40 Restaurants Across America Worth a Journey in 2025

It can be tough to describe this must-visit Philly spot to out-of-towners. Situated on the top floor of the Bok Building, a former high school, it sports raw concrete walls, a moody series of rooms, and one of the best views in town — even more enjoyable on the summer patio. That provides the backdrop for Michael Vincent Ferreri’s remarkable Italianate cooking. “Modern Sicilian” is the shorthand, but that doesn’t capture the breadth. Dishes like swordfish with ‘nduja and a mafaldine al limone certainly nail southern Italian sensibilities, but the prism here could just as easily be Philly farm-to-table (as with a hearty lamb serving with spring garlic). Ferreri and his team eagerly collaborate well outside their comfort zone, as with Tâm Tâm’s Tam Pham (see below), and offer an exceptional drinks program. Then there’s Salvatore’s Counter, the four-seat Sunday-night tasting experience, in which Ferreri interviews each diner and tailors the menu to their food memories. Lots of restaurants call themselves “chef driven”; Irwin’s lives and breathes it.

Alex Raij and her husband Eder Montero are longtime staples in New York’s restaurant community, with their Spanish-inflected cooking at Txikito and La Vara. If their seafood-focused Saint Julivert feels uncategorizable, that might be because it is the creation of restaurateurs who are comfortable in their own skin. Raij refers to it as a “jewel box,” which seems apropos: a tiny, trim space with not an inch wasted — a quality it shares with fellow travelers like Place des Fêtes and Foul Witch. And while Raij was inspired by Parisian wine bars, years before the current deluge of Frenchy wine spots, the food here has global reach: cured wild shrimp with kumquat and poblano could evoke Sinaloa or southeast Asia; put them on your table next to sorrulitos, a Puerto Rican sort of hush puppy; and the cod pot pie. The last is a Raij masterpiece, more British than the British could devise, yet with sofrito and curry-leaf aioli. Add in her natural-tilting wine list, quirky desserts (mezcal flan, anyone?) and you have ecumenical cooking of the highest order.

Tam Pham and Harrison Ramhofer have created a quintessential “only in America, only right now” restaurant — improbably in Miami except that city’s lack of Vietnamese cuisine options was in fact their inspiration. The counter with the chrome-edged stools, the beverage cooler, the aesthetic worthy of a Martin Parr photo. (Pham does the restaurant’s photography himself, just to add to his list of talents.) The notion is Vietnamese drinking food, whether that amounts to fish-sauce caramel wings or a “sizzling pork belly situation” (direct words from the menu) or a “jungle steak tartare” that takes full advantage of the aggressively verdant herb rau ram. It’s all meant to accompany a deft roster of naturally-tilting wines, plus sake, beer, and a soursop daiquiri.  Tam Tam is distinct proof that you can build a restaurant around just exactly the things you like — and it can be both delightful and important.

It’s hard to quantify Koji Club as a restaurant, given a footprint of just 250 square feet. But Alyssa Mikiko DiPasquale chose this tiny boîte, in the improbable locale of the Charles River Speedway, a complex of former horse stables, for her evangelism of the beauties of sake. Pasquale has an uncanny ability to turn Americans onto the charms of that most enigmatic Japanese drink — which is why Koji Club presents more like a neighborhood bar, albeit one with an epic curation of drinks, and a snackable menu: saltines with green-pepper miso and cream cheese, and the occasional bento box. The net effect is one of those perfect hospitality spaces — where you’re gently able to consider the unfamiliar in ways that feel welcoming, as though it’s just an evening with friends. The good news is that DiPasquale has plans to expand, so the magic she brings to her current space will be accessible to at least a slightly larger crowd soon.

A dramatic example of how a restaurant can keep reinventing itself: Friday Saturday Sunday has been just off Rittenhouse Square for some 40 years, “the lone survivor,” as the Inquirer put it, of the city’s ‘70s restaurant renaissance. Current owners Chad and Hanna Williams, alumni of chef Jose Garces’ restaurant empire, bought FSS in 2015, renovated stem to stern, and turned an old reliable into something far more ambitious. Today Chad’s evocative tasting menus and Hanna’s keen eye for detail form a model for postmodern fine dining that’s actually fun. This is reflected in dishes that hew together Chad’s many influences, like a sweet-corn chawanmushi and quail with Jamaican coco bread. It’s deeply personal haute cooking by way of West Philly.

