The Best Places to Eat in the United States

A multi-roaster coffee shop tucked into an airy high-rise lobby near the Holland Tunnel, which is not a sentence you expect to lead somewhere good, but here we are. The shelves rotate through a rotating cast of specialty roasters, the menu stays short and efficient, and the lobby has enough room to spread out, plug in, and stay far longer than you planned. Good pastries, no guilt about the outlet use.

The lobby of the Classic Stage Company turns out to be a fine place for a coffee shop, all spare seats and big windows that beg you to watch people cross 13th Street. Everyman is a no-frills espresso bar pulling beans roasted by Black and White out of North Carolina, with Colson pastries from Brooklyn if you need something to eat. The staff are warm in a way that makes the spartan room feel intentional rather than unfinished.

A gallery of cow portraits on the wall sets the tone at this no-frills Park Slope coffee shop, which does not take itself too seriously but does take espresso seriously. Black & White roasts come out of a small, sunny space with tile backsplash, a handful of stools, and Colson pastries for the indecisive. The staff know what they're doing, which in this neighborhood is less common than it should be.

Two benches out front are famous enough to appear in the logo, which tells you something about how long this West Village coffee shop has been part of the neighborhood. Joe Coffee Company roasts its own beans in Long Island City and piles the pastry case high with muffins and quickbreads. It has the warm, unhurried feel of a place where regulars know the staff by name, which in New York passes for a small miracle.

The pourover menu specifies black only, no exceptions, which tells you everything about this coffee shop before you've ordered. A queer-owned community hub straddling Park Slope and Gowanus, Principles runs on small rotating roasters, plant-based milks across the board, and a gratuity-included model. Cyclists and coffee obsessives fill the place, drawn as much by the ethos as the espresso. The garage door opens when weather permits, and there's a bike repair area out back.

Window-service only since 2020, this minimalist coffee shop in South Slope turned its interior into a commissary, which turns out to be a fine trade. Counter Culture beans anchor the drinks, but the daily-rotating pastries, cheddar jalapeño corn muffins, and hugely bready sandwiches are what bring out the line of families and dogs. Greenwood Cemetery is an easy walk, if you need somewhere to eat.

The building alone stops traffic: a swooping, neon-trimmed Googie landmark designed by Helen Liu Fong, sitting minutes from LAX like a postcard from 1958 that never got mailed. Inside, Pann's is a classic diner with high ceilings, linoleum tables, and a boisterous cross-section of Angelenos who all seem to know exactly what they're ordering. Mornings run to chicken-fried steak; afternoons tip toward patty melts and fried chicken. Come for the architecture, stay for the food, or reverse the order.

The big tray chicken arrives in a wok the size of a hubcap, bird parts submerged in hot oil with enough Sichuan peppercorns to rearrange your face. This tiny Chinatown noodle cafe runs on Henan hand-stretched wheat noodles, and the brisket topping is the move. The room is small, the tables fill fast, and the bill stays low enough that you can afford to order the garlicky cucumbers without doing any math.

12 Stories is a rooftop cocktail bar on the twelfth floor at the Wharf, with a DJ, a dancehall and R&B soundtrack, and a view of the whole Potomac. The food is slider-and-truffle-fries territory, so eat beforehand and treat the menu as a courtesy. It's a place to debut a new outfit, with a gingery rum-pineapple Story Teller in hand and a dance floor that rewards commitment.

A wall of waving Maneki-neko cats stands guard outside, which is either good luck or a lot of eye contact before dinner. Inside Circa, 8 East is a sit-down Asian restaurant built around small plates, skewers, and family-style dishes, so it rewards showing up with people willing to share. Come hungry, dress casually, and expect the pork belly to have been slow-cooked far longer than your commute.

