The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the United States

Ford Fry's seafood restaurant exists as a quiet rebuke to Atlanta's landlocked reality. The room has the feel of an oyster bar and a classic fish house that figured out how to share a cool loft, and the kitchen leans into both, running whole roasted shrimp alongside delicate flounder dressed in lobster butter. Parker House rolls arrive hot, and the menu wanders just enough to keep things interesting.

The brass pineapple door handle is not subtle, but this lakeside American restaurant earns the bit. Inside, plush booths and tufted leather banquettes set a warm, unhurried tone, and the menu leans into local produce without making a fuss about it. Outside, a fire pit sits alongside tables that catch Lake Ivanhoe sunsets at their most cooperative. The neighborhood's old pineapple-farming past explains the name, if you were wondering.

The wood-fired grill anchors an industrial room of concrete and steel that somehow reads as warm rather than cold. Trust is a small-plates American restaurant in Hillcrest where the menu is built for sharing, and the expansive patio fills fast on San Diego's many fair-weather days. The kitchen runs from hush puppies with whipped honey butter to braised oxtail raviolini, and the milk and cookies pie has its own loyal following.

A Center City brownstone that's been quietly making the case for vegan fine dining from its spot on Locust Street. Inside, the space unfolds across several rooms with the feeling of a very elegant townhouse, warm lighting and all. The plant-based menu leans into seasonal ingredients and international flavors, so dishes arrive with a sharpness that gives the table something to argue over. Seasonal cocktails and attentive service round out what amounts to a full night.

The surprise here is that "farm-to-table in the desert" is less a marketing line than a geography lesson: the Coachella Valley is one of the country's most productive agricultural corridors, and this modernist New American restaurant sources accordingly, down to a dedicated garden in Rancho Mirage. The space itself is a polished-concrete interior tucked inside an old Spanish-style building, with a mist-cooled courtyard out back. The bar program runs to house-made ginger beer.

Udon and only udon, pulled fresh from the steel extruder in thick, flour-dusted strands that turn slippery and just barely chewy once boiled. This compact Cambridge noodle shop has kept its menu narrow on purpose, offering hot or cold, spicy or not, each bowl built on dashi broth with beef, scallions, and tempura bits. It landed on Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants list and has since expanded, but the logic of the place hasn't changed.

Five varieties of mole anchor the menu at this Oaxacan restaurant in Sunnyslope, where a string-lit patio softens the strip-mall surroundings considerably. The cocktail list leans heavily on mezcal, with rare agave spirits showing up across most of the drinks. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top Oaxacan restaurant, and the mole negro has a following of its own.

The chef comes from a line of Italian bakers, and the pizza crust at this Peoria trattoria and pizzeria makes that lineage hard to miss, with blistered char and a chew that most Phoenix spots across town can't match. The menu runs well past pizza, into house-made porchetta, light gnocchi with cheese-heavy sauces, and fresh stuffed pastas. For a neighborhood that usually gets everyone else's leftovers, this one was built here from scratch.

The sushi counter is the point here, not the parade of sauce-heavy rolls that crowds the competition. This upscale Chandler sushi restaurant leans traditional, pulling in harder-to-find cuts like escolar and sea urchin alongside the usual nigiri and sashimi spread. A few hot dishes and tempura round things out, but the kitchen knows where its priorities lie. Phoenix New Times has named it the area's top Japanese restaurant.

Caipirinhas built from fresh sugar-cane juice anchor this small Brazilian bar and kitchen in Adams Morgan, where a vinyl soundtrack keeps the room at a low simmer all night. The open kitchen sends out charcoal-oven dishes and fried tapioca squares with spicy guava sauce that Washingtonian singled out as a favorite dish of the year. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that skips the menu on the second visit.

The Cuban bread comes from La Segunda Bakery in Tampa, shipped in specifically to get the crust right on the sandwiches. This is a Cuban restaurant where the team cooks from scratch the way they did back home, and that intention shows up in the ropa vieja and the arroz con pollo as much as the pressed sandwiches. The flan is the quiet closer nobody skips.

