The 101 Best Restaurants In America

What makes a good restaurant a "best"? The food? The service? The chef? The legacy? All of the above?

These 101 restaurants serve food that's thoughtful and thought-provoking, and they also have a dining room and a level of service that suit the quality of what's on the plate, a good beverage list and a true sense of personality, imagination and consistency. Visiting one of these restaurants feels like a truly memorable culinary experience.

The quaint, cozy Comptoir du Vin has become a Baltimore must-visit in a short period of time. This charming, 35-seat bistro and wine bar in the Maryland metropolis wouldn't be out of place in the French countryside, and neither would the menu, which is scrawled on a blackboard. Sample the house-made sourdough with Normandy butter and grated radish, French lentils with curry and grilled flatbread, and blood sausage with celeriac puree. Then, wash it down with a bottle from the small yet intriguing wine list.

At Washington, D.C., restaurant The Dabney, chef/owner Jeremiah Langhorne sources his ingredients from regional purveyors, and he's cooking that bounty over embers in a wood-burning hearth that's the centerpiece of the open kitchen-dominated dining room. The menu is primarily composed of small plates. Offerings include charred squash with mustard greens, pecan, smoked feta and local maple syrup; Eastern shore-style chicken and dumplings; and the must-order fried sugar toads, the tails of a type of pufferfish, with hot honey and buttermilk dressing.

Located in downtown Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Ristorante Bartolotta — the flagship restaurant of Paul and Joe Bartolotta's restaurant group — was an instant hit upon its 1993 opening and remains one of America's best Italian restaurants. Chef Paul utilizes fresh ingredients to turn out flawless interpretations of traditional fare. Sample the pappardelle with braised duck ragu, an assortment of simply grilled seafood or whatever is on Paul's four-course "Menu Dello Chef."

Chef Bryan Voltaggio's Volt is a Frederick, Maryland, must-visit, serving eclectic seasonal fare in a Victorian-era brownstone. Voltaggio is a meticulous and exacting fine-dining chef, and that certainly comes through in elegantly plated dishes including salmon with kale-nori lasagna, and yellow corn chowder with shrimp, coconut and aerated potato.

At Alewife, chef/owner Lee Gregory's seafood-focused menu is inspired by the local catch of the Chesapeake Bay in the Richmond, Virginia, area and changes based on what's in season. Expect dishes like crispy crab claws with hot sauce mayo, rockfish with sweet potato puree, and cobia with rice porridge and roasted cauliflower. There's a relaxed vibe and some of America's best beers are on tap.

Rose's Luxury, a small, limited-reservations converted townhouse in Washington, D.C., is the brainchild of chef Aaron Silverman, who opened the restaurant in 2013. His small menu showcases international flavors with a decidedly American twist, with sample menu items including green tomato panzanella, 'nduja strozzapreti with honey and pecorino, and crispy cauliflower with golden raisins and Greek yogurt. There will most likely be a line out the door when you arrive, but this is one of those restaurants worth waiting for.

Chef Alon Shaya opened the absolutely stunning Safta in Denver in 2018. Flawless pita bread made in-house in a wood-burning oven is used to scoop up hummus with your choice of six toppings. Small plates include falafel, lamb kebabs and cheese borekas; and larger plates include a pomegranate-braised lamb shank. A meal here is a celebration of modern Israeli cooking, and there's nothing else like it in Colorado.

Atlanta's Staplehouse started as an underground supper club in 2009 run by husband and wife Ryan and Jen Hidinger. Unfortunately, Ryan Hidinger died in 2014. Soon thereafter, Jen partnered with Kara Hidinger and chef Ryan Smith to turn Ryan Hidinger's dream of opening a restaurant into a reality. Staplehouse opened in 2015. The warm and welcoming restaurant sources its ingredients from local purveyors and the menu changes regularly. Most diners opt for a tasting menu of dishes like sturgeon with fennel and green onion, Grandma Lillian's potato bread and duck sausage with pepper shoyu and cashew.

