The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the United States

The bacon burger and Strawberry Sriracha Burger share a menu with shrimp and grits and French toast bites, which tells you something about Avenue Pub's ambitions: a casual American bar and grill that wants to be useful at every hour. Lunch draws a crowd heavy on salads and sandwiches, dinner fills in the comfort-food gaps, and brunch adds its own reasons to show up. The bar area is a solid perch for a beer and whatever game is on.

The kouign amanns at this French patisserie on California Street are craggy, almost weightless things that have earned a loyal queue out the door. Inside, the counter runs in precise rows: small rectangular cakes, custard cups, bostocks, croissants. The pace is brisk, so know your order before you reach the front. A few tables inside, a parklet out, or the sister café nearby for when you want to sit down properly.

The pho broth here simmers for a full day on marrow bones, and you can taste the patience in it. Ba Bar is a Vietnamese restaurant and bar where the cocktail menu leans into tamarind and orgeat without taking itself too seriously, which matters when you're also ordering chicken wings. The New York Times named it one of Seattle's 25 best restaurants. The South Lake Union location keeps reasonable hours; the original Capitol Hill spot runs until midnight.

Babystacks is a casual, fairly small pancake-and-skillet breakfast spot that settles the sweet-versus-savory argument by serving short stacks as a side to your actual meal. Red velvet with cream cheese sauce can sit next to a loaded potato skillet, and nobody at the table has to lose. Weekend mornings fill up fast, so arrive early or settle in for a wait that can stretch past an hour.

The bún mắm here, a thick-noodled seafood soup built on fermented fish broth and lemongrass, is the dish that defines what this Mission District Vietnamese restaurant is doing differently. The menu draws from Bạc Liêu, a coastal southern province whose mastery of fermented seafood doesn't often make it this far north. The grilled shrimp paste on sugarcane, served with rice noodles and vegetables for DIY wraps, has its own following.

Bahn Thai is a small, casual Thai spot in University Heights, the sort where lunch costs about what you'd hope and the portions suggest the kitchen has never heard of restraint. You choose a dish, a spice level, and a protein, a three-step system so clear it practically has a diagram. The dining room is tiny, so most people grab takeout and eat in the car, on a bench, or with total conviction at their desk.

Baked On 8th is a neighborhood bakery and cafe whose pastry case runs most of the length of the building, which is the kind of floor plan that tells you what the priorities are. The millionaire shortbread is the one people bring up, with a cookie-dough-ish base under thick caramel. Custom cakes are the specialty, but a single slice covers the more modest occasion of having survived a Tuesday. Prices stay friendly, and no one dresses up.

Vegan croissants that make you forget to ask whether they're vegan: that's the opening argument at this pastry shop in East LA, run by a chef whose work with nondairy butter has quietly shifted what the format can do. The Danishes lean on fruit from the Santa Monica Farmers' Market, and the annual pithivier has developed its own following. The New York Times named it among the top bakeries in the country.

A baklava shop so focused it sells exactly two things: walnut and pistachio, by the tray, full stop. The phyllo is made in-house, which almost no one bothers to do, and you'll know it the moment your teeth go through it. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best bakeries. Bring cash, pick pistachio, and try not to eat half the tray on the walk back to your car.

A craft cocktail bar that became famous for a burger when Alton Brown stopped in before a show and declared the double cheeseburger the finest in the country on social media. The smash burger kept the reputation, but Bar Arbolada is still a bar first, with classic daiquiris and a tequila-watermelon-balsamic number worth ordering on the front porch at lunch. Late-night, it's the burger crowd; afternoons, it's a little more civilized.

Bar Gabi is a Romanian-leaning dinner spot in Hazel Park that's built for passing plates and losing track of time. The menu strays happily into Italy and beyond, so a schnitzel the size of a catcher's mitt shares the table with goulash, gnocchetti, and focaccia with whipped feta. The big corner booth fits about six friends, which is roughly the headcount this whole operation assumes you'll arrive with.

The menu lives on a board, the pits run on post oak and mesquite, and the building used to sell gasoline. This is a barbecue counter in a converted gas station on Loop 410, and it's been going strong for decades. All meat is cut to order, the brisket sandwich arrives on cottony white bread that's somehow exactly right, and Mimi's potato salad, a family recipe, is the side you don't skip. The Michelin Guide has it listed.

