The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the United States

Jeremy Ford runs this modern tasting menu restaurant inside the Venetian, and the kitchen leans hard into vegetables without pretending it isn't also very interested in wagyu and foie gras. Two tasting menu lengths give you a choice of how long to commit, but the bar menu with its cacio e pepe puffs and charred jerk carrots is a genuinely good argument for just pulling up a stool instead.

A Creole barbecue trailer parked behind a kolache shop is either a strange detour or exactly the point, and at Parish it's the point. Cajun spice rubs and Tabasco glazes nudge central Texas classics sideways, and the menu runs past brisket into pulled duck and boudin. Sides like pimento mac topped with Zapp's chips and crawfish cornbread stuffing do their own convincing. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

Spruce sits in one of San Francisco's quieter money neighborhoods, Sacramento Street, where the locals dress well and never seem to be in a hurry. It's a fine dining room doing Modern American with a California lean, the kind of place where lunch runs to composed salads and sandwiches and dinner quietly shifts registers. The cooking is precise and seasonal without announcing itself, and the California wine list gives you plenty of reasons to linger.

Perched at the base of Camelback Mountain, this Scottsdale resort is less a renovation of the old Rat Pack haunt that once stood here than a complete reinvention, the original having been nearly leveled before the reboot. The result is a sleek, contemporary desert property where the mid-century glamour gets reimagined rather than preserved. It holds a Michelin Key, which in resort terms means the vibe and the views both earn their square footage.

An oxblood lacquered ceiling and a menu displayed on a glowing marquee running the length of the room set the scene at this French wine bar across from the Transamerica Pyramid. The kitchen leans on peak produce and serious seafood, with the wine list thick with under-the-radar Gallic producers. The New York Times named it to their Restaurant List in 2025. Walk-ins compete for counter seats; reservations go fast either way.

The underground RiNo dining room glows with neon, and the menu swings just as freely, pairing global flavors across courses in combinations that shouldn't work as well as they do. This is a casual but serious dinner spot where the cocktails lean on dates and balsamic vinegar and the kitchen hosts pop-ups for emerging local chefs. Westword named it among Denver's top fifty restaurants, and Eater puts it on their city essentials list.

On the 17th floor of the Four Seasons Orlando, Capa is a Spanish-leaning steakhouse where the view over the resort competes hard with the menu. Michelin one-starred, it spans gambas, sherry-braised mushrooms, and substantial bone-in ribeye, with a pastry program that turns gazpacho into dessert. The setting pushes it toward celebration territory, and the crowd dresses accordingly.

Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse inside the Four Seasons on Wilshire is the kind of room where the banquette seating and the beef grades arrive with equal seriousness. Cuts run from American prime to Australian Wagyu to Japanese A5, and the price of your entrée will make this feel like a consequential evening regardless of what's being celebrated. The crowd tends to be well-dressed and on somebody's expense account.

Tavel Bristol-Joseph built his Austin reputation on pastry, so opening a modern Caribbean restaurant rooted in his Guyanese childhood was a genuine pivot. The cooking runs tangy, smoky, and coconutty, with fermented jerk seasoning and a roti that disappears faster than you'd expect. He earned a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the New York Times put Canje on its national restaurant list the year it opened.

A mid-century chain hotel on Lady Bird Lake got the full renovation treatment, and the result is a boutique hotel that makes the retro bones look intentional. Architect Michael Hsu and designer Sean Knibb folded in industrial textures and quiet nods to Hill Country geology, so it reads as Austin rather than anywhere-with-a-lobby. The Michelin Guide selects it among its hotels, which is the kind of quiet endorsement that doesn't need a billboard.

A roaring fireplace anchors the dining room at this modern Mexican tasting menu restaurant inside Oceanside's Mission Pacific Hotel, where the pier view competes with what's on the plate. Chef Roberto Alcocer named the place after Baja's Valle de Guadalupe wine country, and the list leans into it. A Michelin star landed here for cooking that manages to be inventive without feeling like a dare.