The pilau arrives under a dome of golden filo you crack open at the table, releasing fragrant basmati with almonds and pistachios underneath. Sultan is a Mediterranean restaurant in the Grove neighborhood serving a menu that runs from lentil soup and beef dumplings with garlic yogurt to kabobs. The room filled up fast when it opened and has stayed that way, which in a neighborhood already stacked with good options is its own kind of argument.

The dining room runs turquoise, pink, and lemon yellow, which tells you something about the spirit of this vegetarian restaurant in the Golden Triangle. The menu reads simply but the plates arrive complex, the kitchen finding real depth in seasonal produce without announcing the effort. Zero-proof cocktails get the same careful treatment as the wine list, which leans biodynamic. A weeknight tasting menu keeps the tab surprisingly manageable.

An emerald-green bar anchors this clubby Roman-inspired dining room in downtown Bethesda, the kind of place where an Aperol spritz arrives before you've settled into your seat. The chef behind D.C.'s Red Hen runs the kitchen, and pasta is the main event, though the snacky bar bites and a lunchtime cheeseburger that has no business being this good keep things interesting. Upscale Italian without the starch.

Craft Pita is a counter-service Lebanese spot where you order at the register, which is why the olive oil from the chef's family back in Lebanon feels like a flex. Hummus comes out velvety, the tacos wear a layer of fries like it's perfectly normal, and portions run generous at prices that don't sting. Dessert is stretchy booza, the kind of ice cream you have to negotiate with. Turkish coffee is strong, and so are the Lebanese wines.

A small Annapolis dining room built around pickling and fermentation, which sounds like a thesis until the food arrives. The roast chicken is beautifully bronzed, the steak-frites comes with kimchi-beef jus, and the crab salad on hash browns is the kind of thing that makes you forgive everyone their restaurant concepts. The bar earns equal attention. A Washingtonian top-100 pick.

A casual BYOB in Bella Vista where the adobo arrives as braised chicken in waves of vinegar and deep umami, and people tend to remember it. The Caesar gets a hit of bagoong, the fermented fish paste that makes a Filipino pantry tick, and the broccoli rabe nods to the South Philly block it sits on. Bring a bottle, bring a friend who wants to share everything, and leave the menu nowhere near unfinished.

The signature dish here is called the Whole Beast, built from leftover proteins, noodles, and produce so that nothing walks out the back door. The Heritage Table is an innovative restaurant where the chef, a James Beard semifinalist, runs the kitchen around whole-animal and whole-vegetable thinking. Saturday evenings bring a tasting menu sourced entirely from the Blackland Prairie, reservation required, which tells you the room takes itself seriously without being smug about it.

A pastrami-forward deli on Folsom where the menu reads like a roster of characters named by someone's uncle in Canarsie. The Menschkowitz throws cherry peppers into the mix; the BK goes full diner breakfast between two slices of bread. Everything arrives with thick pickles on the side, which is the correct move. Sandwiches aren't cheap, and it's takeout only, so plan accordingly.

A sandwich counter in NoPa where modifications are not on the menu, full stop. The team builds everything with enough conviction that you'll forget you wanted to swap something out, and condiments like bagna cauda mayo and artichoke cream cheese make clear this is not a cold-cuts-and-mustard situation. The shop is takeout only, but Alamo Square Park is a short walk, which is either a feature or a hint to leave promptly.

The namesake suya, smoky grilled meat with West African roots, gives this Roxbury restaurant its name and its personality. The menu runs from whole-fried snapper to okra soup with fufu to a peanut stew regulars quietly reorder every visit. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2024, which tracks for a neighborhood spot that has no business being this good and knows it.

Six food stalls share a refugee community center in Aurora, and the hours are loose enough that showing up with a plan is a mistake. On a good day you might land Burmese curry, Haitian fritters, Ethiopian doro wot, and Sudanese semolina cake in a single tray-juggling loop. The room is a folding-chair situation, not a date-night situation, but the cooking makes a strong case for itself regardless.