82 Kimbap is a weekday-only stall in Sterling Food Hall, and it exists so the Loop's office workers have something to eat at noon that isn't a sandwich. The rice rolls come stuffed with spicy pork, bulgogi, or braised tofu, wrapped around egg, vegetables, and purple rice. Add-ons include instant ramyun and giant fishcake skewers, though the line is there for the rolls. Expect to eat at a food-hall table under fluorescent lanyard energy.

Aa Sushi is a casual Ballard sushi spot where the money that would buy one person an omakase fills the whole table with nigiri, rolls, and a startling amount of miso soup. The rice is kept just warm enough to go soft against a slice of yellowtail belly. The menu also lets you add tamago Spam musubi or lemon-squeezed chicken karaage, which feels less like ordering and more like giving in.

A chalkboard the size of a garage door lists three dozen craft beers at this Arts District brewpub, which is a lot of decisions before you've had a drink. Communal wooden tables fill up fast on weekends with card-playing post-grads nursing a single pint for hours, and the new patio takes some pressure off. A food window sells bánh mì, fish tacos, and a bacon-loaded hot dog best kept from your doctor.

Alma is a Balkan dinner spot on Northeast MLK where everything arrives built for sharing, so you'll be passing plates and negotiating over the last bite of octopus. Seafood runs through the menu, alongside an eggplant dish that makes a quiet case for vegetables. Strong black tea starts the meal and cubes of Turkish delight end it, which is more hospitality than most places manage. The cocktails include a lamb fat-washed mezcal, in case that was your next question.

Apna Chat Bhavan is a casual counter-service Indian spot in Beaverton, tucked between a food market and a micro cinema, serving the kind of range most places would split across three restaurants. A "half" order of biryani arrives as a mountain of rice, and the dosa is roughly the length of a small runway. Order at the counter, ignore your better judgment, and save room for the pastry case. Eater included it on its list of Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

The name comes from an era when locals climbed to the roof to watch atomic test blasts light up the Nevada sky. This old-school bar on Fremont Street has been around forever, and the Rat Pack drank here after their shows, which sets the tone pretty neatly. The red-tinted interior leans into Atomic Age kitsch, sour beers are a specialty, and the patio out back is where late nights tend to end up.

This Greek restaurant started in suburban Winnetka and then crept into the city, which is the opposite of how chains usually migrate. The River North room is all plants and pale wood, built to feel like a long lunch on an island with a better ferry schedule than yours. The menu goes past the gyros-and-flaming-saganaki starter pack, though you should still order the saganaki. Eater lists it among the area's best.

The whole fish, selected by the diner and cooked to order, is the move at this airy, high-ceilinged Greek restaurant in the heart of Beverly Hills. The room leans into an easy Aegean elegance without trying too hard, and the crowd obliges by dressing accordingly. Seafood does the heavy lifting, but the Greek salad and roasted peppers with barrel-aged feta hold their own. Bring someone you want to impress, and let the pacing do the work.

Greyhound statues loom over a room that looks like a wealthy socialite grandmother's vacation home, which is exactly the vibe Quality Branded, the group behind Don Angie, was going for. This maximalist Italian restaurant moved into the old Palm Steakhouse space and brought the New York original's cheeky energy with it. Daily-made pastas, a seafood tower, and roasted garlic babka that people apparently talk about unprompted fill out a menu that never takes itself too seriously.

A converted tourist kiosk steps from the Air and Space Museum that happens to be the only place on the National Mall where you can order a glass of wine with your pizza. The team behind Sonny's Pizza runs this casual counter, pouring natural wine, beer, and spritzes alongside grandma-style pan slices and focaccia sandwiches. Mornings lean espresso and pastries. The footnote writes itself: museum gift shops sell astronaut ice cream; this place sells Aperol spritzes.

This is the hotel lobby bar at the Pendry on the Wharf, all brass, espresso wood, and dim velvet, the sort of room where a Louis Vuitton-print jacket would blend right in. Hotel guests and the well-funded settle into the lounge with coffee-and-rum cocktails while complimentary nuts and olives arrive unprompted. Entrees exist, but most people stick to truffle fries and a charcuterie board. It's a nightcap spot.

