The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the United States

The ceramic-topped tables inside this South Beach pizzeria signal that someone cares about the small touches. The Neapolitan pies come out with a high, airy crust built on a long-fermented dough, and the San Marzano tomatoes and fiordilatte are the real kind. Fresh pasta and homemade desserts round out the menu, and the Italian wine list does solid work during happy hour. A pleasant outdoor terrace handles the warm nights.

A New York-style slice shop in Metairie where the crust comes out thin and crackling the way it's supposed to. The room is small and colorful, more take-out counter than sit-down spot, and the vibe is easygoing and no-fuss. Fresh pasta shows up alongside the pizza, which keeps things interesting. If you're planning ahead, call a day in advance or you'll be waiting, and the waiting is not the fun part.

A firepit on the patio and shared tables set the tone at this lively Asian street-food spot in Tacoma, where the menu pulls from Thai curries to Korean kimchi barbecue without planting a flag in any single tradition. The crispy rice salad with sausage has a following. Cocktails get serious attention, which separates it from the quieter sit-down sibling it spun off from. New owners took over in 2025, and the regulars, having briefly panicked, have since relaxed.

A Neapolitan pizza spot on the edge of Trento, accessible by bus and with actual parking, which already puts it ahead of most. Korallo runs two dough options, a classic and a semi-wholemeal, and the menu stretches from straightforward traditional pies to more inventive stuffed versions, all leaning on local and DOP ingredients. The staff are the kind who actually help you decide. Casual, unpretentious, and listed among 50 Top Pizza Italy's Excellent Pizzerias.

A pizzeria in Catania where the chef has spent years obsessing over dough, and the menu reflects exactly that kind of monomania. The crust runs thin and crispy in the Sicilian tradition, though a tasting menu lets you move through different styles, including a more contemporary version. Appetizers, a deep Margherita section, vegan options, and a solid wine and beer list fill out a room that takes pizza more seriously than most occasions require.

A pizzeria in a small town outside Modena where the menu lists four distinct doughs, crispy, high-hydration, fried, and pan, and the staff politely declines modifications on certain pies to protect the tradition behind them. A tasting menu called "Leavened and Doughs" runs six courses for anyone who wants to commit fully. The wine, beer, and spirits list runs deep. Named among Italy's excellent pizzerias by 50 Top Pizza.

A sign on the door reads "We don't serve chips," which tells you plenty about La Tarasca before you sit down. This family-run Mexican restaurant in Centralia draws its recipes from Michoacán, where the signature move is carnitas, and the mole runs peppery and peanut-forward rather than Oaxacan-sweet. Every tortilla is made from scratch, and the extended family behind the counter treats the room with the kind of warmth that keeps regulars quiet about the place.

A mountain goat head surveys the dining room while the pasta arrives in portions that raise genuine logistical questions about the drive home. Larch is a casual pasta restaurant in the middle of Leavenworth's Bavarian tourist corridor, pointedly ignoring every bratwurst around it. The chef built his reputation selling mushroom ravioli at farmers markets, and it's still on the menu because apparently nobody will let him take it off.

The choriqueso at this counter-service taqueria in Vancouver, WA has a way of making the rest of the menu feel like a warmup act. Corn tortillas and griddled tortas get filled with battered fish, lengua, and chicken tinga, and the mezcal cocktails are sharper than you'd expect from a taco counter. The ordering process is its own small adventure, but the crowd figures it out eventually, and so will you.

Cash only, no reservations, and a line down Henry Street most nights: Lucali has been a Carroll Gardens institution long enough that the wait has become part of the lore. It's a small, candle-lit pizza shop serving large pies and calzones, nothing more. The dough is soft and thin in the New York tradition, and the room is the kind of quietly charming that makes two hours feel reasonable.

The gelato case near the door makes the priorities clear before you've even found a table. Mercurio's is a Neapolitan-style pizza and gelato spot in Shadyside, where long-fermented dough gets a soft, blistered crust and the toppings run from a straightforward Margherita to speck with gorgonzola. The room is casual and easy, the kind of place that fills up with neighbors who aren't trying to make an occasion of it.

The wood-fired oven is the first thing you see when you walk into this Astoria pizzeria, and the pies that come out of it lean modern and loose rather than strictly Neapolitan. The dough is light, the toppings are chosen with care, and the beer list keeps pace with the casual, come-as-you-are room. Milkflower has its own creative logic and doesn't apologize for it, which is half the reason the neighborhood keeps showing up.

New Haven-style pizza has its own rules: thin, coal-fired, slightly charred, and not quite like anything you'd get elsewhere. Modern Apizza has been holding down State Street forever, turning out red and white pies with a crust that blisters and snaps. The Italian Bomb, loaded with cold cuts and vegetables, is the order regulars argue about. A casual, loud, no-fuss pizzeria where the line out front is a feature, not a bug.

