Ten Restaurants That Define American Dining in Fall 2023

At times the team behind Fish Cheeks can feel like the shadow royalty of New York restaurants. Their original spot is perennially packed, drawing a broad audience for its inventive, fun Thai cooking — and a scene that feels like a constant party, reminiscent of the heyday of Acme, a couple blocks away. 

That low-key eminence is hopefully about to change, with this new project, run by co-owner Jenn Saesue and chef Max Wittawat, an arrival from Bangkok’s burgeoning restaurant scene. If Fish Cheeks felt quirky and stylish, BSC aims simultaneously more finessed and more rustic. Wittawat is an experienced hand with the innovative cooking taking place in the Thai capital right now, and was lured to New York for that, even if he envisioned a chance to cook comfort food. Saesue wanted something notably different from Fish Cheeks — and more fine-tuned than the usual Thai American roster.

They seem to have met in the middle, with Wittawat providing his reinvention of the craveable dishes found in Bangkok’s night markets and late-night haunts. The simple egg salad known as yum khai dao becomes a meditation on eggs in multiple forms; khao mun gai, or Hainan-style chicken, is transformed into a stuffed wing reminiscent of Atomix’s ethereal example. (Anyone who recalls Chicks Isan, in DeKalb Market, will recognize the bones of this project. Its version of the rice salad known as nem khao tod was one of the best on these shores.) 

The evidence across the country keeps mounting that Thai American cooking is at an inflection point — see: Anajak Thai, Kalaya, Langbaan, etc. Bangkok Supper Club is one of the brightest points yet to make that clear.

“Senegambia” is the word you’ll want to understand before you come to dine at Dakar — a geographically complex term for a large and historically notable swath of western Africa. It is half of the linkage that chef Serigne Mbaye makes in his newly refreshed restaurant in Uptown New Orleans, referencing not just Senegal but a broader culinary influence. While food as biography is a big part of dining these days, Mbaye has taken it to arguably a new level. His early years combined time in New York and Senegal, and then culinary school; eventually, he made his way to fine dining of various stripes — Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, the legendary Commanders Palace — before launching Dakar as a series of pop-ups. It relaunched this month with reservations and a full beverage program.

What Mbaye has devised in his menus is a meditation on how New Orleans’ Creole cooking intersects with the various traditions and inspirations of west Africa. The focus is pescatarian, as befits a mashup of coastal Africa and a gulf city, and if ingredients may feel familiar — shrimp, redfish, black eyed peas — they are revisited through multiple prisms, with an overt acknowledgment of the stark history that brought so many of these flavors to these shores. (Witness the dish known as the Last Meal.)

Yet there is joy here — in understanding how those traditions and flavors can be reclaimed and transformed. It’s no surprise Mbaye has earned a James Beard nomination for best emerging chef, and plenty of other accolades along the way. This is cooking as the most personal expression, in a city where history is never far below the surface.

This Rittenhouse restaurant wears its intent clearly, declaring itself “modern French.” But of course nothing French (or in restaurants) is so simple these days. Specifically, this is the invention of two of Philadelphia’s best young chefs: Amanda Shulman, whose Her Place Supper Club has been one of the city’s most cherished spots in recent years. My Loup combines her efforts with that of her now husband, Alex Kemp Roussy, an alum of Montreal’s Joe Beef (as was Shulman) and Mon Lapin. Both chefs bring a fine-dining sensibility (Momofuku Ko, Eleven Madison Park) but also an earthier edge that lands with My Loup exuding the best neobistro sensibilities.

This means smoked eel Caesar salad and cold roast beef au poivre to start; a deceptively simple-sounding half chicken with pole beans as a main; and so on. It is Montreal, of course, where the best spirit of postmodern French cooking has popped up on this continent in recent years. Now that sensibility has come to Philly, in a wonderful way.

There’s an argument to be made that chef Niki Nakayama may understand the current state of American dining better than almost anyone. Her restaurant, n/naka, effectively defined kaiseki dining in Los Angeles starting in 2012 — the better part of a decade before that form of dining would become a benchmark for chefs around the country. Yet she’s savvy enough to have acknowledged recently that what it would take to lift her from two Michelin stars to three is more than she can afford.

