The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the United States

A Lanzhou-style hand-pulled noodle shop in a Fremont strip mall where the broth is somehow both chile-fierce and quietly soothing at the same time. The signature beef noodle soup comes with stretchy flat noodles pulled to your chosen width, tender beef, and floating coins of radish. Start with the pigs ears in chile oil if you know what's good for you. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best Chinese restaurants.

The roastery and training lab behind the counter make this Decatur coffee shop feel more like a working operation than a cafe that happens to have good espresso. Drip, nitro, and latte specials share the menu with fresh pastries, and the large back patio has both sun and shade for the laptop-and-novel crowd. Courses in latte art and roasting run out of the on-site lab, if you want to graduate beyond being a customer.

Turquoise booths and a menu that hasn't needed rethinking in decades: this Scottsdale franchise of the national pancake-house chain has been the neighborhood's default breakfast spot for a long time. The Dutch Baby, finished with lemon and whipped butter, is the order that regulars treat as non-negotiable. Griddle-focused, diner-priced, and reliably packed on weekend mornings with people who had the good sense to arrive early.

Oscars is a counter-service taqueria whose deep sea mural doubles as a landmark, which helps when you're trying to explain to someone where to meet you. Sandy regulars hunch over red plastic trays while one cashier calls out names and scoops ceviche into cups. The fish tacos are the draw, and the tuna cooked al pastor style with pineapple is the one that tends to get ordered twice. The Infatuation put it on a San Diego top 25.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the marina, and the room leans into it with a chandelier big enough to mean business. This is a dim sum hall in Alameda, the check-box slip-and-tray kind, with a menu that mixes traditional and modern. The baked pork puffs, shiny and sesame-flecked, are the thing to track down when the cart comes by. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best dim sum.

The breakfast burrito, Santa Fe will tell you, was invented here. Palacio is a casual adobe cafe where the signature move is ordering "Christmas-style," meaning both red and green chile sauces blanketing your burrito at once. The room feels like someone's well-loved dining room, which is more or less the point. The paninis pull a surprising crowd too, the Cuban Reuben among them, but the chile sauces are what keeps regulars from ever really leaving.

Pool tables in the main room set the tone, but the kitchen is doing more than bar food should. Palo Santo is a casual bar and grill where the team brought a Los Angeles sensibility to Oklahoma City, with katsu chicken sandwiches and tacos sharing the menu with serious cocktails. The warm mezcal and Oaxacan hot chocolate drink is the kind of thing that makes you rethink leaving before one more round.

A Guatemalan street food stand on International Boulevard in Fruitvale, where thin-coated fried chicken goes into the fryer after you order it, and the fries come out zigzagged with mayo, ketchup, and Picamas, a tangy green salsa. The crowd reflects the neighborhood's Guatemalan community, and the San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top fried chicken spots. Bring cash.

Layered fries stacked into tidy golden blocks are the surprising star of a menu that otherwise runs toward caviar service and bourbon-smoked elk loin. Parc is Aspen's classic white-tablecloth French-American restaurant, the one locals book when something is worth celebrating, which in Aspen is apparently always. The lounge and bar take walk-ins on a shorter, friendlier menu if you didn't plan ahead, which in Aspen is apparently also always.

The doors close at 11 a.m. and the croissants are often gone well before that, which means showing up to this small French patisserie in Albany is a bit like gambling, but with better odds if you arrive early. The plain croissant is the one people reorganize their mornings for, thin-layered and butter-crisp. Canelés, kouign amann, and egg custard tarts fill out the short menu until they don't.

The mahogany L-shaped bar gives away what Paul Bar/Food is before you've ordered anything: a serious cocktail bar that happens to feed you well. It sits next to a strip-mall dispensary, which keeps the tourists guessing and the locals comfortable. Classic drinks get quiet tweaks, a frozen Sidecar here, a black Manhattan there, alongside a short food menu of wings, burgers, and steak frites that nobody's complaining about.

Pavon Coffee Den is a coffee shop that looks like someone's well-traveled aunt decorated it, all snug leather couches and Moroccan-style rugs, with laptop people nested in every corner. The lattes come in flavors like Fruity Pebbles and vanilla rose, so serious coffee heads should order the basics. After dark it turns into a moody lounge with espresso martinis, wine, and charcuterie boards, open until 10pm nightly.

