19 Restaurants That Defined Dining in America This Year

This is a polarizing restaurant, to say the least — at least when it comes to the city’s dining critics. While it’s highly probable that Foxface Natural isn’t for everyone, it manages to do something fewer and fewer restaurants in New York (or elsewhere) have managed to do in recent years: surprise us.

In a year with more than its share of flashy, vibey spots, this is not one — a long, single bar counter dominates a sparsely decorated dining room with just a handful of blond-wood tables — but David Santos’ cooking is fearless. He’s not afraid to pair pickled scallop skirts with hibachi-grilled Berkshire pork ears atop a bright swath of salsa verde and Basque pil pil; it’s a must-order if it’s on the menu, as are any of the wood-oven roasted fish entrees. Nor is Santos timid when it comes to serving game meat, from roasted antelope chops to kangaroo tartare, laced with an Ethiopian spice blend and served with a puree of charred eggplant.

He’s making food that makes a bold, loud, defiant statement, in an unassuming corner of Alphabet City that doesn’t so much shout as it whispers. Foxface Natural challenges us to rethink what a restaurant in New York (or, again, elsewhere) can be. For that, it deserves your rapt attention.

-Deanna Ting

There’s a reason Pompette made such an impact on us among Chicago restaurants. Meaning “just a little tipsy,” this Bucktown charmer provides the same buzz that one particularly well-timed glass of wine does: it makes us happy, relaxed, and unburdened from the day. It’s as if its three acclaimed chef-founders, Ashlee Aubin, Aaron Patten, and Katie Wasielewski, knew exactly what we needed.

Their light-filled cafe and wine bar has no frills, a refreshing change of pace from big-box restaurants that often try to do too much, too often. But don’t confuse no-frills with boring: Pompette’s menu is full of vibrant French- and Italian-inflected bites, from a silky quiche and buttery pastries in the morning to pumpkin agnolotti and roasted sea bass with fragrant saffron orzo at night. Whether you’re visiting for weekday brunch or happy hour, there’s always something new and seasonal to try. It’s delicious, and delightful, every single time.

-Ariel Kanter

In the spring, the chef Junya Yamasaki opened his pristine Arts District restaurant as an evolution of the sashimi truck he ran during the pandemic. Within months, rightful accolades began to roll in. The quiet hum and serene aesthetic of Yess, combined with the kitchen’s precise, progressive Japanese cuisine, amount to a transportive dining experience that felt totally L.A.

Yamasaki is meticulous about sourcing top-notch local and seasonal ingredients, from mackerel caught in the Santa Monica Bay to porcini mushrooms he forages himself, and his dedication makes Yess feel uniquely representative of the food ecosystem of greater Los Angeles. Since opening, Yamasaki has shifted the format of Yess to prioritize tasting menus, offering a la carte to walk-in guests and Sunday diners only. In a year marked by soaring inflation and monthslong strikes in Hollywood (i.e., less dining out), the singular, memorable meals served here made their mark.

-Emily Wilson

Petite Cerise is the second act from James Beard Award-winning chef Jeremiah Langhorne and restaurateur Alex Zink, best known for their Michelin-star restaurant The Dabney, located just two blocks away in the Shaw neighborhood. While The Dabney still stands as some of the best in farm-to-table dining, its sibling won us over this year with this same locally sourced, farm-fresh mentality applied to classic French fare.

While Petite Cerise is one of D.C.’s toughest reservations to score at dinner, what sets it apart is that it’s open for extended weekday lunch and weekend brunch — a very French café approach for a hit restaurant.

And whether you’re an early riser or not, there are star dishes that stay on the menu all day:  foie gras beignets served with raspberry and black pepper jam, buckwheat crêpes, and a decadent French onion soup. It is also mandatory to order the crispy beef fat fries served with a vinegary aioli, perfect for dipping in the aforementioned soup.