The wood-fired octopus and French-Italian Riviera menu signal the ambitions clearly: this is fine dining, downtown Milwaukee, with tablecloths to match. Adam Siegel, who holds a James Beard Best Chef Midwest award for earlier work, shapes a kitchen that leans toward the sun-drenched coast without ever feeling like a theme. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, it draws the kind of crowd that books ahead and doesn't check the prices twice.

A Michelin-starred French fine dining room on the third floor of South Coast Plaza, which sounds like a punchline until you're actually sitting at the chef's counter watching a pristine kitchen run through a prix fixe that manages to feel personal rather than ceremonial. Tony Esnault's cooking leans classic French with a roaming curiosity. The patio is a quiet bonus, and the whole place moves at a pace that makes a mall feel very far away.

The sign is so discreet you'll walk past the townhouse twice before finding it, which is, in its way, a promise about how the evening goes. Vetri Cucina is an intimate Italian tasting room on Spruce Street, been around forever, with the kind of unhurried service that feels like it has nowhere else to be. A 1950s espresso machine holds court at the end of the meal, a fitting final argument from a kitchen that takes its classics seriously.

Tangerine doors set into a 23-foot breeze block wall are your first clue that this Palm Springs resort operates on its own frequency. Jonathan Adler designed the interiors, so a suit of armor guards the lobby, groovy carpeting climbs the stairs, and eccentric glamour is the unifying theory. Lanai rooms, a pétanque court, and a hammock by the pool suggest a schedule built around doing very little with great commitment.

Belted Galloway cows still graze the pastures of this converted dairy farm turned country inn, midway between Chapel Hill and nowhere in particular. The 32 rooms are individually designed, with fresh flowers cut from the grounds and a decanter of port left at your bedside each evening. Tennessee fainting goats add an absurdist footnote to the strolls. The restaurant leans European-Southern, and afternoon tea is a thing here, taken seriously.

The Rockwell Group's renovation of this 27-story tower turned it into the most polished address on an already sprawling waterfront resort, and a Michelin Key and Forbes Four Star followed. Rooms look out over 200 acres of pools, a marina, a private beach, and enough dining options to skip the car entirely for days. It's a hotel-within-a-hotel concept, which means you get the full Boca Raton complex and then a quieter, considerably chicler retreat inside it.

A former boat repair shop on the canal, now doing the Lord's work with cardamom croissants and Japanese melonpan. Saint Bread is a bakery with a full menu organized, with some nerve, by how many slices of bread your order contains. The "No Bread" section includes okonomiyaki, which tells you the kitchen has opinions. A James Beard Semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery, and the New York Times put it on their short list of top U.S. bakeries.

The original Art Deco bones of a 1920s Coca-Cola bottling plant are still very much the point here, with exposed industrial detail running through the rooms in the old wing alongside genuinely comfortable modern furniture. The newer addition trades some of the patina for polish, which is a fair swap. The surrounding development packs in coffee, a food hall, and enough going on that you could stay a long weekend without really needing to leave. Michelin awarded it one Key.

The patio at this Culver City contemporary French restaurant seats as many as the dining room, which tells you something about how the place pictures itself. Dinner is when the kitchen finds its stride, moving through chicken liver mousse in a delicate tart, clean fish preparations, and proper desserts. The wine list leans hard into by-the-glass options, which the room seems to appreciate.

A short, ever-changing menu of Spanish and Portuguese cooking in a cozy downtown dining room, where piri piri chicken gets finished with Wisconsin cheese without anyone apologizing for it. The chef is a James Beard Outstanding Chef semifinalist, and the kitchen takes dessert as seriously as the savory courses, which not every serious restaurant bothers to do. The kind of place where you eat things you won't find anywhere else in the city.

Ten suites on a tree-lined street in downtown McMinnville, steps from boutiques and bakeries, with an organic farm supplying the kitchen. The Tributary is a Forbes Four Star boutique hotel that leans closer to an upscale inn than a grand resort, and deliberately so. The amenities list is short: a good book, a roaring fire, a deep bath. Wine-country excursions and hot air balloon rides can be arranged when the fireplace loses its pull.