Few restaurants go as far to ensure the quality of their beef as chef Renee Erickson's Bateau in Seattle: heritage cattle are selected, owned and raised by the restaurant's team. Meat is dry-aged in-house for 21 days and butchered, then sold by weight (specific cuts change daily) and served topped with your choice of five butters. It's an intensive process, and individual steaks can take up to an hour to prepare. In addition to the steak, Bateau is turning out spectacular small plates and accompaniments including a Reuben mille-feuille with smoked brisket, and French onion croquettes with black barley and comte cheese.

Chef Gio Osso's Virtù opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2013, and almost immediately, his menu of handmade pastas, impeccably sourced seafood, prime meats and regional vegetables began to rack up accolades. The offerings at his stylish and inviting Old Town restaurant change regularly based on what comes in, but expect truly creative Mediterranean fare like asparagus with a local duck egg, feta, bacon candy and foie gras hollandaise, or gnocchi with housemade sausage, fava beans, chanterelles and marsala butter.

Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson opened Frasca Food & Wine in Boulder, Colorado, in 2004. The restaurant is inspired by the local neighborhood gathering places of Italy's sub-Alpine Friuli-Venezia Giulia region with a slightly more formal vibe that has racked up three James Beard Awards. If you opt for the tasting menu, expect dishes like smoked black cod with apple and horseradish, and lamb with polenta, squash, broccoli rabe and wild mushroom.

New Orleans-born chef John Currence opened the elegant and casual City Grocery in 1992, and it remains a culinary cornerstone of Oxford, Mississippi, to this day. A former livery stable with hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, a charming second-floor balcony and one of America's best bars, City Grocery is the perfect place for a muffuletta or roast beef po'boy for lunch, or sorghum-braised duck leg or grilled Gulf snapper for dinner.

A true Washington landmark, Canlis has been open in Seattle since 1950, serving fresh, seasonal dishes. This historic restaurant was revolutionary when it opened due to its stunning architecture and trailblazing menu of upscale Northwest cuisine. Today, it's still blazing new trails while keeping the classics, such as the famous Canlis salad (romaine, bacon, mint and lemon), on the menu. Jackets are recommended, and the soaring dining room, with its white tablecloths, well-spaced tables and air of luxury, is the height of Seattle fine dining.

Chef Naomi Pomeroy's Beast opened in Portland, Oregon, in 2007. There are only 24 seats (certainly qualifying it as a hole-in-the-wall), and all guests sit at communal tables for one or two nightly seatings. Pomeroy's six-course menu changes every two weeks to reflect what's in season, but expect delicately plated compositions like a butter-poached Shigoku oyster with caramelized leeks, trout roe, sorrel, olio nuovo and potato-oyster espuma.

Open since 2003, Michelin-starred Boka is the flagship fine-dining restaurant of Boka Restaurant Group. Under the auspices of James Beard Award-nominated executive chef Lee Wolen, Boka is serving refined and comforting seasonal American fare in a warm and elegant dining room. Spring for the signature whole roasted dry-aged duck, which is served with grilled heart, apple and rutabaga.

At Coquine, an unassuming neighborhood bistro in Portland, Oregon, chef Katy Millard has created a restaurant that's just about impossible not to fall in love with. She turns seasonal, locally sourced ingredients into memorable French-inspired dishes like leeks vinaigrette with Matsutake mushrooms and Asian pear or a whole roast chicken for two with wild rice pilaf and roasted cauliflower sauce. Drop in for a weekday lunch and treat yourself to the "Perfect Lunch for Two": chicken noodle soup, cornbread, roasted beets, your choice of a daily special and a half-bottle of wine for just $85. Be sure to get some bread with house-made butter.

Nopa, a 2019 James Beard Award nominee for Outstanding Restaurant, specializes in simple fare made with seasonal ingredients from local producers and cooked in a wood-fueled fire. Chef Laurence Jossel works with his team to create a menu that changes weekly, but representative dishes include wood baked white beans with feta and oregano pesto, Dungeness crab (which you absolutely need to try when you're in Northern California) with garlic potatoes and grilled lemon, and rotisserie herb chicken with romanesco and ricotta.