She has also given us all the gifts of her less formal izakaya, N/Soto. It’s now common practice for top chefs to flex themselves with casual options, and the menu here can, at first glance, look almost routine: a handful of nigiri and sashimi; grilled skewers (that there’s gyuytan, or beef tongue, and zabuton, or wagyu “pillow” meat, should give away the depths at work); plus karaage; chawanmushu; and the like.

In fact this is craftsmanship at its highest level, thanks to Nakayama and her wife and co-owner, Carole Iida-Nakayama. (As others have noted, don’t sleep on the housemade tofu.) It’s worth remembering that Nakayama once worked at Mori Sushi, where Morihiro Onodera managed to create L.A.’s pinnacle of Japanese cooking while hiding in plain sight. N/Soto follows in that tradition — quietly demonstrating the very height of the form, and rewarding those who know.

If Korean-American-Australian wine bar wasn’t on your fall dance card, again, check how 2023 is unfurling. In this case, the Korean American part comes from partner Claudia Lee, whose family runs sushi restaurants in L.A. The Australian element comes from Richard Hargreave, a longtime Momofuku alum, who assembled the wine program at the groundbreaking Seiobo in Sydney, then built a similarly eye-opening effort at L.A.’s Majordomo. 

The results may feel familiar to anyone who has spent time dining in the Momofuku realm: pork and leek mandu; burgers from both bulgogi and shrimp; the pancake known as hotteok stuffed with kimchi and taleggio; and “caviar stroopwafel bites,” a less performative alternate to the current caviar-bump craze. 

And of course Hargreave’s ecumenical view of wine trends informs a list that’s focused and diverse — with the bonus that Underdog serves as a retail store, providing one of the best wine minds in Austin to help steer you to the perfect bottle for the evening.

The New York bistro is its own peculiar art form, and there remains good reason why this very no-nonsense one — raw floors, all the dazzle on the plate, a solitary Serge Gainsbourg photo — has quickly become one of the most sought tables in town. Chef Max Mackinnon and co-founder Cody Pruitt have taken care to create not a simulacrum of Frenchness so much as an earnest, contemporaneous interpretation.

And yet Libertine is less a neobistro, as the Parisians define it, than a neo take on hoary but cherished bistro tropes. Mackinnon’s original source material is so workaday in the French repertoire that it’s almost more bouillon than bistro: oeufs mayonnaise, saucisse purée, jambon persillé. But here each undergoes a hushed transformation — the eggs are hidden under mayo that lands somewhere between Hollandaise and sabayon, then dotted with trout roe. (If this doesn’t win the annual competition for oeufs mayo, it certainly would rank high.) A lobster chou farci underscores how much that dish — stuffed cabbage — is enjoying a momentary renaissance, if here with a lot more poshness than the bouillon versions, including a drizzle of leek oil on top. 

It’s hard to call Mackinnon’s food cerebral, in that it taps pleasure centers in the ways that great French cooking does. Consider his duck two ways (au poivre, confit) — lavish enough to be the centerpiece of an indulgent dinner for two. Yet those who will most appreciate Libertine will indeed have a deep understanding of the French canon. 

There’s more, of course: Pruitt confidently orchestrates the buzz of the room, having built on a career in fine dining. And his natural-tilting but very thoughtful wine list — all French, and with a mix of pioneers new and old, reflects his ongoing role running the wine program at nearby Anfora, an early anchor of New York’s natural wine scene. In other words, none of this is about nostalgia, so much as finding a context for cherished flavors in a very diverse world.

In a bustling year for Miami’s restaurants, it might feel as though other stars have shone more overtly than Los Félix — although, speaking of stars, racking one up from Michelin after less than a year should be evidence of just the vivacity of chef Sebastian Vargas’ cooking. Vargas is part of a team, along with Pili Restrepo Hackler and Josh Hackler, behind some of the strongest momentum in South Florida dining — see also: Krüs Kitchen, . And his stints in fine dining (Osteria Francescana, Sweden’s Fäviken) inform the precision and verve on the plate. Yet Los Félix often gets pigeonholed as a Mexican restaurant, which isn’t quite the case. (Vargas himself is from Colombia, as is Restrepo Hackler.) 