The name nods to mother yeast, which tells you where the priorities lie. This Newport pizzeria runs two tracks: sit-down Neapolitan rounds with a proper table and a drink, or Roman-style slices by the slice for a quick waterfront lunch. The dough gets a long ferment either way, and the toppings lean classic Italian, cold cuts and cheese mostly, with occasional Mediterranean detours. Appetizers, salads, and cooked dishes round out the room-service side.

Assyrian food is one of the rarer cuisines you'll encounter in the country, and this downtown Olympia restaurant may be among a handful of places serving it anywhere. The siblings behind it dug into their ancestral table, where Persian, Iraqi, and Israeli flavors converge in the same bowl. The brick-and-mortar space runs bright blue and gold, hung with family photos. A food truck handles takeout nearby.

Tieton is the kind of blink-and-miss-it apple-country town that rewards the detour, and Nomad is its unlikely anchor, a full-service restaurant with a chef's counter and bar that started as an outdoor gear shop and kept going. The menu roams, pairing larb and bulgogi alongside boeuf bourguignon that reportedly sells out on weekend nights. Named among Washington's best by Seattle Met.

Individually baked focaccia arrives so soft you'll eat more than you mean to, which is a problem when the handmade gnocchi is waiting. This Italian taverna in Walla Walla wine country leans hard into housemade pasta and local farm ingredients, with a short menu of starters, pizza, and steaks rounding things out. The chef grew up here, came back, and made the place her own, and the cooking tastes like it.

A cocktail bar beside the oven is the first signal that PizzBurgh is doing something a bit different. This Messina pizzeria runs through the full format card, red, white, fried, pala, padellino, and the big wheel-shaped ruota di carro, all built on high-hydration doughs with long fermentation times that keep things soft without going slack. The outdoor terrace fills up quickly, and 50 Top Pizza lists it among Italy's excellent pizzerias.

A family-run pizzeria in the Veneto with a tight menu of around twenty pies, which is a deliberate choice: the Cuomos clearly decided that a shorter list and better dough beats exhausting everyone with options. You can go classic Neapolitan with a thick, pillowy crust or lean into a crisper thin version, and the toppings balance tradition with a few seasonal surprises. The fried starters are worth ordering while you wait.

Pan pizza is the move at this Berkeley slice shop, where the chef cycles through New York, Sicilian, Detroit, and Grandma styles depending on what she's feeling. The dough is the point, soft with a good crisp edge, and the toppings stay fresh and unfussy enough not to compete with it. The blue-painted room is cozy without trying too hard. Save room for the Sicilian cannoli.

Wood-fired pizza in a lively Durham spot where the crust stays light and the toppings lean seasonal and a little unexpected. The open kitchen anchors the room, and the bar keeps things social. Yukon Gold potatoes with bagna cauda on a pizza sounds like a dare, but the kitchen commits. A solid gluten-free option exists for those who usually have to make peace with sad alternatives. Named among 50 Top Pizza USA's Excellent Pizzerias.

Marc Vetri is a name Philadelphians say with some reverence, and this casual pizza spot carries the family flag across a few Pennsylvania locations. The wood-fired pies come round or by the meter, with a dough that stays light without making a fuss about it. The menu runs from straight Italian classics toward a few fusion detours, and the salads are more interesting than they have any obligation to be. A pizza kit to take home rounds things out nicely.

A wood-fired oven anchors this craft brewery and Italian-American pizzeria tucked along Route 611 in the Pocono Mountains, where the logic is simple: hand-stretched pizza and house-brewed beer belong together. The room runs to natural wood and a relaxed, rustic vibe, and the menu leans into it with topped-up pies like the Molta Carne alongside gooey white options. Named among 50 Top Pizza USA's Excellent Pizzerias, so the oven is pulling its weight.

A wood-fired oven big enough to anchor the room sets the tone at this Neapolitan pizza restaurant in Scottsdale, where the dough is certified by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, which is Naples's way of saying they're watching. The menu fans out across Italian regional cooking, with a lean toward pasta, but the Margherita is the honest measure of the place. Outdoor spaces and a lively room mean the noise level is part of the deal.

The bar room here was once a pharmacy, and the old apothecary shelves now hold bottles of wine and spirits where the remedies used to be. It's a multi-floor pizza and pasta spot in Jersey City with a rooftop that looks back at the New York skyline you just escaped. The pizzas follow Italian tradition, the spaghetti has its fans, and the music keeps the whole thing moving at a pace that feels deliberately un-Manhattan.

The sidewinder fries alone explain a lot about this casual coastal restaurant in Pacific Beach, where smashburgers and clam chowder come out with the kind of care you'd expect somewhere far more serious. The seafood traces back to the nearby Quinault Indian Nation, cocktails are good, and the kids menu is apparently a hit with people who eat off the kids menu.

Wood-fired pizza in Key West, where the oven does the explaining: the crust comes out with that particular chew and char that only live fire produces. Roostica is a casual pizza spot running a full menu of red and white pies alongside antipasti, salads, and sandwiches, with Sicilian cannoli for anyone with room and Italian wines for everyone else. The 50 Top Pizza guide lists it among its USA Excellent Pizzerias.