Legendary Tampa destination Bern's has been going strong since 1956, and the key to its greatness, aside from its old-school steakhouse vibe and spot-on service, is its unabashed sense of excess. There are 20 kinds of caviar, four kinds of steak tartare (one with truffles), 15 different cheeses, more than 50 desserts (enjoyed in a separate "dessert lounge"), and a 500,000-bottle wine cellar. Six different steaks are available in a total of 51 different sizes, and "luxe beef" options including a 100-day dry-aged Delmonico and dry-aged Japanese wagyu. All this and more puts Bern's in the No. 1 spot of America's best steakhouses.

Zuni Cafe is an icon of San Francisco cuisine, with top-notch seasonal and organic ingredients and sustainably raised fish and meats simply prepared with French and Italian inspiration and cooked in a wood-burning oven. The menu changes daily, but one icon that never leaves the menu is a whole roast chicken for two served with a warm bread salad with scallions, garlic, mustard greens, dried currants and pine nuts. The menu notes that it takes an hour to prepare, but it's well worth the wait.

The Catbird Seat is an informal, 22-seat, U-shaped marble counter in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee. In business since 2011, it's an interactive experience with the chef at the center of the action. Offerings change daily, there's no set menu, diners don't know what to expect until they arrive and the 10- to 12-course meal clocks in at $140 per person. One thing is certain, however: Guests are in for a singular dining experience featuring only the freshest seasonal ingredients at one of America's most consistently exciting restaurants.

Simple, farmstead-inspired cooking is the name of the game at chef Steven Satterfield's down-home Atlanta eatery Miller Union. Satterfield transforms fresh seasonal ingredients into refined yet accessible plays on regional classics. Red pea hummus, buttermilk fried quail with carrot and turnip, and coffee- and chile-rubbed brisket with polenta and greens are just a few examples of what you might find on the constantly changing menu.

Surprises are the name of the game at Komi, an upscale, modern Greek restaurant in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle. There's a tasting menu that changes regularly and there are no clues as to what might be on it until diners arrive. Past dishes have included trout roe with watermelon and scallop, amberjack collar, and katsikaki and suckling pig. If you like the idea of putting complete control of your dining experience in the hands of the chef, then you'll like Komi.

Venezuela-born chef Enrique Limardo's Seven Reasons in Washington, D.C. serves pan-Latin fare inspired by his travels to Peru, the Amazon and the Caribbean. It's a boisterous space with a bustling bar and an open kitchen. The regularly changing menu is fun, accessible and seriously inspired. Plan on sharing: start with mini cheese arepas, hamachi tiradito and a swordfish belly tostada with green mango Tajin salad; then move onto cauliflower tempura and lamb loin palo-a-pique with coconut curry; and finish with a lamb shank chocolate mole casserole. Limardo will also customize a feast for your table for $95 per person.

Trois Mec is a collaboration between chef Ludo Lefebvre with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, and since it opened in 2013 (in a former Los Angeles strip mall pizzeria) a meal here has come with one of the most difficult reservations to snag in the entire country. When you do get in, expect to be served a cutting-edge tasting menu of courses including fried tapioca with parmesan and passionfruit, mustard creme brulee, and avocado sushi with salt cod cream. A meal here is a ridiculously fun experience presided over by some of the country's hottest chefs, and its $110 price tag is a steal.

José Andrés is the king of Spanish food in America, bringing diners authentic ingredients and preparations in the traditional and avant-garde modes. Hidden away inside a private room in his Jaleo location in The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, é features a tasting menu costing $275 to $290 per person at a tasting counter that seats just nine. The menu sounds pretty basic — foie gras empanada, truffle tree, clams in escabeche — but these dishes are anything but.

Chef Marc Vetri's Philadelphia flagship, Vetri Cucina, opened in 1998 and serves astoundingly delicious Italian fare to Pennsylvanians via multi-course tasting menus personalized by chef de cuisine Matt Buehler after a discussion with your server. You might end up with, for instance, a sweet onion crepe with white truffle fondue, busiate with pork shank ragu, squab with boudin noir and sweet potatoes, and a chocolate polenta souffle for dessert. There is also a wine cellar of more than 2,500 bottles to choose from.