Loba is a minimalist coffee shop and small-batch bakery where the ovens sit behind a window, so you can watch your white chocolate curry scone's origin story. The menu rotates, the hours are short, and the seating is limited, so weekend crowds line up early to beat the sellouts. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery. Come early, order boldly, and accept that the pineapple sourdough muffin may already be a memory.

A vintage Pizza Hut lamp hangs in the dining room, which tells you almost everything about the tone. This Italian restaurant in Wash Park comes from the team behind Dio Mio and Redeemer Pizza, and the menu reads like people who take craft seriously decided to stop pretending they don't also love a good bit. Red sauce shares space with squid ink fettuccine, seasonal crudo, and pizzas topped with sour cream-and-onion dip.

A walk-up burger stand on Navigation that grew out of years of pop-ups, Boo's is the kind of place where the menu fits on a napkin and that's the whole point. The smashburger comes on a challah bun from Cake & Bacon, topped with shredded lettuce, tomato, shaved onion, and a smoky house sauce that regulars already treat as non-negotiable. Crispy fries, bottled sodas, and a colorful roadside aesthetic round it out.

Pisco is doing serious work here, with Esquire naming the pisco martini among the best in the country. La Royal is a handsome Peruvian restaurant and bar in Cambridge where the menu wanders across the full breadth of Peruvian cooking, including Chifa, the country's Cantonese-inflected tradition. Ceviches are sharp and citrus-forward, and the room has a genuine going-out energy. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant.

By day it's a sausage shop slinging serious sandwiches; by night, tables get jammed into every corner of the meat case and a monthly five-course dinner runs to monkfish, duck-stuffed peppers, and scallops with corn polenta, all with punk on the speakers. A James Beard semifinalist and a Bon Appétit pick for best new restaurant, it's the kind of place Philadelphia gets very right and nowhere else quite explains.

The name "Theta" does hint at a quieter frequency than the surrounding blocks would suggest. This Kimpton hotel on 8th Avenue puts you a short walk from the Theater District, Hell's Kitchen, and the Rockefeller Center chaos, which makes it a practical midtown base without requiring you to sleep directly under a billboard. The 364 rooms lean calm and polished in the way the Kimpton brand tends to, a reliable counterpoint to the neighborhood's volume.

Fresh pasta lines the shelves at this Mission storefront, the casual offshoot of the Flour + Water restaurant around the corner, but the sandwiches are the reason to pull up a stool at lunch. The cured meat option layers mortadella, salami, and provolone against a sharp pepper relish and a hit of red wine vinegar. The eggplant parm, bolstered by kale pesto and burrata, is the kind of thing you think about on the walk home.

Avgolemono on a menu full of green chile cheese fries and omelets sets the tone at this neighborhood diner tucked onto a quiet, tree-shaded block just off Colfax. Chef Zorba's has been around forever, and the regulars who walk over from Congress Park carry themselves like they've never needed to look at the menu. Westword handed it Best Soup for a Hangover, which is either high praise or a very specific clientele study.

A small Uptown sandwich shop where the menu is short and the pork is the whole argument. The porchetta here comes out of the oven crackling-crisp on the outside and genuinely juicy inside, piled onto ciabatta with arugula and a pink peppercorn Kewpie mayo. The room is tight, the menu is tight, and the cravings that follow are not. A counter-service spot that keeps it simple and lets the roast pork do the talking.

Murals cover the walls of this Whittier neighborhood taco spot, and the name delivers exactly the disclaimer it promises: yes, tacos, but also slow-braised rabbit barbacoa in mole over heirloom masa, and beef cheeks in pasilla negro adobo with handmade tortillas. The chef has a Food Network face and the kitchen to back it up. Named one of Denver's 25 best restaurants by 5280, it's the kind of Mexican place that makes ordering feel like a commitment.