Ecuadorian and Peruvian cooking meet in a North Miami restaurant where the room feels genuinely celebratory without trying too hard. Chef Alejandra Espinoza runs a menu that moves from coastal ceviches through braised stews and into cassava fritters, all of it vivid and warm in a way that matches the decor. A Michelin Selected restaurant that doesn't feel like it's holding its breath about it.

The bottle gourd for their signature lau chingri comes from the parking lot out back, which tells you most of what you need to know about this small Bangladeshi-Indian neighborhood eatery in Jersey City. The chef and her daughter run the room, the cooking is homestyle but precise, and the dish landed on a New York Times list of the year's best across the country. A James Beard semifinalist, and NJ.com's top-ranked restaurant in the state.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto Lockerbie Square's old brick row houses while tasting menu courses arrive one by one to steal your attention back. Vida is fine dining, the kind where you're choosing between four and seven courses and the chef is assembling each plate like an argument. The team behind it has drawn two James Beard semifinalist nominations, and the room makes it easy to believe them.

Old wooden beams from the original building were milled into the chef's counter, which is where you want to sit at this New England French restaurant if you can get it. The menu runs refined and a little lusty at once, French technique laid over serious local sourcing. The New York Times and Esquire both noticed when it opened, and the room has been full ever since.

Caesar salad made tableside, prime rib carved from a rolling trolley: Daniel Boulud's French steakhouse in the Flatiron plays its classic moves with full confidence. Leather-paneled bar, walnut floors, soaring ceilings, and servers who materialize exactly when needed. The dry-aged beef comes off an oak wood grill, sauces are French, the Bordeaux list is long, and the expense accounts are ready. Ranked 34th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

The red velvet booths are arranged in a circle so that everyone in this fine dining room can watch everyone else, which feels about right for Vegas. Carbone is the New York Italian-American institution transplanted to Aria, where tuxedoed captains serve dishes tableside with a theatricality that matches the decor. The menu leans into the classics hard, and putting yourself in the captain's hands is an option if the bill isn't a concern.

The lobby reads less like a hotel and more like a country house that got very ambitious, with deep sitting areas, Regency columns, and ironwork that quietly signals this is not the Hampton Inn down the road. The Williamsburg Inn sits just across from Colonial Williamsburg's historic district, holds a Forbes Four Star, and connects via the back terrace to a full spa with indoor and outdoor pools. Comfortable, formal-ish, and unapologetically old-money in atmosphere.

Heirloom grains milled in-house show up across the menu at this new American restaurant on Rainey Street, which is exactly the kind of detail that sounds pretentious until you taste the cacio e pepe. The kitchen runs its own fermentation program and leans hard on Texas farms, so the menu stays tight and shifts with what's around. The patio fills fast and the dining room isn't far behind. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Adobe walls, lushly planted courtyards, and the Santa Catalina Mountains framing everything you look at: Hacienda del Sol is a historic guest ranch resort tucked into Tucson's foothills. The 34-acre property has been around forever, and the old-school architecture still holds the place together in a way no renovation could fake. Rooms are spread across the grounds, service runs unhurried, and the mountain views make the phone feel optional.

Persimmon is an intimate American restaurant on Hope Street where the menu changes daily, so the website's answer to "what's for dinner?" is a shrug. The room is bright but cozy, and it fills with a cross-section of Providence, parents included, none of them there for the photos. It holds AAA Four Diamonds and was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Hospitality. Dress like you're trying to impress someone.

The rib-eye comes with a lemongrass chimichurri, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Asian-inflected steakhouse in Wallingford. Rachel Yang, a James Beard nominee, and her partner built a menu where Pacific Northwest ingredients meet continental technique and a full sweep of Asian flavors. The room is big and buzzy without feeling generic. Scallion pancakes, black rice, grass-fed beef: the menu swings wide and lands consistently.