None of this is to overlook bar director Daniel Todd’s exceptional cocktails, or a tightly curated wine list by Dabney veteran Jessica Liberto, featuring regions from Beaujolais to Burgundy and Bordeaux offered by the bottle or the glass. There is, in other words, something for all hours.

-Tim Ebner

Hidden among warehouses, before a web of freight train tracks on a stretch of the west side still littered with grassy empty lots, Palo Santo began as a clear frontrunner for game-changers in ATL. Now as it enters its sophomore year, confident in its fully formed identity, chef Santiago Gomez’s hot spot has turned that spark of inspo into a roaring flame of its namesake wood.

We don’t use this phrase often, but Gomez literally raised the bar (and the age limit; you must be 25+ to party) – you’ll find it on the rooftop Wednesdays through Sundays, serving chilled snacks and fancy drinks. A DJ bumps into the wee hours Thursday onwards.

And food? Don’t miss the blue corn masa pancakes at brunch – as much a must for the table as the roasted cauliflower head, covered in caramelized miso and frizzled leeks, is for dinner. This now-classic dish is part of how Palo Santo has redefined what to expect from Mexican cuisine in Atlanta, as well as fine dining in the city in general. Pushing folks to order outside the box – pairing mussels and bone marrow, duck carnitas with kimchi, crickets and scorpions with rare mezcals – and presenting them in exquisite fashion in one of the most cosmopolitan dining rooms in the city, Gomez and his restaurant continue to drive experimentation forward.

-Su-Jit Lin

As Val Chang’s first solo act, Maty’s arguably became Miami’s most talked-about restaurant of the year — for good reason. While you can certainly expect some of the expertly executed Nikkei-style ceviches and tiraditos the Chang Gang was known for at the much lauded Itamae, Maty’s expands on the family’s culinary traditions with deeply comforting, yet finessed Peruvian plates that are rooted in the recipes Val’s grandmother taught her.

Maty’s is a celebration of classic Peruvian cooking, and an opportunity to honor the paternal grandmother who raised Val and her brother (and fellow chef) Nando in Peru. You can taste the love and tradition layered into every dish. The oxtail saltado or the roasted dorade in an aji amarillo beurre blanc sauce are perfectly finessed dishes. Yet it’s the simple choclo (Peruvian sweet corn) in huancaína sauce – which tastes like a smokey mac & cheese – that we still can’t stop thinking about months later.

-Lyssa Goldberg

It’s rare for food writers to get to revisit restaurants. There are only so many meals in a day (even with multiple lunches and dinners), and it’s almost impossible to keep up with the constant slew of new openings. Yet somehow, we’ve made our way to Burdell three times since it opened in September.

Each time we’ve been dazzled by Geoff Davis’s dizzyingly delicious takes on the soul food he grew up with: fried rabbit smothered in a leek and white pepper gravy, buttery Carolina Gold rice, and the meaty pork neck chop with peaches and a zingy mustard jus. Davis wants us to rethink everything we think we know about what soul is and what it can be.  We’re already planning our next visit.

-Omar Mamoon

Kalaya is about a woman on a mission. Four years ago, Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon started cooking the southern Thai food of her youth in a tiny BYOB on a historic Italian Market street. Her attention to detail (on display in the labor intensive bird-shaped dumplings), bold flavors, and warm interactions with guests made Kalaya an immediate hit.

In 2022, Suntaranon upgraded to a 160-seat Fishtown destination with a full bar, in partnership with the restaurant gurus behind Suraya and Pizzeria Beddia. She’s been wowing diners with massive whole prawns, colorful curries, crispy rice cakes, and creamy shaved ice. This year, she won the James Beard award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic, among numerous accolades. In other words, a meal at Kalaya has quickly become a signature experience for any informed traveler visiting Philadelphia, and Nok Suntaranon continues to make her city proud.