The amber glow through the windows at night is the first thing you notice, and then all the people inside, clearly mid-splendid-time. This is a neighborhood restaurant done with genuine ambition, the kind where the cowboy rib-eye with cracked pepper butter sits on the same menu as Dover sole and creative cocktails. Webster Groves is a quick drive from the city, and regulars treat it like their dining room, which is a compliment to everyone.

The dining room glows in golden light, and everyone seated in it has the look of someone who waited weeks for this reservation, because they probably did. Wright's Tavern is a small neighborhood steakhouse where the French Syrah, a New York strip, and Dauphinoise potatoes form the obvious throughline, but the crab cake and shrimp scampi quietly compete for the table's attention. St. Louis Magazine named it among the city's best restaurants.

The chef sources so locally he's reportedly knocked on strangers' doors to ask about their gardens, and his mom's plot is in regular rotation. The result is a Northwest New American restaurant on Alki Beach where essentially everything on the plate comes from Washington state, no California citrus allowed. The bar runs the same way and is worth the trip on its own, and the desserts have drawn their own devoted following.

Alpino is a Corktown dinner spot dressed as an Alpine ski lodge, with a stone fireplace at the center and no mountain within several hundred miles. The menu wanders through Austria and the neighboring French, German, Italian, and Swiss kitchens, and the team makes its own bread, pasta, and sausage. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant. Reserve ahead, especially if you're angling for the summer patio.

Every dish arrives in a metal pie tin, which sets the tone: this is a casual, communal American restaurant in RiNo where the whole point is ordering too much and arguing over the last of the mac and cheese. The menu runs from cornbread muffins to whole fried fish built for pulling apart into tacos, and the cocktails are tangy and strong enough to make everyone agreeable about sharing. Come with people you like, or you'll be negotiating with strangers.

The carts are back, loaded with dumplings, chicken feet, shrimp balls, and sticky rice, and on weekend mornings a line forms outside before the doors open. Star Kitchen is a dim sum parlor tucked into a strip mall on Mississippi, the kind of room that rewards a large, hungry group with a working knowledge of chile oil. Dinner happens too, but the morning rush is the whole point.

Purple ube tortillas are the opening move at this compact Mission taqueria, where the kitchen leans Yucatecan rather than the Bay Area standard. Cochinita pibil arrives with real tart depth and habanero salsa that bites back, and a pastor negro made with black adobo keeps things interesting. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best taco spots in the Bay Area, which tracks for a place this quietly opinionated about the form.

A big live oak shades the patio, which tells you most of what you need to know about this all-day cafe and cocktail bar on West Fifth. Coffee in the morning, serious drinks by afternoon, and a menu of laid-back dishes that runs from breakfast sandwiches built around crispy hash brown patties to a Taiwanese-style fried chicken sandwich at dinner. The kind of Austin spot that makes parking feel like a personality trait, and means it.

A neighborhood sushi spot tucked into Mt. Washington's merchant village, Chiyo draws locals away from the more obvious downtown options with straightforward nigiri and sashimi alongside a few playful additions, banana tempura ice cream among them. The room runs across two levels now, with a downstairs bar and a quieter dining room below. It's the kind of place regulars have strong opinions about, and those opinions are broadly favorable.

The fireplace in the entry has been warming Wall Street deal-makers since before anyone can remember, and the wood-paneled dining room at this old-school steakhouse still reads like a set for exactly that. The boneless rib-eye that carries the house name is the move, though the lobster Newburg keeps loyalists from ever opening another section of the menu. Business casual is the unspoken dress code, and nobody seems to mind.

Beef heart on a skewer is not a timid opener, but El Chullo's anticuchos, marinated and grilled dense and chewy, set the tone for a traditional Peruvian restaurant that doesn't hedge. The Melrose location on Seventh Avenue is cozy and colorful, the kind of room where a Pisco Sour tastes better than it has any right to. Lomo saltado, ceviche mixto, and arroz chaufa round out a menu that takes the Lima-meets-Canton fried rice angle seriously.