You could say that Michael Rafidi’s personal brand is joy, which is a word that doesn’t come up too much right now where the Middle East is concerned. Rafidi is Palestinian by origin, but Albi, like all the chef’s projects across Washington, D.C., takes a broader and more expansive view of Levantine cooking, as with hummus topped with Maryland crab and green garlic, or a shareable barbecued lamb with cinnamon-tinged kefta and summer squash. This makes Albi the perfect evolution of a cuisine that finally is catching traction on these shores — one even more distinctly telegraphed by Rafidi’s recently opened La’ Shukran, where dishes like lamb belly fried rice sit alongside an arak-focused cocktail program and a natural wine program with a serious backbeat.

If New Orleans seems like a less obvious city for the surge in next-gen Mexican American cooking to appear, you haven’t been paying attention to Ana Castro’s career. (Her previous restaurant, Lengua Madre, planted a flag in NOLA for groundbreaking Mexican food.)  Acamaya is her chance to create (with her sister Lydia) the restaurant she dreamed of — in this case largely a personal tribute to the varied flavors of Mexican states as channeled through Gulf seafood. The snapper ceviche might feel Sinaloan in one moment, but the presence of calamansi lime takes it somewhere slightly different. Veracruz-style blackened catfish has pepperoncini, in a way that seems to quote city staples like Paul Prudhomme and Central Grocery. The sikil p’aak on the charred okra might be Oaxacan; the bottarga, less so. The net effect is cooking that feels utterly rooted in place — namely, in a place where food traditions have long collided to extraordinary effect.

The return of Torrisi in late 2022 — or rather the reappearance — marked an auspicious moment for New York dining. It was less a homecoming of sorts for Major Food Group after the Carbone era than a full-circle moment: Rich Torrisi bringing back his uniquely adaptive Italian American cooking, with a platform that reflects his and Mario Carbone’s incalculable impact on dining. Torrisi 1.0 planted a flag for many things that now define how we eat. Torrisi 2.0 reflects its times, too — more Carbone-y glitz, more confidence. And it’s a love letter to its town: Cucumbers “New Yorkese”  tips a hat to the Jewish pickling traditions of the Lower East Side. A lobster-studded capellini Cantonese nods to both nearby Chinatown and Little Italy. The net effect celebrates of how American cuisine at its best hybridizes and amplifies the breadth of our traditions, into things that are delicious and uniquely ours.

Junghyun and Ellia Park’s rise to the top of New York’s restaurant ladder has been nothing short of astonishing — having pretty well set the bar for neo-Korean cooking in this city (and far beyond). Their tasting-menu Atomix transits in multi-star realms; Seoul Salon replicates the Korean sool. And yet it’s their original restaurant, Atoboy, that arguably best shows how they helped to redefine modern Korean American dining — in much the same way that, say, Baroo does in L.A. The $75 prix fixe (service included) remains a perfect progression through the Parks’ ethos: a dish of Korean pear is rounded out with almonds and Piave cheese; pork belly and cauliflower are punched up with pungent, fermented jeotgal. The kimchi is always subtle and the optional fried chicken to finish is never really optional. And the beverage program is equally progressive — a space where grower Champagne, soju, and skin-contact savagnin can happily commune.

The working dynamic between the chefs Matt Conroy and his wife Isabel Coss is something to behold. Having been at the top of New York’s culinary ranks (Cosme, Oxomoco, Agern) they moved to D.C. on the cusp of the pandemic and launched this refurbed Georgetown storefront — which over five years has become the quintessence of the American form of the French neobistro. In Paris, that implies exceptional food in a humble space, and Conroy and Coss are excellent students of the form, as evidenced by their annual research trips to Paris. The result is bold, boundless French cooking, in dishes like skewered duck hearts with a three-day jus and mandarinquat — Conroy’s latest twist on duck à l’orange. But their love of Mexican cooking shows up in the brightness of flavors, among other things, and while they explore that more overtly at Pascual, opened last year, Lutèce is its own wonderful icon of progressive French cooking, for a cuisine often still seen by Americans in old-fashioned terms.