-Sarah Maiellano

Earlier this year, chef David Skinner of acclaimed restaurant Eculent, in Kemah on Galveston Bay, struck up an unlikely partnership with James Beard Best Chef Texas winner Benchawan Jabthong Painter (“Chef G”) and her husband, Graham Painter, known for their Thai hot spot Street to Kitchen. The resulting collaboration — th_prsrv (pronounced The Preserve) — offers a rare and truly unique dining experience focusing on Native American and Thai indigenous cuisine that aims to take guests on a journey through time.

Each culinary stop on the 12- to 15-course tasting menu showcases precolonial ingredients (e.g., game meats, fish, wild rice, beans and corn — sourced from Native American producers wherever possible) that are deftly prepared using ancestral techniques (think fermentation, pickling, and smoking) and presented through a modern lens. The purpose: to honor “the old world” while bringing forth “an even newer world of progressive cuisine,” as Skinner, a Choctaw native, and Painter, describe it. Current highlights include blue corn bread served with a nutty sunflower-seed butter and leatherwood honey; bison steak accompanied by fermented ramp sauce, served with forest mushrooms and duck fat confit potatoes; and wild boar with garlic, shallots, spicy Thai chiles, green peppercorn, and fragrant makrut lime leaves.

With two seatings per week, on Thursdays and Fridays, a bit of planning is required. You know what to do.

-Vickie An

It remains tough for the little guys in Boston, thanks in part to an archaic liquor licensing system that punishes small proprietors — which means true epicurean surprises are a relative rarity. But that’s precisely the right description for The Koji Club — Boston’s first-ever sake bar. Situated in the Speedway, a converted horse-racing track turned marketplace, and with just 16 seats and nary 250 square feet, the establishment’s tiny size proves a boon to its core mission: educating drinkers on sake produced near and far.

With an intimate setting that melds the hospitality of a corner bar with the openness of a college classroom, it’s of little surprise that a curious city formerly parched of sake knowledge has enthusiastically drunk in founder Alyssa Mikiko DiPasquale’s vision — just in time for a burgeoning sake awakening across the country. You’ll drink well, and also snack well on caviar with potato chips, Japanese potato salad, mushroom miso soup, and Basque cheesecake — perfect little doses of sake-friendly umami.

-Eric Twardzik

In the year since chef Serigne Mbaye and business partner Effie Richardson opened their brick and mortar, Dakar has struck a resonating note and inspired other chefs and culinarians of African descent around the country to adopt similar formats. Dakar lays bare the culinary contributions that enslaved West African people running the plantation kitchens of the American South contributed to the region’s celebrated gastronomy and its evolution — and does it through a uniquely New Orleans lens.

The elegant, moodily-lit restaurant is the backdrop against which the 30-year-old, two-time James Beard nominated chef presents his takes on the pescatarian foods of Senegambia. A single seating is offered four evenings a week. Between each course, Mbaye joins his guests in the dining room to deliver an emotionally charged experience that comes with the telling of his personal narrative, as well as that of his ancestral Wolof tribe.

Though the subject matter is heavy, the menu of carefully sourced Gulf seafood (shrimp with millet and red pepper jus; shrimp and okra gumbo; seared fish with market vegetables and tamarind jus) and produce, is not. Mbaye brings levity and warmth to the experience by serving most dishes family-style, while encouraging the building of community across race, gender, and creed. This is substance for the body and the soul.

Dakar acquired a liquor license this summer, and now offers wine by the glass and signature cocktails. It further underscores how Mbaye understands the value of coming together around a table, in a city where history is never far below the surface.

-Jyl Benson

Chef Bintou N’Daw planned to return to New York City after a year in the kitchen at Chez Nous. But finding local menus devoid of the flavors of her native Senegal, she decided to stick around. Indeed, traditional Gullah cuisine carries traces of West African influence, but N’Daw’s dishes represent inspired adaptations that make her dishes unique.