An old-school neighborhood butcher and sandwich counter in the Sunset, where the meat is weighed after slicing so your Italian sub doesn't tilt the table. That discipline produces something balanced rather than heroic: the Toscano lines up salami, coppa, provolone, and pepperoncini like they've been rehearsing. In-house roasted turkey, ham, and pork fill out the case, and on Tuesdays the Zinfandel-marinated tri-tip is the move.

Brie tempura on the same menu as otoro nigiri tells you something about the kitchen's priorities at this laid-back North Loop sushi spot: a little of everything, taken seriously. The room leans into natural wood and blue tile, calm enough that the quality of the fish can do the talking. House wine that doesn't embarrass itself and a short sake list round things out without fuss.

A smashburger shop built into a shipping container alongside Two Pitchers Brewing Co., Lovely's has a menu that reads like a love letter to drive-through nostalgia. Picnic tables and string lights fill the dog-friendly outdoor space. The fried onion burger, a riff on the Oklahoma classic George Motz made famous, cooks the patty right into thinly sliced onions so the beef fat goes everywhere it should.

Pinball machines and white walls set the scene at this Potrero Hill sandwich shop, where the menu runs on East Coast bodega logic: Kaiser rolls, poppy seeds, and a bacon-egg-and-cheese that doesn't apologize for itself. Pastrami swaps in for the pork if that's your move. Ask for the lacto-fermented hot sauces, which bring enough acid and heat to make everything sharper. Casual, low-key, and named among the Bay Area's better sandwich spots by the Chronicle.

Every sandwich at this sandwich shop contains pork, which tells you almost everything you need to know. The signature is porkstrami, a brined and smoked pork butt that earns its place alongside coppa, salami, and mortadella in the loaded Salvatore, served hot on a Dutch crunch roll. Turkey and roast beef exist if you insist. Old-timey novelty sodas handle cleanup duty. Bring your appetite and leave your dietary restrictions at the door.

Pan Artesanal is a Mexican bakery on Fullerton where the cinnamon rolls come in tiramisú, arroz con leche, and chocoflan, which is a lot of dessert to ask of a roll. Past the conchas you'll find egg sandwiches in red sauce, chilaquiles, and tacos on handmade tortillas. It tends to sell out early and a line forms, so arrive before the pastry case starts looking picked over. Eater has it on its Best Mexican Restaurants list.

A Hong Kong-style cafe in Quincy where the French toast oozes with creamy egg yolk and the ji cheung fun comes loaded with beef brisket or curry fish balls. The menu pulls from classic cha chaan teng tradition and gives it a modern, careful reworking. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod and a Bon Appétit best new restaurant mention, which explains the regulars making the trip from the city.

A moody Old Town Scottsdale cocktail bar where the olive oil-washed dirty martini is only the beginning. The menu swings between arancini for two and a full table spread of ceviche, burrata, and pasta, and it changes often enough to reward regulars. The duck bolognese tossed with mafaldine and garlic crumble has become something of a signature. It reads equally well as a date bar or a group dinner, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

The chef's pastry background explains why the flan de erizo and the croissant sobrasada roll have each turned heads at Seattle Met. This tapas bar on 12th Avenue riffs on Galician cooking, leaning into the Pacific Northwest's seafood to find where Spain's northwest and Washington's coastline overlap. The menu takes liberties, in a good way, and the sherry list is longer than you'd expect. A James Beard semifinalist in 2024.

A chrome-and-neon diner aesthetic gets quietly serious treatment at Clyde's, where the kitchen leans on local ingredients and the menu runs from double smash burgers to seared salmon without apologizing for either. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod for Best Chef: Midwest in 2024, which feels about right for a place still bothering to finish you off with soft serve. A fine diner, in every sense the name implies.

A boutique hotel where the art collection is the point, not the lobby filler. The 21c chain built its name in cities you wouldn't expect, and the Durham outpost fits right into a downtown mid-reinvention. Rooms sit alongside rotating contemporary art, and the whole thing feels more like a stay inside a functioning museum than a polished-down corporate property. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Arched windows and original brick from an old Midtown building are still doing the heavy lifting here, even as the interiors have gone full Autograph Collection, with taupe walls, tall headboards, and copper accent pillows. Chesapeake Energy Arena and Bricktown are walkable, and the Rooftop O Bar draws enough locals that you'll forget you're staying at a hotel.