Handmade pasta and seasonal Italian cooking from the team behind AltoVino, landing on Valencia Street with enough confidence to unsettle places that have been doing this for decades. The bagna cauda arrives warm over a votive candle, an anchovy-laced olive oil dip that earns the table's full attention before the rest of the menu even starts. Produce gets treated with the same seriousness as the proteins, which is the quiet tell of a kitchen that knows what it's doing.

Perched on the causeway into Nags Head, this family-run seafood restaurant has been sourcing sustainably long before the menus started bragging about it. One of the family still catches some of what ends up on your plate, and if you spent the day fishing yourself, bring the haul in and the kitchen will clean and cook it. The ospreys nesting outside have names. Order the crab cakes, watch the sunset, and consider the day handled.

A coffee shop that moonlights as a cocktail bar Wednesday through Saturday, Bellwood Coffee is also a working roastery, so the smell alone does some of the selling. The Glenwood Avenue location draws a neighborhood crowd for daytime espresso drinks and, come evening, craft cocktails alongside occasional jazz and open mic nights that keep things loose enough that nobody feels overdressed or underdressed.

The rotating pour-over menu runs five or six options deep, which for a coffee shop is either impressive or a little daunting depending on how early you showed up. Belux started as a micro-roastery before opening this Roswell cafe, and the roasting pedigree shows in the sourcing: Jamaica Blue Mountain and Panama Geisha sit alongside the espresso and matcha standards. Monthly coffee tastings for anyone who wants to go further down the rabbit hole.

The coffee shop on SE Division is painted superhero blue and stocked with Portland Cà Phê beans for Vietnamese-style drinks, pastries from HeyDay next door in the supply chain, and enough vinyl culture in its DNA that the occasional DJ set feels less like an event and more like a Tuesday. The ube coconut cloud, a non-caffeinated iced drink, does a slow cascade inside the glass that will make you stop mid-sip.

A cocktail served in a bubbling miniature bathtub is the social media event this French-leaning dinner spot seems designed around, and nobody there is pretending otherwise. The menu runs from hamachi tiradito to bison flank, the sunset views over Aspen are doing real work early in the evening, and by the time a DJ arrives the room has fully pivoted. Dinner here is openly, cheerfully a pregame.

The chalkboard by the counter poses a daily trivia question, and a correct answer earns you a quarter off your drink. This easygoing coffee shop on Commercial Street has been around forever, and the staff will probably greet you by name whether you've been coming for years or it's your second visit. The caramel mocha with two shots of espresso is the drink regulars tend to order without looking at the menu.

The sauces at this French bistro are apparently the thing, and the chef behind the tasting-menu destination Table Culture Provisions built Bijou to be his looser, à la carte sibling. Looser is relative: the croque monsieur has truffle in it and there's a beef Wellington on the menu. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the best French restaurants in the Bay Area, which tracks for a room where the cooking is this fussy in the best possible, no wait, this precise.

Part seafood counter, part fish market, Billingsgate sits in Noe Valley doing two things quietly well. The poke draws the most attention, ahi tuna kept minimal with soy and chile flakes, best ordered alongside sushi rice, seaweed, and avocado. The Spanish tomato toast is worth the detour too, anchovies and jamón ibérico on crisped bread that arrives already a little aggressive and rewards collapsing into a sandwich.

Bin 22 is a tapas and wine bar, and getting in means walking through a liquor store to the back, which is either charming or a very elaborate way to hide a restaurant. Locals and tourists share the communal tables and bar, so dining solo tends to end with a new acquaintance. The house-pulled mozzarella gets the most attention, and the rotating rosés keep the glasses full. The Infatuation lists it among Jackson Hole's top restaurants.

A gas station with a grill inside and a rack of nudie magazines by the register, which explains both the name and the bumper stickers you've been seeing since you crossed the bridge. The move is a breakfast sandwich on a freshly baked biscuit the size of a softball; get there early, because the line forms fast and the biscuits run out. Fried chicken fills the gap when they do.

Copper pans hang near the open kitchen at this warm Italian bistro that's been woven into the fabric of Napa Valley long enough to count as an institution. The pasta is made in-house with the kind of al dente chew that takes practice, and the fritto misto is crackly and uncluttered. Tourists and wine-country regulars share the room with equal comfort, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

Black Briar is a gastropub in the old Bar Takito space on North Morgan, which means it has 110 seats and a menu that wanders from raw oysters to venison tartare without apologizing. Snail toast shares the page with handmade cavatelli, so nobody has to commit to a single personality. There's a U-shaped bar for the solo diners and an open kitchen for anyone who likes to watch dinner get argued over.