Still, Charleston’s African ties have proved formative for Bintü Atelier. “I felt like this city was to me the connection that we were looking for to Africa,” N’Daw told The Post and Courier’s Parker Milner, who reported his thiéboudieun (fish and rice) was part of the best meal he’d had in months. Whole snapper is placed over jollof rice, a popular traditional West African red rice. Pepper soup is served with chicken, yucca, yams, and crawfish in a spicy broth. Tucked off a Line Street sidewalk in Charleston’s East Side neighborhood, which has its own rich cultural history as a historically Black neighborhood, Bintü is capturing a new and remarkable take on what Lowcountry food means.

-Sam Spence

Since Kinzo opened on Christmas Eve 2022, fish from Tokyo have regularly been flying to Frisco, Texas. The restaurant is chef-owner Leo Kekoa’s gift to one of the fastest-growing cities in America. (Frisco has billions of dollars in development projects underway, including a Universal Studios theme park.) After years of working in Uptown at Nobu Dallas, Kekoa had the wisdom to listen to his wife when she asked where they were going to eat after moving to the suburbs.

His nineteen-course omakase with Edomae-style sushi, mostly from Tokyo’s Toyosu Market, is the highlight. Koshihikari rice prepared with four Japanese vinegars is taken seriously, too. Kekoa and his dream team of chefs, young and retirement-age, have learned that diners will pay $185 for the omakase, similar to city prices.

Kinzo means “neighborhood,” and it’s a reflection of a national movement that includes Mujō, which recently brought one of a handful of Michelin stars to Atlanta. Restaurants like these tell us a very clear story, namely that diners want high-end sushi whererever they live, even if it’s not in an obvious downtown hub. And they’re getting it.

-Amanda Albee

By now, if you haven’t been able to snag a reservation at Kann, you’re probably tired of hearing people tell you about it. But for old time’s sake, here’s one more time for good measure.

Yes, this perennially busy restaurant from Top Chef alum Gregory Gourdet opened in summer 2022, but there’s no arguing that 2023 was the Year of Kann.

The restaurant – completely gluten- and dairy-free, unbeknownst to many – proudly focuses on Gourdet’s Haitian heritage alongside an unbeatable non-alcoholic bar presence, a beacon for those like Gourdet, who celebrate their sobriety. Just downstairs, the restaurant’s dark and moody see-or-be-seen twin, Sousòl, highlights the cuisines of Caribbean and Central American nations — in a clubby space decked out in Caribbean blue tile and plush hot pink velvet banquettes.

It didn’t take long for Kann to scoop a James Beard award for Best New Restaurant, what with dishes like its phenomenal gluten-free plantain brioche with epis butter, and griyo twice-cooked pork, ingrained into signature dish territory. It was the first time Portland ever brought home that honor.

We suggest coming with a group, ordering multiples of the plantain brioche (because who likes to share that much?) and any number of plates emerging from the wood-fired hearth, such as red cabbage with smoked herring and African pepper sauce. You can see the kind of enthusiasm Kann generates — and if you haven’t made it yet, we figure soon you won’t be able to stop talking about Kann either.

-Samantha Bakall

Tucked away in Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row, Light Sleeper is has become one of Seattle’s most enjoyable destinations for wine-centric dining adventures. The trick is to dive deep into the curated selection of natural and biodynamic wines, handpicked by sommelier Ezra Wicks. (If one catches your eye, take a bottle home from Wide Eyed Wines, Light Sleeper’s nearby bottle shop.)

You’ll enjoy your pick alongside tapas curated by chef Eli Dahlin, formerly of Damn the Weather, plates with bold flavors that know how to impress without getting in the way of the wine. Jalapeño, garlic, and peanuts transform crispy fried pig skins into a crunchy treat with a spicy kick. Roasted carrots join forces with the sweet richness of dates, walnuts, and a drizzle of tahini and saffron honey. The creamy, delicately sweet shrimp risotto is an absolute knockout, complemented by earthy chanterelles and leeks, all luxuriating in a sumptuous lobster broth. Light Sleeper is of that cadre of wine bars that knows how to take both food and wine just seriously enough — and Seattle’s the better for it.