Led today by chef de cuisine Richard Lee, Saison in San Francisco focuses its kitchen around a blazing wood fire, in which fresh seasonal ingredients sourced from local fishermen, hunters, gatherers, ranchers and farmers are simply prepared with expert precision. The two-Michelin-starred restaurant was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2019 for Outstanding Service, and the kitchen and dining room are both a part of the same open space. The wine list, which emphasizes Burgundy, is also spectacular.

The lively and casual Cotogna is the San Francisco sister restaurant to chef/owner Michael Tusk's Quince, and the open kitchen is serving up a daily-changing menu of rustic Italian-influenced meats, fish, pastas and wood-oven pizzas. Thankfully, the agnolotti del plin is one item that's always on the menu — it's one of America's best pasta dishes.

Dean Fearing is considered a father of Southwestern cuisine, and his eponymous Dallas restaurant, located inside the Ritz-Carlton, has been going strong since 2007. Fearing sources local ingredients including chiles, tomatillos, fruits, cheeses, Gulf seafood and Hill Country wild game and crafts them into dishes including crispy barbecued Gulf oysters and maple black peppercorn tenderloin with jalapeno grits. But if you order one thing, make it his signature tortilla soup, one of America's most iconic dishes.

Opened in 1998 by Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne, Luques in Los Angeles has a warm and intimate dining room with wood beams, brick walls and a wood-burning fireplace that makes it one of America's most romantic restaurants. The creative and inspired menu is market-driven and focused on sustainability, and sample items from the regularly changing menu include grilled salmon with shaved roots, avocado, turmeric, pepitas and pomegranate salsa or the suckling pig with Blue Hubbard squash, cavolo nero, golden raisins and Pedro Ximenez.

Chef Mashama Bailey is serving a menu of deeply soulful, locally sourced fare at The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, and it earned her a James Beard Award in 2019. Located inside a 1938 Art Deco Greyhound bus terminal, The Grey is speaking Southern in a completely new language via dishes like sunflower seed hummus with cauliflower and chimichurri; sheepshead with chow chow, lemon and jalapeno; and smothered quail with blackening spice, Creole sauce and grit cake. It's one of the South's best restaurants in one of the country's prettiest cities.

Husk in Charleston, South Carolina, celebrates heirloom indigenous Southern products like no other restaurant can. If it's not Southern, they won't cook with it, not even olive oil. The market-driven menu changes daily, but if they're available, try the cheddar pimento cheese with house-made benne (sesame) crackers and crispy country ham; Southern-fried chicken skins with hot sauce, honey, and scallions; or skillet-fried catfish with Carolina Gold shrimp rice. If you come during lunch, be sure to try the Husk Cheeseburger, which is one of America's best burgers.

Located in a circa-1906 horse stable, chef Gavin Kaysen's Spoon and Stable's menu focuses on seasonal Midwestern ingredients and deft French-inspired artistry, evident in menu items including pasta made with heritage grains, Minnesota foie gras with black lentils and celeriac fondant, and pot roast inspired by his grandmother's recipe with slow-cooked flat iron roast, pommes aligot and mushroom confit. Oh, and it also serves one of the best brunches in America.

The legendary Birmingham, Alabama, restaurant Highlands Bar & Grill was focusing on local and sustainable ingredients before anyone coined the phrase "locavore." Opened by chef Frank Stitt in 1982, the restaurant features a daily-changing menu that's based on what's fresh and in-season, from regional specialties shad roe and soft shell crabs in early spring to shell beans and okra in the summer. There's an emphasis on regional, heritage ingredients, which are put to good use in dishes like stone-ground baked grits with country ham and mushrooms, or veal tenderloin with roasted Jerusalem artichokes.

At Washington, D.C.'s two-Michelin-starred Minibar, legendary chef José Andrés channels Spanish avant-garde cuisine into a tasting counter experience. Perch at one of two counters that overlook the kitchen, watch the chefs meticulously use tongs and tweezers to plate an ever-changing flurry of small courses, and expect a molecular gastronomy experience filled with culinary hat tricks and some truly creative morsels hiding behind simple-sounding names like Huckleberry and Hibiscus, Parmesan Danish and Lobster and Honey. Prepare for around 30 courses, and be ready to pay $295 per person before drinks.