The mimosa flight arrives in four small glasses, each a different juice, which is either charming or a mild content-marketing stunt depending on your mood. Black Walnut is a casual, multi-location brunch cafe where the menu runs comforting and familiar: eggs Benedict, chorizo migas, a buttery croissant sandwich. Weekend mornings draw a crowd that has strong feelings about where to brunch, and this is one of their answers.

Blue Corn is a casual Mexican spot in the Italian Market where the tortillas and both table salsas are made in-house, which is more effort than most places put into a free bowl of anything. The room is strung with so much festive decor that you'll wonder which holiday you missed, and the margaritas are strong enough to make you stop asking. Expect an easy dinner, jeans welcome, and a spot on The Infatuation's list of Philadelphia's top restaurants.

Bluewater Grill is a seafood restaurant with a breezy terrace and a sourcing philosophy that means the fish has a better paper trail than most of the clientele. Lunch starts at noon, with midday specials like fish tacos, a crab BLT on sourdough, and a grilled fish sandwich. The menu also stretches to sushi, burgers, and salads, so the one person who orders a salad at a seafood place has a place to hide. Eater picked it for lunch in San Diego.

Boards N' Beans is a walk-up coffee stand parked outside a Pacific Beach surf shop, which is the most San Diego sentence available. The menu includes butter coffees made with ghee and MCT oil, plus a banana bread latte that tastes like its name without going full dessert. Inside, you can buy house roasts and syrups, then admire the surfboards and maybe catch the board crafter at work behind glass.

The coffee shop that Nashville's coffee scene grew up around, Bongo Java has been on Belmont Avenue long enough that its organic, fair-trade roast turned up on other restaurants' menus before most of those restaurants existed. Breakfast burritos run all day alongside the pour-overs, which makes it less a quick-caffeine stop and more a place where you might accidentally stay for two hours. The Belmont crowd tends to ensure exactly that.

Bonhomie is a coffee bar working out of Belltown's Labour Temple after a long stretch of pop-ups, which means it finally has a door to unlock. The beans come from Haiti, the house syrups borrow from Haitian cooking, and the drinks go by Haitian Creole names. Everything is plant-based, with oat milk as the default, so anyone hoping to bargain for dairy can save their breath and order the plantain one.

Lamb and chicken skewers come off the coals heavy with cumin at this Uyghur restaurant tucked into an Arlington strip mall. The skewers are the draw, but the menu around them pulls equal weight: flat noodles in tart red broth, cold noodles sparked with chili oil, and a beef-and-onion stuffed flatbread that regulars tend to order twice. The New York Times named it one of D.C.'s 25 best restaurants.

This Spanish restaurant off Paradise Road gets some of its French cooking from a former Joël Robuchon chef, so the potato purée arrives buttery and the croquetas arrive dressed as croque monsieur. The dining room has crystal chandeliers and high ceilings, dressy enough for a business dinner, though a Domino's downstairs keeps anyone from getting too precious. Chartreuse is on draft, which is how the night usually ends.

The cafe itself is a repurposed shipping container tucked into the Westside Provisions District, which tells you something about the aesthetic before you even order. Brash is a specialty coffee shop that sources directly from farmers in El Salvador, and the menu runs from careful pour-overs to straightforward drip. Other locations have since spread across Atlanta, with the Beltline outpost adding espresso martinis after dark for when the line blurs.

The six bakers here clock in at 3:30 a.m. to supply Le Diplomate's bread program, and the public gets to buy the same loaves from a 100-square-foot alley shop tucked into the Union Market district. It's a tiny bakery with a serious output: baguettes, multigrain levain, cranberry walnut boules, viennoiserie, and a rotating cast of specialty breads, plus local jams and honey to take home with them.

Brightside Bakeshop is a pastry counter where the menu rotates monthly, so your favorite croissant is always on a countdown. Flavors tend toward the inventive, like lemon lavender kouign amann or an oatmeal cream pie croissant, and there's a sunny wall in the Nations spot that's clearly there for the photos. Expect coffee-and-pastry prices and a line of people deciding between the danish and the other danish.

This is a Hillcrest slice shop where the walls are covered in vintage New York memorabilia, in case the folded slices left any doubt about where its loyalties lie. The pies are classic New York style, with a build-your-own list that runs from broccoli to ricotta to eggplant. A slice, salad, and drink combo costs about nine bucks, and the room is roomy enough that nobody eats standing up. Closed Monday and Tuesday.