The 20 Best Restaurants In America For 2016

Self-taught chef Patrick O'Connell opened this restaurant in 1978 in what was originally a small-town garage, about an hour's drive from D.C. 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 classics like American ossetra caviar with peekytoe crab and cucumber rillettes, napoleon of chilled Maine lobster with pommes Anna, and veal "Shenandoah" (prosciutto-wrapped loin with country ham ravioli and fontina); there are also vegetarian creations like apple rutabaga soup and cauliflower steak with yellow Indian curry, along with indulgences like hot and cold foie gras with sauternes gelée and quince marmalade. The Inn, a member of the Relais & Châteaux group, has a much-deserved AAA Five Diamond rating.

When chef Nobu Matsuhisa opened his eponymous restaurant with pal Robert De Niro and restaurateur Drew Nieporent in New York's TriBeCa neighborhood in 1994, there was no way he could have imagined that more than 20 years later he'd be running 32 affiliated restaurants around the world, as well as nine Nobu-branded hotels. But there's a reason why Nobu has become a household name across the globe, and a visit to the Michelin-starred New York Nobu flagship tells you all you need to know. The design by architect David Rockwell evokes the Japanese countryside while conveying excitement and energy, and the cuisine fuses classical Japanese with that of Peru and Argentina, where Nobu trained. The standout dishes, including yellowtail with jalapeño, lobster with wasabi pepper sauce, and the widely copied black cod with miso, are nothing short of legendary. In early 2017, the 9,000 square-foot flagship will be relocating from into a much larger 14,384 square-foot space in the former AT&T building in the heart of the Wall Street/World Trade Center area.

They really have tried to make it easier on everyone, but getting into minibar, where protean chef José Andrés channels Spanish avant-garde cuisine, is still difficult. The restaurant now accepts reservations on a seasonal basis (in three-month periods), with each season opening one month in advance. But you still need to send them an email a couple of months ahead of time and keep your fingers crossed. When you do get what is still essentially the reservation of a lifetime (let's be honest here), you'll perch at one of two counters that overlook the kitchen, which The Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema called "suggestive of an operating theater when you factor in the chefs in their whites, bending over dishes manipulated by tweezers, tongs, liquid nitrogen and cloches galore." Expect a "molecular gastronomy" experience executed by executive sous-chef Johnny Spero and filled with culinary hat tricks — think edible rubber duckies, popcorn that smokes in your mouth, and a churro made with veal tendon. Even with a price tag of $250 for 25 to 30 (mini) courses, it's a steal of a deal. The imaginative cuisine displayed at minibar scored chef José Andrés a 2011 James Beard Outstanding Chef Award. In 2013, Andrés opened the adjoining barmini, his "culinary cocktail lab," where more than 100 adventuresome cocktail creations adorn the menu. According to Sietsema, it is "home to some of the most fascinating liquids this city has ever sipped."

After years of hearing the refrain that "there's no good Mexican food in New York," New Yorkers now seem to have new Mexican places popping up everywhere, each purporting to be the Mexican-starved Gothamite's salvation. Alex Stupak has taken several stabs at it; April Bloomfield too. Texas chefs like San Antonio's Jesse Perez have started trying to bring the goods; there have been pop-ups; and now, even Tex-Mex is getting some traction with restaurants like Javelina. Meanwhile, one of Mexico City's most well-respected chefs has set up in the Flatiron District, so far with great success. Cosme represents chef Enrique Olvera's return to New York (he attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park before returning home to open Pujol, one of the 50 best restaurants in the world according to San Pellegrino). But Cosme isn't the Mexican that New York's chefs play at, trying to "upscale" a cuisine whose essentials they've never mastered. Olvera, who we crowned the 2015 International Chef of the Year, has the chops to carry off dishes like uni tostada with avocado, bone marrow salsa, and cucumber and half lobster pibil with chorizo and black bean purée. And his duck carnitas — a whole bird cooked for days in ingredients that include Mexican Coke until it shreds easily into tender morsels — served with just-made warm tortillas is one of the great duck dishes in the city. True, it carries a $69 price tag, but it's enough for three or four.

In an elegant dining room overlooking Central Park in the Time Warner Center, Per Se upholds the standards set by Thomas Keller at The French Laundry, (see No. 5) receiving an annual three-star rating from Michelin since 2006. As at The French Laundry, there are two tasting menus, one of which is vegetarian, but the Keller classic "oysters and pearls" is most definitely included in the non-vegetarian version (though the Per Se menus cost $325, while The French Laundry's are a more affordable $310). Here, there is also a salon menu, with à la carte offerings including ricotta agnolotti, butter-poached Nova Scotia lobster, and 100-day dry-aged Snake River Farms' beef tartare. While a recent New York Times review shocked the food world by bumping it down from four stars to two, chef Eli Kaimeh does Keller proud with his skillful interpretations of this most refined style of cooking.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten is one of the few chefs in New York City with the distinction of four stars from The New York Times. At his eponymous restaurant in the Trump International Hotel and Tower, one of the few restaurants left in New York where gentlemen are required to wear jackets, his classic French technique bridges old and new worlds, eschews heavy sauces, and embraces the spice and flavors of Asian cuisine. The prix fixe menu, executed by executive chef Mark Lapico, at Jean Georges features an assortment of the chef's signature dishes, like sesame-crusted foie gras with dried chiles. His signature "Egg Caviar," a lightly scrambled egg topped with whipped cream and Ossetra caviar, is one of the city's great bites of food.