Gary Danko has received accolades from the likes of the James Beard Foundation and Michelin since he opened his eponymous 75-seat San Francisco wharf-area restaurant in 1999. Choose from the three-, four-, or five-course prix fixe menus and prepare for French-inspired dishes like glazed oysters with salsify, leeks, and lettuce cream, or pork tenderloin with confit pork belly, Brussels sprouts, chestnuts, butternut squash, apples and raisin-pine nut relish. At Gary Danko, everything is expertly executed and everything has a purpose and place.

Ellia and Junghyun Park followed up their popular New York restaurant Atoboy by giving modern Korean cuisine the chef's-counter treatment at the show-stopping Atomix, where 10 courses are served at two nightly seatings. Instead of presenting a menu to guests, each diner at the two-Michelin-starred Atomix receives a series of cards with essays about each dish. Diners can expect a parade of inspired flavors that seamlessly merge the old and new worlds: lamb saddle with chopi, gochugaru and hickory smoked salt; Korean bracken fern with jungjang; and deep-fried Japanese scallop with taro and truffle. Reservations are extraordinarily difficult to come by, but if you manage to snag one, your perception of Korean food will likely be changed forever.

Since chef Corey Lee opened Benu in the heart of San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood in 2010, it has consistently been considered one of the finest restaurants in the country. Lee is a certified culinary star, and he continues to collect stars, too: In 2016, Michelin gave three to Benu, and it's held onto those stars since then. Lee's menus incorporate the best of Asian and American cuisine, combining them in thoughtful ways. On the plate, this all translates to a $325 tasting menu featuring "a wide variety of seafood and vegetables, a few meat courses and some sweets." Set aside three hours for your meal and a few days to come down from the high.

Zahav is a modern Israeli masterpiece — a melting pot of Middle Eastern and Central European cuisines, interwoven with a fine hand to create a feast of flavors by chef-owner Michael Solomonov, who's won a whopping five James Beard Awards for his efforts. Settle into the warmly lit casual dining room and start by ordering the ethereally silky hummus with house-baked laffa flatbread. Then move on to mezze including halloumi in brik with passion fruit, walnuts and pickled onion before finishing with a coal-grilled entrée like chicken shashlik with olives, preserved lemon and ginger. Imaginative cocktails and a large selection of Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese and Turkish wines complete the picture.

With legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer running the show and James Beard Award winner Michael Anthony in control in the kitchen, New York's renowned Gramercy Tavern continues to excel at serving refined American cuisine 26 years after opening. Think pork loin and belly with collard greens and hazelnuts, duck confit with beets and citrus and butternut squash with burrata and chiles. Whether you sample the tasting menus in the dining room or opt for a more casual, a la carte meal in The Tavern on-par with America's best burgers, a meal at Gramercy Tavern is one you're not likely to forget anytime soon.

In 2008, chef David Chang opened a simple counter with a handful of stools and chefs preparing a constantly changing tasting menu inspired by the tradition of Japanese kaiseki in full view of the diners. Today, diners hoping to enjoy the multi-course, $255, two-and-a-half-hour, daily-changing tasting helmed by Momofuku veteran chef Sean Gray will thankfully find dishes that sound simple on the menu — "wagyu – foie gras," "duck – celery root, calamansi," "butternut squash – black truffle" — that are anything but simple in execution.

The Las Vegas version of Guy Savoy (the original is in Paris) is in Caesars Palace and is airy and modern. Both prix fixe and a la carte menus are available, showcasing signature dishes including Savoy's famous artichoke and black truffle soup and a $125 plate of wild squab, pleasant, duck, foie gras and cabbage with light game jus that carries its own buckshot warning.

The flagship restaurant of the tireless Daniel Boulud, the stately and sophisticated Daniel has been serving seasonal, globally inspired modern French cuisine on New York City's Upper East Side since 1993. In a succession of 28 to 30 dishes served in four courses, diners can expect delicate and ultra-luxe creations like squab consomme with port, foie gras, king oyster mushroom, pumpkin seeds and black truffle, and a tasting of Pennsylvania rabbit with green olives, braised leg ravioli and Brussels sprouts. The menu changes slightly every week, and it completely turns over with each season. There's also a bar there that's up there with America's best cocktail bars.

