean flavors like yuja and brown rice, then displays the results on lit tables as though daring you to eat them. North America's Best Pastry Chef at the 50 Best, 2026. Go prepared to feel slightly intimidated by a cake.

A plantation-style inn tucked into the Blue Ridge foothills where most guests book a room and a table in the same breath, treating dinner as the main event and sleep as the gracious afterthought. The chef has held a Michelin star for years, and the Forbes Five Star rating keeps the staff sharp. Afternoons run to tea and scones; evenings to tasting menus that take a while. Hike, balloon, or antique between the two.

A chandelier made of real antlers hangs in the living room beside one shaped like icicles, which tells you everything about the tone here. This 12-suite boutique hotel occupies a limestone schoolhouse in Old Town Park City, with reclaimed barn-wood floors, European antiques, and a fireplace that earns its keep. The chef cooks a complimentary breakfast and après-ski snacks, and a ski valet handles the gear. Park City Mountain is a short walk away.

Pressed-tin ceiling, exposed brick, wine bottles lining the shelves above your head: this Georgetown neo-bistro looks exactly like the French place you've been trying to find in this city. The seasonal menu is deliberately short and liable to change, which feels like a feature rather than a bug. The chef earned a Food & Wine Best New Chefs nod in 2023, and the cocktails are sharp enough to slow down the ordering process considerably.

Forty-one rooms and private houses cantilevered over Big Sur's cliffs, each built from reclaimed wood, steel, and stone to look like it grew there. Post Ranch Inn is a luxury clifftop resort where the activity list runs from guided hikes to stargazing, and the things absent are as deliberate as the things present: no TVs, no alarm clocks. The infinity pool stares straight at the Pacific. It holds a Michelin three-key designation and a Forbes Four Star.