Some restaurants become destinations by chance; Passerelle feels very much like it was designed to be one, in the best way. Consider the players: French luxury retailer Printemps, which chose to open five dining concepts inside its new flagship U.S. store, then chose Gregory Gourdet, whose Kann drew crowds to Portland, Ore., for his Haitian-inspired cooking. In other words, this is a department store (even if Printemps insists it’s not!) café unlike any you’ve seen. There is utter brilliance in tapping Gourdet to channel his vision of French cooking, not just through a Haitian prism but through Senegal, Morocco, and the many flavors of the Francophone world. White asparagus with a tomato-ginger relish and Creole cream is the sort of reconsideration of flavors that feels tonally perfect coming from a chef as thoughtful as Gourdet; same with glazed duck done with pineapple, cane syrup, and dirty rice. Pommes frites sit comfortably next to black-eyed pea fritters. And all in one of the biggest design stunners in a while. Was this a space tailored to draw you to visit? Sure. And it overdelivers.

When Rintaro opened in 2014 in the Mission, it sounded like a quintessentially Bay Area thing: Chez Panisse alum applies that philosophy to Japanese izakaya food. San Francisco always has more creativity in its restaurants than longevity, especially with the headwinds of recent years. But here we are a decade later, and Sylvan Mishima Brackett’s restaurant keeps going from strength to strength (including a deservedly lauded cookbook last year). The open kitchen and pristine sourcing remain at the heart of Rintaro, and the results are impeccable, whether yakitori simply grilled over binchotan (get the chicken thigh with sancho) or his version of a tamago omelet, or the long-simmered oden. There is something restorative about the clean, precise flavors always on display, and yet the raucous heart of an izakaya is in effect, too. California bounty is beloved because it always evolves, and Brackett has found a perfect stage to demonstrate that.

Kismet’s backstory sounds like one of those only-in-L.A. tales … so of course it starts in Brooklyn, from which Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson brought their sensibilities with Middle Eastern cooking, honed at the understated Glasserie in northern Greenpoint. Among other things, Glasserie’s heralded rabbit dish evolved into new forms when it hit Pacific time — one of many ways they merged their tastes with Californian sensibilities. Kismet today is ever more vegetable focused, with dishes like roasted maitake with chickpeas and yogurt sharing space with lamb ribs with smoked plum sauce. There’s tahdig as a side dish, and lime-leaf cashews to snack on. And the current release of their new cookbook reflects just how perfectly the two found a way to offer their own unique take on Angeleno aesthetics. Indeed, Kismet today more or less defines modern SoCal cooking.

That Lula more than deserves a place on this list after a quarter-century in business is testament to just how much Jason Hammel’s cafe not only catalyzed Logan Square as a Chicago dining nexus, but also provided a Midwest response to West Coast farm-to-table temples like Zuni Cafe. And yet it’s Lula among the bunch that feels particularly inventive. Wackily genius dishes like its Yia Yia pasta (bucatini, feta, cinnamon, fried garlic, brown butter) are basically forever etched into the menu, but there’s always something new around the corner. The cooking remains clean-edged (of course there’s a roast chicken) and if at moments it feels overly familiar, that’s because Lula was among the places that created the mold. Pro tip: Go for one of the now-legendary Monday farm dinners — always a three-course set menu that’s both an homage to the best local produce and an incubator for what’s coming next.

D.C. has a remarkable tradition of Indian cooking, one of the best places in the Western hemisphere to find it. And the community of chefs there has allowed for brilliant creations like Daru, opened by two veterans of the local industry: Suresh Sundas, formerly the tandoor chef at Rasika West End, where he worked with Dante Datta, a Bengali cocktail maestro who also worked at Ellē. The menu is willfully nontraditional in the best way, what with chicken tikka tacos and a reshmi kebab that incorporates blue cheese and sour cherries. Not everything strays so far from canon, as with a dough-topped wild mushroom biryani, but the net effect is the sort of restaurant that smiles politely at whatever you have to say about “authenticity,” and then serves you a bison momo, or one of Datta’s nuanced, spicy cocktails, and goes about its business being exactly what it wants to be.

The East Coast is the usual culprit when it comes to homages to modern French — namely Parisian — cooking. But L.A. has its own proud Francophilia, as witnessed by this recent Melrose arrival. That it’s wine driven almost goes without saying, but in this case there’s serious firepower behind the wine leanings, namely in the form of Jill Bernheimer, whose Domaine L.A. was a seminal natural wine destination in town. And there’s a raft of talent here, including food from Travis Hayden, with his  wine-adjacent résumé (Rustic Canyon, Voodoo Vin) and Bernheimer’s front-of-house colleague Julian Kurland. The expected items are here: steak frites and a roast chicken. But yams with a guajillo sabayon and Jimmy Nardello peppers leans pretty Californian, and then there’s Hayden’s signature, a Caesar beef tartare. And Bernheimer has been playing at the natty-wine roulette table long enough to know the stakes, so selections are always offbeat. 