Lazy Susans on every large table and clubby blue ceiling lights give this San Leandro dim sum house more party energy than you'd expect from a shopping plaza. The menu runs through the classics: taro cakes, pork siu mai, rice rolls stuffed with shrimp and yellow chives. The shrimp balls arrive so crunchy that staff split them tableside with scissors, which is a small performance worth witnessing. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top dim sum spots.

This is a no-frills bagel counter in Jackson that serves its bagels untoasted on principle, and the staff holds that line even when a customer shows up with a personal toaster. The huckleberry cream cheese is the local move, and a mocha-style frozen drink with an espresso shot covers the caffeine. Breakfast and lunch still come in under $10, so there's a line of rafters and park-bound early risers.

Peg's is a casual breakfast diner on West Sahara where pajama pants raise no eyebrows. The menu wanders from American to Hawaiian to Mexican, but the name tells you what the kitchen takes seriously: ham and eggs, sold by the half pound or the full pound, with unlimited toast on the side. Fried spam and loco moco plates are there for anyone who'd rather have mac salad with their eggs. It's cheap, filling, and not a place that cares what you're wearing.

Pepino is a daytime bakeshop and cafe on a La Jolla side street, where sandwiches, salads, and burritos carry quiet Peruvian accents. It serves lunch only, 11 to 3, and closes entirely Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so plan accordingly. The sun-lit patio is the move on a clear day, and inside it's small and warm, with the easy, neighborly feel of a place that knows your order. Eater lists it among San Diego's best lunch spots.

Perenn is a bakery and cafe in the Sidco industrial stretch, in the old Stay Golden space, which now doubles as the central production facility. That means you can eat a pain au chocolat on a mezzanine while watching the people who made it keep making more, a little like dinner theater with laminated dough. The croissants and kouign-amann are flaky enough to leave evidence on your shirt, and the almond croissant wants to be warmed.

The North Beach spot that used to be the legendary Washbag is now Petite Lil's, a French bistro that seems perpetually mid-renovation, with paint swatches on the walls and a sawhorse in the corner whose handler has quietly relocated to a barstool. The menu leans French, running from a proper omelet to a tomahawk steak with anchovy butter, and bone marrow arrives with an optional green Chartreuse luge, which is exactly the kind of upsell you say yes to.

Pho Auntie 7 started as a home kitchen before becoming Castro Valley's go-to Vietnamese spot, and the soul of that origin still shows. It's a casual sit-down restaurant where the soups are good but the street food is the reason to linger: crispy banh xeo crepes stuffed with pork and shrimp, and chewy steamed banh beo rice cakes. Wash either down with fresh sugarcane juice or a salty plum soda and you're in no rush to leave.

Pho Thin is a pho shop whose signature move is wok-searing ribeye in garlic before it ever meets the bowl. The broth leans savory rather than the sweet, star-anise-heavy style common around DC, and the noodles are wide and chewy instead of threadlike. The Falls Church outpost of a Hanoi institution, it arrived already pulling crowds. Order the pickled raw garlic that comes to the table and don't leave it untouched.

A casual Vietnamese restaurant in Pittsburgh's Strip District where the walls feature a poster reading "Pho King Delicious," and the kitchen commits to its broth with equal conviction, simmering it for days. The pho comes loaded with options, tripe, meatballs, sliced beef, a solid chicken version, and the grilled plates hold up well enough to make the leftovers argument for you. A good stop before wandering the neighborhood's grocers and shops.

Pica's is a casual Mexican spot in a strip center behind an Albertsons in Wilson, which is not where you'd expect the town's best-regarded burrito to live. The burritos arrive large enough to cover two dinners, and ordering one "wet" buries it in chipotle enchilada sauce, salsa fresca, sour cream, and cheese. The room is plain, tables are rarely a fight, and takeout is clearly the main sport. The Infatuation put it on its Jackson Hole list.

You walk down a staircase into a basement that has been Polish since before your parents were born, all dark wood, stained glass, and checkered tablecloths. This is a Hamtramck cafe for stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, and pierogi, served in portions that assume you've been shoveling snow. The bar does a fine Zywiec and a better view of the room, and the Infatuation lists it among Detroit's best restaurants.

This Russian restaurant on El Cajon Boulevard has walls covered in mismatched paintings and messages from past diners, plus a line of patient people on the sidewalk who'd like you to know the secret hideaway is not a secret. The menu runs to beef stroganoff, bright pink borscht, and a Georgian cheese bread boat that a server stirs tableside. Bring your own Sharpie if you want to leave a note on the wall.