Stephanie Izard's always-packed Chicago restaurant Girl & the Goat is a daily party where endlessly creative, boldly flavored, globally inspired family-style dishes comfortably walk the line between envelope-pushing and comfort food. Dishes like apple gjetost pierogis, milk braised pork pasta with kale and pickled persimmon, and confit goat belly with bourbon butter are just part of the reason why this place is one of the greats.

Chef Daniel Patterson is back in the kitchen at Coi, the restaurant he founded in 2006, and he's once again serving creative, elegant daily-changing tasting menus. Patterson's cooking defies categorization, but diners can expect seasonal, inspired creations like Dungeness crab and beef tendon soup with finger lime and pear, abalone wrapped in chicken broth and yuba, and inverted sheep's milk fromage blanc tart with wheatgrass and anise.

Chef Blaine Wetzel has been at the helm of The Willows Inn on Washington's remote Lummi Island (about 30 miles from the Canadian border) since 2010, and in that time he's turned it into a true fine-dining locavore destination, showcasing the bounty of the small island, and has also taken over the circa-1910 inn the restaurant is connected to. There's one seating nightly, and diners can expect a cavalcade of endlessly creative dishes served alongside bread (The Willows grows and mills its own wheat) with chicken pan drippings for dipping.

Thomas Keller is a perfectionist who approaches contemporary American food with classical technique. His French Laundry in Napa Valley, with its now-famous blue door, has established new standards for fine dining in this country since opening in 1994. Like at its sister restaurant Per Se in New York, the two tasting menus (one vegetarian) change daily, but diners can always expect refined and elegant interpretations of the highest-quality-available ingredients. If you can spare the expense and are able to get a reservation, it's one of the restaurants you absolutely need to visit.

Chef Christopher Kostow's three-Michelin-starred Restaurant at Meadowood is Napa Valley's premier dining experience, serving a daily-changing tasting menu of simply prepared local, seasonal ingredients on the grounds of a sprawling luxury resort. Kostow's team has built relationships with local artisans, growers and foragers and there's also a 3.5-acre garden on-premises for growing produce. How's the food, you ask? Expect modern American cuisine featuring masterful technique and deft mixes of texture and flavor — alternately playful, straightforward and serious.

Self-taught chef Patrick O'Connell opened his Washington, Virginia, restaurant Inn at Little Washington in 1978, and it is ornate, eclectic, and one of America's most romantic restaurants. He formed alliances with local farmers and artisanal producers long before it was fashionable and developed into a sophisticated modern American chef of the highest order. Menu items at The Inn at Little Washington might include a "sandwich" of pan-roasted quail with braised endive and huckleberries, green bean tartare with tomato vinaigrette, and a crispy Napoleon of chilled Maine lobster with caviar and spicy bloody mary coulis. O'Connell was awarded the 2019 James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Inn is the longest-tenured Forbes Five-Star restaurant in the world.

There are only 22 seats and eight tables at James Beard Award-winning chef Dominique Crenn's three-Michelin-starred flagship Atelier Crenn, where guests drop $345 on advance reservations in order to experience her acclaimed multi-course modernist tasting menu. This is some truly high-concept dining, yet it is not precious or pretentious. As of 2019, the restaurant is meat free, focusing only on sustainable, seasonal seafood and vegetables.

The menu at Chicago's three-Michelin-starred Alinea, which trailblazing chef Grant Achatz and business partner Nick Kokonas opened in 2005, can sometimes sound deceptively simple and opaque ("Contrast | Osetra, Sesame, Yogurt," for example), but what shows up on the plate is guaranteed to be dazzlingly good and unlike anything you've ever tried before. Achatz consistently turns out some of the most imaginative and delicious modernist cuisine in the country — his goal is to completely rethink what a restaurant can be. At Alinea, you never quite know what you're going to be served, but a paradigm-shifting experience is all but guaranteed. If you want to experience America's best restaurant for yourself, keep in mind that it's also one of America's most expensive restaurants.

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