The anointing of Razza, across the Hudson River, as the best pizza in New York a few years ago was less a shocker than an affirmation of chef Dan Richer’s long obsession with every detail of pizza-making, and fermentation in general. This includes a crust that has become the ür-crust for picky pizza types, because Richer is a baker at heart, but also toppings that feel perfectly proportional, as with the Santo, which uses sausage and chile oil to dazzling effect, or the tomato pie, which uses both yellow and red versions for a twist on the Jersey classic. But then there are things like Richer’s butter tasting — a spreadable demonstration of fermentation nuances. Richer, like fellow travelers such as Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana, show that inspiration can only improve even this most classic of American foods. 

It’s not that chef Paolo Dungca lacks for ambition — his career has taken him through the kitchens of key D.C. spots like Restaurant Eve, to say nothing of the groundbreaking Bad Saint.  But like its spiritual sibling Kasama in Chicago, the all-day flexibility here (the daytime café Hiraya is downstairs) reflects Dungca’s broader vision. But it is Dungca’s tasting menu that captures this current moment of Filipino cooking — although with the announcement that Kayu is closing at the end of June, hasten to get there if you’re in D.C. The “dinuguan” pork chop approximates the pork-blood darkness of the original (but uses burnt coconut instead). The adobong pusit paella perfectly captures how Spanish traditions were brought into the Filipino kitchen. All told, it reflects how Dungca lives on a wonderful edge between nuance and hedonism.

There’s good reason that Greg Vernick remains one of the foundational lights of modern Philly cooking: He has a sense of how Mid-Atlantic flavors can truly shine. That’s appeared more recently at his Vernick Fish, but his original spot remains packed, with good reason. Dishes like rock shrimp in a rice porridge with an accent of ginger show attention to both the edges of flavor and texture — in that case it presents like risotto but lands like very exquisite shrimp and grits. A celery root Milanese with a celery agridolce will have you paying homage anew to that vegetable. Small items “on toast,” like beef tartare with horseradish, could compose a whole perfect meal themselves. And the wine program remains one of the city’s best — a model of endless curiosity. The OG Vernick is a reminder that sometimes simplicity and a keen eye to detail can deliver more than whatever the latest cuisine du jour might be.

If Daniel Boulud doing a steakhouse seems almost too obvious an assignment, perhaps that’s because it’s … brilliant? The maximalism of the American steakhouse seems precisely the thing for the iconic French chef to embrace, as a means of channeling his soigné nature at a time when soigné feels like a rarity. Tête d’Or is designed to be a stunner — bring the in-laws and dazzle them — and it nails the assignment. The trappings are lavish, in a velvety French way. The seafood towers do indeed scrape the sky. The steaks embrace both French and American cuts (don’t miss the queue de filet, or tenderloin tail) — and there is, natch, a wagyu prime rib trolly. Sauces? You know au poivre is here, along with good old horseradish cream. Fries, bien sur; in fact, six kinds of potatoes, to keep Parmentier happy. A “French wedge” salad includes smoked beef tongue. And if you didn’t have Daniel Boulud on team Tableside Caesar on your bingo card … guess again.

Anyone dining in Boston in the past couple decades has likely eaten Jamie Bissonnette’s food — at, say, Toro, Coppa, Little Donkey, and more. His latest efforts, though, have gone a different direction … very different. Somaek is a very traditional take on Korean cooking, not fusiony Korean but a studious take on classics. What gives? In short, this is a family affair, namely the work of Bissonnette and his mother in law, Soon Han, Somaek’s consulting chef. This makes Somaek very much the opposite of an accomplished chef taking on a new cuisine as a lark; it is a deeply personal project for him, a chance to learn anew at a time most chefs are mentoring others. Of course, he is still one of Boston’s best chefs (and is overseeing neighboring Temple Records and Sushi @ Temple Records) which makes Somaek’s takes on Korean classics like bibim guksu a delight to enjoy.

A few years ago, Justin Pichetrungsi sounded like yet another quixotic young chef — tuning up classic Thai dishes, entranced by naturally-leaning wines. Except Pichetrungsi’s restaurant was 40 years old, run for decades by his father Rick and mother Rattikorn, a Thai American staple in the Valley. And Justin wasn’t a chef by training; he’d been working as an art director for Disney. So was born one of L.A. dining’s great successes, with Anajak named L.A. Times’ Restaurant of the Year. It has become a living manifestation of the city’s evolution of Thai cooking. There’s the no-reservations Thai Taco Tuesdays in the alley next door; an intimate monthly omakase allows Pichetrungsi to lean into fascinations like dry-aged fish; and a regular menu includes cult hits like a Massaman brisket curry. And how many neighborhood Thai joints have multiple sommeliers, and wine lists deep in Burgundy?