Sure, the tacos, totopos and esquites may tilt that direction, but Mesoamerican is more apt — in that the traditions being honored are broader, including that of Milpa farming, an indigenous method that elevates crop rotation and land restoration. This combo feels particularly apt for Miami. But so does Hackler’s deft, naturally leaning wine selection (pro tip: keep an eye out for New Chilean producers like Maturana). And did we mention the vinyl and DJ? The sum is a thinking-person’s boîte. And like any good salon, this one serves carnitas, and grinds its own heirloom corn daily.

How could we not do a double-take when the phrase “BYOB bar” appears? That wonderful contradiction is, in fact, not a contradiction at all here. The owners of Brookline’s much loved (and perennially booked) Cobble have extended their novel vision of dining to the space next door.

Barlette offers everything a bespoke cocktail spot should have — except the booze — which is to say, yes, there’s a drink list that includes originals (the Paul Revere, with Concord grapes — get it? — and white balsamic vinegar, plus whatever hooch you’ve toted) and classics (martini service, a chocolate Negroni), along with a set of bar snacks. There’s even a bottle shop across the way, should you not have hit the liquor mart beforehand; even a list of nearby takeout joints, in case you want to order food in. 

If all this seems mysterious, consider the extent to which vibes are winning 2023, and in a way that’s what Barlette is offering: a cozy space; what in drinking terms used to be called a “set-up”; a bit to nosh on; and the freedom to do you, with alcohol or without. Also, it’s only two nights a week (Fridays and Saturdays), and has no firm time limits on reservations, so really, it’s pretty much how you’d go hang at a friend’s house, if they had built the most wonderful, wallpapered home bar, epic snacks, and were deeply skilled in the arts of mixology.

Reservations open a month at a time — next are on Oct. 1 at noon ET — and book up fast. So if you want to investigate, be ready when the clock strikes 12.

Those with a bit of a memory about Bay Area dining will recognize all the names involved in Routier: John Paul Carmona, the Salvadoran-born chef who worked at Mugaritz and Alinea, before an influential stint as chef de cuisine at Los Gatos’ famed Manresa; Belinda Leong, who springboarded from pastry chef at Gary Danko and Manresa to open B. Patisserie in Pacific Heights, one of the top bakeries on the West Coast; and Michel Suas, a legend in American baking circles, and Leong’s partner in B.

Routier itself was born out of B. Patisserie, and has quietly been exuding a Gallic savvy since opening in 2020, mid-pandemic. Think duck confit, melon salad with pesto, and chicken liver mousse. “Routier” designates a humble side-of-road spot for straightforward cooking — the pre-autoroute French equivalent of a truck stop — and while this clearly isn’t that, the intent to retain an informality is never far away, even if Carmona shows an expert chef’s studied simplicity.

Needless to say, with Leong and Suas involved, skipping dessert is simply not an option.

Candidly we’re impressed that the buzz for Pijja Palace, which was strong and nonstop from its debut last year, continues unabated. “An Indian American sports bar in a strip mall in Silver Lake” is very much a totem of where the country’s dining gestalt is right now, and we mention it again as much as anything not just because tamarind chicken tenders are a thing we crave, but because of what Pijja is likely to inspire. 

The malai rigatoni (imagine vodka sauce and butter chicken having an intimate moment) and vindaloo-topped pizzas are effectively canon now, as are turmeric-tinged wings and dosa onion rings — all the essentials in a pub menu, if that pub happened to be run by Bollywood potentates. Instead, the powers that be are owner Avish Naran and chef Miles Shorey, who clearly intend to make a point about what comfort food, sports bars, and all stripes of American leisure can and should be.

We’d tell you that after a year, it’s easier to nab a seat. But no — any offerings you wish to make to the dieties of restaurant reservations will be noted and welcome. (Or, set a Priority Notify.) Just as poignantly, we’re waiting to see what Narah and Shorey devise next — or, for that matter, to see who else decides this is too good a template not to copy. If a Pijja Palace, or its ilk, appears one day in a city near you, we can tell you this: Get excited. Get very excited.