A water taxi from Pier 25 drops you on Governors Island, a city park that happens to sit between Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty, where Collective operates a glamping resort that makes the Catskills seem like a lot of driving. Tents come with air conditioning, Frette robes, and en suite bathrooms, and the top cabin adds a soaking tub aimed at the Statue of Liberty. Cocktails on the Sunset Terrace, morning buffet, yoga, oyster shucking classes: summer camp, if camp had gone upmarket.

The origin story involves black flowers bought from a French roadside cart, and the whole hotel has leaned into it ever since. Moody botanical wallpaper by Ellie Cashman lines the interiors, while giant murals spill into a poolside courtyard with fire pits and Adirondack chairs. Casitas and suites have terracotta floors and midcentury furnishings. The speakeasy-style rosé bar keeps things from taking themselves too seriously.

Art Deco bones from the thirties, a wash of UW purple, and a plaid nod to the city's nineties moment: Graduate Seattle is a boutique hotel that wears its neighborhood on its sleeve. Rooms are comfortable without pushing into splurge territory, which fits the University District just fine. There's no bar or restaurant, just a lobby lounge, but the Neptune Theatre is right across the street and the neighborhood fills in the rest.

Twenty-inch brick walls and ornate plasterwork that predate the Civil War set the scene at this nine-room boutique hotel in Boylan Heights. The Italianate mansion has been fitted out in what the team calls "Modern Victorian," meaning four-poster beds and working fireplaces alongside contemporary furniture, so it reads as historic without feeling like a museum. Guests book the Honeymoon Suite; the house books weddings in the library and drawing room.

Every night at 7:33, the hotel rings a bell and invites guests to pour a whiskey, marking the end of Prohibition with the kind of ritual that sounds gimmicky until you're actually doing it. Hotel Distil occupies a restored bourbon warehouse on Whiskey Row, where the old facade gives way to glassy, modern rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and city or river views. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected Louisville hotels.

A three-story chandelier anchors the lobby of this downtown Indianapolis hotel, which occupies a restored 11-story landmark that's been around long enough to have earned the bones worth restoring. Inside, Italian marble and Indiana-inspired artwork do their civilizing work, while rooms come with proper skyline views, wet bars, and Byredo products for guests who notice such things.

Three blocks south of the Sunset Strip, on a genuinely quiet residential street, sits this all-suite hotel that has quietly figured out it doesn't need to compete with the nightclubs nearby. Suites come with fireplaces and fully stocked minibars, some add kitchenettes and balconies, and the rooftop pool looks out over West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The lounge drifts from co-working space to something more convivial by evening, on its own unhurried schedule.

Zombie Taco and Bar Moxy handle the ground floor of this Moxy hotel on historic Whiskey Row, which puts Churchill Downs, the distillery trail, and the KFC Yum! Center all within reach. Rooms are compact and wired for guests who treat the bed as a pitstop between bourbon stops and late nights out. The communal living room, game tables, and Whiskey Alley patio make it clear that lingering in the lobby is half the point.

Named for one of the building's original tenants, this hotel in a century-old downtown tower pays tribute to Des Moines past and present without making it a history lesson. Mid-century modern interiors run throughout, and rooms come with Sferra linens and original work from local artists on the walls. The on-site Mulberry Street Tavern is worth knowing about on its own. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

A boutique hotel in Buckhead that takes its design cues from Hong Kong rather than the usual Atlanta playbook of marble lobbies and monogrammed robes. Rooms are stylish without being fussy, the restaurant runs wood-fired Mediterranean, and the cocktail bar, Mr. B, plays a convincing modern riff on old-school glamour. If you were expecting another legacy luxury chain on Piedmont Road, this one will catch you off guard.