A subterranean New England seafood joint in the East Village where the menu runs heavily toward the ocean and the wine list follows suit, mostly whites chosen to keep pace with it. The New York Times named it among the city's best new restaurants, and the sommelier took a Next Wave Award. The celery root float has become something of a minor cult object, which tells you something about the kitchen's sense of humor.

The restaurant is a Nobu partnership and the pool is lined with lava rock, but Sensei Lanai exists firmly in the wellness-resort category, not the beach-vacation one. Set upcountry on a quiet island, it trades ocean views for gardens, guided fitness, nutrition consultations, and the kind of sleep you forgot you could have. The rooms run spare in their design and lavish in everything else, which is more or less the whole philosophy.

A mushroom breakfast taco that Melissa Clark put on the New York Times list of best dishes eaten across the country in 2024 will tell you what kind of neighborhood restaurant this is. Ocotillo does scratch Tex-Mex in a city not especially known for it, and the housemade salsa macha alone justifies the detour. Brunch draws the loyal crowd, but the cooking has the kind of quiet confidence that makes you wonder what else you've been missing.

Cowhide armchairs in the lobby set the tone: this is a luxury hotel that committed to being Texan rather than just landing in Texas. Part of the Auberge Collection, Bowie House brings the brand's polished design sensibility to Fort Worth's Camp Bowie corridor, pairing it with local artwork and upscale Texan cooking. Rooms, suites, and the pool terrace all lean spectacular. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Sharply dressed guests line up outside a Beaux-Arts building in Southside before the doors even open, which tells you something about how this place operates. Bottega is an upscale Italian-Mediterranean restaurant where dark wood walls and high ceilings set a polished tone, and the servers are warm enough to soften the formality. A Michelin Selected pick and a James Beard Nominee for Outstanding Hospitality, it's been the city's grown-up dining room for longer than anyone's counting.

The Indonesian rosewood dining room looks out at Central Park South like it was born to, which sets the tone for an upscale Italian seafood restaurant where the power-lunch crowd arrives knowing exactly what it costs to sit here. Crudo and handmade pasta anchor the menu, the kind of cooking that earns its address without making a fuss about it. Dress up; this is not a jeans situation.

A steakhouse a short walk from the State House, which tells you a lot about who's having lunch here. Mooo.... keeps a classic chophouse feel but updates it with a menu that ranges from standard prime cuts to Japanese A5 Wagyu, depending on how the negotiations went. The room is warm and polished, the service professional without being stiff, and the beef does most of the talking it needs to.

L'Ostrica is a Montford dinner spot with an open kitchen, polished concrete floors, and the sort of wood furniture that suggests someone had a plan. The menu is Mediterranean at heart, with Asian accents sneaking in, and Fridays and Saturdays bring a tasting menu. The wine list leans on grower Champagnes, so expect a room of people who have opinions about bubbles and a check to match.

This is a Jean-Georges steakhouse at the Bellagio, and it looks more like a jeweler's showroom than a place to eat a cow, with velvet, crystal chandeliers, and a jewel-tone palette. Tables face the fountains, so the water show has a better seat than most people you know. The menu pairs Japanese and American beef with steakhouse classics, and the room fills with expense accounts and decanters of big red.

A bungalow tucked behind banana trees and bougainvillea on a residential street, Baby Bistro runs a menu so short that ordering the whole thing is the obvious move. Miles Thompson's modern American cooking shifts constantly, so whatever's on the night you go may be gone the next. The wine list stays under $100 a bottle, the room is small and lively, and the whole thing feels more like a dinner party than a restaurant.

Chicken and dumplings unveiled tableside is the move at this East Nashville restaurant built around Appalachian and Southern cooking. The share-plate menu leans seasonal but keeps a few old-school anchors no matter what, leaning into ingredients like benne seeds and paw paws in ways your grandmother probably didn't but might wish she had. The vibe is rustic and cozy, the kind of room that makes you want to become a regular on your first visit.