A one-baker whole-grain bakery in San Rafael that runs on a newsletter, pre-orders, and the constant threat of selling out before you've finished your coffee. The baker behind it competed at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, which is the bread Olympics, and he won, but the menu here is squarely about whole grains, not trophies. Stock changes weekly, walk-ins get what's left, and the San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best bakeries.

Teochew rice porridge, served in a clay pot, is what draws people to this casual Millbrae spot, and it does the job quietly and well. The gingery porridge is technically for two but has a way of multiplying when chive pancakes and an order of Chinese doughnuts join the table. Pick your add-ons, crab and prawn being the house move, then customize the bowl with scallions and preserved olive vegetables at the table.

This is a counter-service coffee shop that runs on Vietnamese robusta, the bolder, heavier-hitting cousin of the arabica your usual café leans on. The bánh mì comes stuffed enough that you'll wonder if the menu is a typo, and the seasonal drinks swing from jasmine tea with lychee and blackberry to a passionfruit espresso tonic. It's the rare café where people order lunch first and then remember they also wanted coffee.

The roastery is right there behind the counter, so the smell hits you before the menu does. Portrait Coffee is a specialty coffee shop and roaster in West End, founded by a collective that set out to bring more diverse representation to Atlanta's coffee scene. The beans are roasted on-site inside the historic Lottie Watkins Building, and the same coffee turns up at shops across the city for those who can't make the trip.

Postern Coffee lives inside the Minhwa Spirits space in Doraville, which sounds like an odd arrangement until you're holding an espresso built with sweet rice syrup and perilla oil and suddenly it makes sense. The coffee shop leans into the Asian-American backgrounds of its three co-founders, so the menu runs from coconut ube lattes to carefully sourced matcha options. A young, curious crowd that knows the neighborhood fills the room.

A Polish deli counter tucked into the back corner of Buffalo's old Broadway Market, where the pierogies come stuffed with sauerkraut or farmers cheese and the czarnina, a sweet-sour soup made with dried fruit and blood, sorts out the curious from the committed. Polish sausage rounds out a short, unapologetic menu. The market itself draws extra vendors around Easter, but the deli draws regulars year-round who already know exactly what they're getting.

A biergarten tucked into one of downtown Wilmington's favorite old spaces, Prost lands somewhere between the Rhine and the Cape Fear River, serving schnitzel and spaetzle alongside fried flounder sandwiches without any apparent crisis of identity. The pretzel board with cheese sauce and beer mustard is the move if you're just in for a pint. The tap list runs both European and American, so nobody has to compromise.

A Salvadoran pupuseria in a Rockville strip mall, run by a family whose roots in the craft go back a generation in El Salvador. The menu runs nearly 30 styles, from the classic cheese-and-chicharrón to shrimp with mint and kale, all served hot off the griddle and freshly blistered. The New York Times put it on their D.C. restaurant list. Come at breakfast and order the signature pupusa with eggs in a red sauce that has no business being that good.

The empanada is the whole point here, and the team makes them by hand every morning in flavors that cover more ground than you'd expect: mushroom-seitan for vegans, halal lamb, a breakfast version, and several more. This bright, compact downtown spot runs the full Ecuadorian-inflected menu, from arroz con pollo with sweet plantains to a pork sandwich with chipotle-lime mayo. A grab-and-go case handles the lunch rush when it comes.

A red neon sign flicks on outside when the burgers start flipping, which tells you most of what you need to know about this greasy spoon parked in the literal shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium. The walls are buried in Alabama memorabilia, including an actual stadium seat and a confiscated orange construction flag, because no orange survives near this building. The menu runs on the same devotion: burgers and breakfasts named after championship counts.

A rambling hacienda-style New Mexican restaurant set in a maze of adobe rooms and tiled patios along the High Road to Taos, Rancho De Chimayó has been around forever and moves at a pace that matches the landscape. The house cocktail mixes cider and tequila, a local invention from the area's apple-farming days. Order the green chile stew alongside it and you'll understand why people drive out from Santa Fe just for lunch.

A Middle Eastern breakfast cafe in the Gilbert suburbs, Rayoog has other locations in Jordan and Iraq, which gives you a sense of what this place is actually for. The move is to come with people willing to share: platters arrive loaded with eggs, hummus, falafel, yogurt, fava beans, and baba ghanoush, and the signature trays stack two metal teapots on top of a ring of small sweet and savory dishes, which is a genuinely dramatic way to start a morning.