Batch Gastropub is a casual pub in a neighborhood where most bars seem to require a reservation and a point of view. Here the main decor is televisions, plenty of them, which makes game day the natural habitat. The beer list runs deep on craft pours, the whiskey shelf is serious, and the pub fare leans burgers and wings. Happy hour and weekly trivia give the regulars a schedule, and nobody asks you to dress for the occasion.

This is a red-sauce Italian joint a block off the Strip, with celebrity headshots, old records, and a wedding's worth of chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling. The kitsch is not subtle, and it suits big, loud group dinners where nobody checks the menu prices. Entrees come in under $50 and include unlimited house red and white, which is the real plot of the evening. Plan on leftovers and a lively walk back.

Bencotto is a sit-down Italian restaurant in Little Italy, run by a Milanese kitchen with no interest in reinventing lasagna. The showpiece is pasta tossed inside a giant wheel of Parmesan, which is exactly as theatrical as it sounds. Expect housemade noodles, ossobuco, and a pink pancetta sauce, plus a weekday happy hour where the Aperol spritzes are cheap enough to make the early start feel like good judgment.

Bereket is a casual Turkish spot in the Loop that inherited a counter-service space, so the bright yellow room still has drop ceilings and a retired metal cafeteria station. It looks like a place for a ten-minute lunch, but the bread, manti, and döner-topped iskender are all made in-house and ask to be eaten slowly. It's open all day, every day, which removes your last excuse. The Infatuation lists it among the Loop's best.

Dim enough to feel genuinely clandestine, with tall dripping candles and banquettes you sink into and forget to leave, this Iranian restaurant in the Arts District is the LA outpost of a London original. The menu leans into the Iranian diaspora, with kebabs doing the heavy lifting. It sits inside Soho Warehouse, so the corner booth may or may not contain a movie star, which is either a draw or a reason to keep your eyes on the bread.

Bin 702 is a laid-back wine bar in Container Park that treats France as a loose suggestion, mostly because you can ask for Flamin' Hot Cheeto crumbles on top of things. The bottle-and-board deal pairs a cheese board with a bottle of wine at a price that drops further during happy hour. Expect small plates and mini sandwiches meant for sharing, plus beer, cocktails, and aperitivos for anyone not committing to a bottle.

A coffee shop in Downtown Columbus built around Tanzanian beans that are hard to find and roasted on-site in a machine you can practically lean against at the counter. By day it serves the statehouse crowd across the street; by night it pivots to espresso martinis and hosts comedy or poetry with low-key ease. The shift is seamless enough that nobody questions it, which might be the whole point.

Bodard Bistro is a small, casual Vietnamese spot on Bellaire Boulevard, where the dining room doubles as a greenhouse and nobody seems to mind the foliage getting the best seats. The kitchen leans Mekong Delta, so the tamarind-and-pineapple catfish soup shows up next to pork sausage spring rolls and crisp little shrimp pancakes. It's an easy, inexpensive meal, and The Infatuation put it on its Houston Chinatown list.

The draw here is a pancake that arrives without syrup and doesn't miss it, a thin, oatmeal-based griddle cake with a slight crunch and maple cinnamon butter doing all the work. This casual breakfast spot has been a neighborhood fixture for a while now, with locations scattered around LA. Breakfast sandwiches and housemade sausages fill out the menu, but the pancakes are the reason regulars show up and the reason Eater calls them among the city's finest.

The kulcha arrives stuffed with brie and gooseberry chutney, which tells you immediately where Brick Lane is coming from. This Arts District modern Indian restaurant takes its name from East London's famous curry mile, though the menu owes as much to California as to the subcontinent. Celeriac chapli kebabs and smoked butter chicken come off live fire, sourdough naan lands alongside tandoori roti, and a jaggery Old Fashioned handles drinks.