It's rare that a serious restaurant hits the ground running as successfully as Alsatian-born chef Gabriel Kreuther's eponymous establishment has managed. Kreuther cooked under fellow Alsatian Jean-Georges Vongerichten and then at Atelier in the Ritz-Carlton New York before earning attention and acclaim at The Modern, Danny Meyer's fine-dining-plus-casual-bar-food venue at the Museum of Modern Art. He left the last of these early in 2014 and last summer opened this place, a gorgeous dining room (in an unpromising-looking 42nd Street storefront), given a suggestion of rustic charm with massive timbers salvaged from a barn in Vermont and suffused with warm, soft light. Here, Kreuther crafts exquisite plates in a style that owes much to his native territory, much to the freedom of imagination a chef of any provenance in modern-day Manhattan enjoys, and much to his first-rate raw materials, whether they come from Long Island, Nova Scotia, or Hawaii. Dishes are presented with lapidary precision, sometimes almost sculptural on the plate, but the manipulations aren't visual indulgence: They help emphasize the contrasting flavors and textures of the food. At first, looking at the foie gras terrine and black truffle praline with muscat gelée and seven-grain toast, the diner may not discern which element of the dish is which; digging in, though, reveals all — the creamy duck liver, the earthy perfume of truffle, the sweetness of the gelée, the subtle crunch of the toast.

The parts of the sturgeon and sauerkraut tart with American caviar mousseline, which comes to the table in a halo of applewood smoke, are more immediately identifiable, but the ingredients blend into one complex, delicious bite after another. Halibut with celery root and hen of the woods mushrooms in riesling–cockle sauce; organic poussin with bread pudding, cardoons, black trumpet mushrooms, and licorice jus; a juxtaposition of chocolate mousse, blackberry gelée, and lemon verbena merinque — this is simply some of the best cooking in New York. There's a bar area with its own menu, too, a menu so varied and smart (Mangalitsa morcilla potato salad with parsnip purée, saffron gnocchetti with king crab, red-wine-braised tripe tratiné with Puy lentils) that it could anchor a first-class restaurant of its own. Service is skilled, and the wine list — though bereft of bargains — is very impressive, above all in the excellent vintages of Alsace.

The cooking is simply exquisite in this opulently furnished dining room in the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, currently the only three Michelin-star restaurant in the city. As the first restaurant opened in America by the famed, award-winning Robuchon, widely considered the greatest of modern French chefs, Joël Robuchon maintains the highest standards under the guidance of chef Steve Benjamin. Everything is impeccable, from its superb service and impressive (and impressively pricey) wine list to such finely crafted dishes as beef châteaubriand and foie gras "Rossini" style with aged Port and carpaccio of foie gras and potatoes covered with black truffle shavings. The 16-course tasting menu is a truly memorable experience — as well it ought to be at $445 a head, wine not included.

Although Eleven Madison Park opened to much fanfare and subsequent acclaim in 1998, it was Danny Meyer's hiring of Swiss-born Daniel Humm to helm the kitchen in 2006 that elevated the place to the level of the finest restaurants in the country. Humm — who has won such plaudits for the restaurant as four stars from The New York Times (more than once, most recently by Pete Wells) and three from Michelin — bought Eleven Madison from Meyer in 2011, in partnership with his front-of-house counterpart, Will Guidara, and didn't miss a beat. The chef is firmly in control: While Humm will tailor his single $295 multi-course tasting menu to accommodate allergies, dietary restrictions, and ingredient preferences, there is no à la carte selection or smaller menu available. The particulars of the dishes change frequently, but the technique is contemporary French and modernist. The ingredients are heavily New York-based, and the culinary traditions on which the food is based are often those of Gotham street or deli food, producing notably unique results.

Los Angeles is a city that thrives on food trucks and pop-ups, but sometimes a no-holds-barred fine dining experience is called for. Chef Michael Cimarusti, who opened this upscale eatery with co-owner Donato Poto in 2005 on the southern edge of Hollywood, serves market tasting menus as well as an à la carte listing of carefully selected seafood from both coasts and beyond, prepared with great originality. He holds two Michelin stars for his efforts. Who else offers geoduck with radish and wasabi; Australian spanner crab with Royal Osetra caviar; or A5 wagyu with sweet potato, aged vinegar, and Parmigiano-Reggiano? At $115 for the four-course (or $180 for seven courses) signature and seasonal menu and $220 for the 12-course chef's menu, Providence isn't for diners on a budget. But making the jump from no. 91 on last year's ranking to no. 2 in this year's acknowledges how our panelists had given it short shrift in previous years and are taking a closer look. The impeccable service combined with the quality of the seafood and the lapidary perfection of the plates Cimarusti sends out makes it clear that this restaurant has few equals.