-Ryn Pfeuffer

No two trends defined Detroit dining in 2023 quite like French food and hotel restaurants. And no single restaurant nailed the overlap of the two quite like Le Suprême. Thanks to this true-to-form French brasserie, the long vacant corner of Grand River and Washington Boulevard now feels like a slice out of La Belle Époque, with the beautifully restored Book Tower as the backdrop to a delicious blast from Detroit’s own Francophile history. Just entering the ground floor restaurant, with its soaring ceilings, emerald tiles, and dark wood patina, feels like stepping through a portal to the 7th arrondissement.

The commitment to the Parisian bit runs through the buttoned up but friendly service to  pitch-perfect hors d’oeuvres (tangy, hand-chopped steak tartare; French onion soup with a legendary cheese pull) and bowls of well-dressed salad Lyonnaise, and then mains such as well-executed trout amandine and filet au poivre. Desserts, meticulously crafted by Detroit pastry veteran Ben Robison, are a tribute to the timeless elegance of French pâtisserie, each a nod to classics reimagined with a contemporary flair — much like Le Suprême itself, which feels like its been at this iconic corner of Detroit forever.

-Mark Kurlyandchik

“Top Chef” winner Gabe Erales opened Bacalar to celebrate the food and culture of the Yucatan region of Mexico where his family is from. The two-story space has an outdoor patio with views of the Town Lake trail and a spacious interior with modern decor and small mezcal bar upstairs. If that description doesn’t make it obvious, Bacalar makes for a great date-night spot, so make a Resy for you +1.

Though the menu has traditional Mexican dishes like tostadas and tamales, the ingredients are not what you’d expect — like the papadzul tamal with squash and soft boiled egg on the side, or the castacan tacos with pork belly and salsa verde. Bigger dishes like the cochinita pibil or the steak with mushroom confit are great for sharing with the table. And cocktails are also crafted with precision, like the Cocosanto with its scent of  palo santo. We expect Austin to be at the forefront of modern Mexican cooking, and Erales is for sure helping to keep it there.

-Adele Hazan

Steakhouses have seen a resurgence this year, following in the wake of ’80s nostalgia that’s taken over other spheres, like fashion (hello again, fanny packs and mom jeans). But while Porzana is, indeed, a steakhouse and offers items that harken back to that age of indulgence (see: two domestic wagyu offerings priced in the triple digits), chef Daniel del Prado has brought a modern sensibility and elements of his South American heritage to the concept.

That means you’ll also find more affordable steaks — a flat iron, sirloin, and hanger — alongside splurge-worthy picks. It also means Argentinian cuts such as picanha, asado de tira, tapa de vacio, and entraña. Beyond beef, there’s plenty else to get excited about, including sea bass, lamb chops, pastas, a cold bar, and a variety of snacks to start you off. (Do yourself a favor and order the bread basket, if just to experience the tasty housemade flavored butters.) The space itself has an accessible industrial-chic feel: lived-in wood floors, brick walls, a ceiling studded with pipes and ductwork. It all adds up to a restaurant that captures what we’re craving right now — steakhouse or otherwise.

-Jennifer Buege

At first glance, replacing the venerable and beloved Capitol Grille as the flagship restaurant of Nashville’s opulent Hermitage Hotel seemed rife with risks. This was renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s first foray into a U.S. city outside of more established dining markets like New York and L.A., and would Nashville diners appreciate his cuisine? Would Jean-Georges’ vision remain consistent under the auspices of executive chef Kelsi Armijo?

The answer to both questions has been a resounding yes. The remodeled dining room and bar are lovely, bedecked in pastel colors. A wood-fired grill kisses locally sourced seasonal vegetables and pizzas, and the exemplary service staff worships at Vongerichten’s altar of extreme hospitality. As a hotel restaurant, locals and lodgers can enjoy all three meals of the day, and the vibe is welcoming to everyone from power lunches for the business set to tourists dressed for an evening of honky tonking. Drusie & Darr is the epitome of casual elegance in Nashville, and a new standard-bearer for how we like to eat.

-Chris Chamberlain