Every evening at sunset, someone opens a bottle of Champagne with a saber. That sets the tone for this bed and breakfast in two joined 19th-century Italianate houses on one of Savannah's quieter streets. The 16 rooms mix antique bones with modern comfort, and breakfast skews Indian, which is a welcome departure from the usual biscuit routine. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A Michelin Key hotel anchoring Kansas City's Crossroads arts district, set inside a converted industrial building where exposed brick and timber beams do the decorating. The 131 rooms lean into the warehouse bones rather than paper over them. Percheron, the rooftop bar, adds bocce and skyline views, while the Italian restaurant Lazia handles dinner. Coffee and casual bites live at XR Cafe, so you rarely need to leave the block.

The team behind the Sunset Tower brought this residential-style luxury boutique hotel to West Hollywood, and the neighborhood pedigree shows. It sits at the quieter, leafy edge where the Hills meet Beverly Hills, a world away from the frenzy further east. Expect the kind of considered, old-Hollywood polish that never needed to announce itself. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A handful of rooms inside a carefully restored Irving Gill house a short walk from La Jolla's water, this boutique hotel runs on the contactless end of the hospitality spectrum. The rooms are elegantly done and the courtyard, shaded by olive trees, is the communal living room nobody has to share with strangers. Borrow something from the curated book collection and pour your own coffee. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over a pond, which sets the mood before the tasting menu even begins. This is polished fine dining in Falls Church, the kind where the monthly French-inflected menu chases both the season and chef Bertrand Chemel's restless imagination. Five courses, and you choose at each one, with vegetarian and meat paths running in parallel. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurant semifinalist in 2024.

Jason Vincent's Logan Square neighborhood restaurant holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and earned a James Beard nomination, which is a lot of hardware for a place that puts onion rings on the menu without irony. The room is modern-rustic and small, with a chef's counter in the back for anyone who wants to watch the kitchen work. The food is familiar American but tilted just enough to keep you guessing what you ordered.

Nine pools connected by a lazy river, a grotto bar you swim up to and order a mai tai while watching sports on TV, and a separate adults-only pool for those who did not come to Maui to dodge pool noodles. This sprawling Waldorf Astoria resort on the Wailea beachfront also runs seven restaurants and bars, a 40-treatment-room spa, outrigger canoe tours, and access to nearby golf and tennis.

Tucked between Mummy and Camelback mountains on 125 sprawling acres, this Scottsdale resort has been converting desert skeptics into desert devotees for generations. The 453 casitas and suites come with private patios, because nobody actually stays inside here. Golf, a spa, seven restaurants, and a pool complex keep the days full, but the move is a morning coffee somewhere among the flowerbeds while the birds sort out their business.

A marble Thomas Jefferson presides over the Palm Court, which sets the tone for this grand Beaux Arts hotel a block from Virginia's state capitol. The rotunda's original Tiffany glass ceiling stops people mid-stride. Rooms lean residential and plush, and the whole place has a pleasantly odd streak, namely alligator motifs tucked into unexpected corners, a nod to the live ones that once shared the lobby.

Wedged between two uncrowded sandy beaches on Maui's south shore, this full-scale Marriott resort runs 22 acres of pools, restaurants, and a nearly 10,000-square-foot spa. Three championship golf courses sit next door, and the dining runs from a poke-and-shave-ice food truck to a proper fine dining room. Humpback whales pass offshore in season, which saves you the trouble of planning an excursion.

The room where the Four Seasons once held court still has that same pull, now under Major Food Group, with tableside presentations arriving like small theatrical productions. The Grill is a fine dining steakhouse running an all-American menu of classics, the kind of place where the suits at the next table never glance at the prices. Grandiose is the right word, and the kitchen leans into it without apology.

The owner has competed in the U.S. Coffee Championships, which tells you something about how seriously this small local coffee shop chain takes a cappuccino. Three locations across Omaha roast their own beans in-house, and the pours are consistent enough that remote workers and afternoon meeting people have adopted them as a second office. The Home blend travels well if you want to keep the habit going at home.