There’s a reason this compact boîte in a strip mall in Little Haiti — accented with its neon exclamation point outside — has become an epicenter of modern Miami cooking, even drawing a Michelin star: chefs ​​Alex Meyer and Luciana Giangrandi have found a particularly chill and South Floridian form of bistronomy, here channeled through astonishing takes on Italianate cooking. Their cooking  is twisted nuovo Italian of the best sort: beef tartare gets the tonnato treatment; black tagliolini is punched up with crab and vin jaune; a fra diavolo take is applied to lamb ribs. The net effect is a refreshing prism on how Italian American cooking has evolved with confidence and verve. And the duo are keenly aware of this lineage, as with Luci’s chopped salad — their interpretation of Nancy Silverton’s perfect version at L.A.’s Mozza.

If Chinese restaurants still get stuck with tired narratives — humble mom-and-pop, or soaring to second-generation gastronomic wonder? — CheLi represents a third path: distinctive, ambitious, regionally rooted in China today. In its case, the hook is the food of Jiangnan province; the only giveaway that you might not be in Shanghai is a faux-rustic village decor. But the (long) menu moves from strength to strength: Launch into classic starters like wine-soaked chicken, or linger on exceptional dim sum (pro tip: get the black-swan durian crisps), but make sure to dive deeper — for the now well-known longjing shrimp, poached in tea and served in a fog of dry ice; or a sweet-and-sour “squirrel” fish, so named for its flipped-up tail. In addition to a Flushing outpost, the location on St. Marks Place, in the heart of old East Village punk territory, evidences how NYC has embraced a grown-up, expansive view of Chinese cooking.

We are believers in not putting too much into nomenclature, and Joshua Pinsky and Chase Sinzer seem to be in a similar place. Is the Momofuku Ko alums’ hit Claud really just a “wine bar”?  Is its upstairs sibling Penny just a “seafood counter”?  In either case, the answer is “kinda.” Also, “Who cares?” On its face, yes, Penny is a seafood counter, with crimson shrimp and tidily garnished razor clams. But there’s Dover sole with bone marrow, and a crave-worthy ice cream sandwich (!). And, importantly, an erudite wine list that mirrors Sinzer’s epic work at Claud. The deep cuts of Loire and Burgundy whites reflect the seafood assignment, but reds get consideration too — all in a tilt that embraces natural-wine cult hits and important references alike. Do you want to graze a bit, drink, and move into your evening? Sure. Want to eat with gusto? They got you. Penny renders terminology irrelevant; spots this rewarding don’t need to wear labels.

Niki Nakayama has a precise understanding of how L.A. likes to dine. Her restaurant, n/naka, effectively defined kaiseki dining in the city. Yet she and her wife and partner Carole Iida-Nakayama don’t stand on ceremony — especially at their izakaya. Top chefs have learned to dabble in less fussy options, and on the surface, the menu at N/Soto sounds almost routine: nigiri and sashimi; grilled skewers; karaage; chawanmushi. That obscures the craftsmanship you’ll find at its highest level. (Get the housemade tofu.) It also obscures how downright fun it is to dine here. The duo take “izakaya” at face value; food on the plate can feel almost thrown together, until of course you drink some sake; take a bit of, say, miso-baked bone marrow; and are struck silent. Nakayama once worked at Mori Sushi, where Morihiro Onodera low-key built a pinnacle of L.A. Japanese cooking. N/Soto follows in that wonderful tradition.

It’s no longer news that Philly brings big dining energy, although the recent arrival of Michelin is a great closing of the loop. And in the midst of the Philly fray are Alex Kemp and Amanda Shulman, who charmed the city with Her Place Supper Club, then followed up with this sliver of a Rittenhouse Square storefront — their tribute to the Montréal-style cooking they cut their teeth on. (Kemp is a Québec native.) There’s good reason visiting chefs flock here: Call it French, call it Québecois, call it what you like, this is hedonistic, gutsy, eye-opening cooking. A dish like veal tongue with gribiche sauce might sound trad Parisian but finds new treble and bass here, while grilled trout belly with shrimp, fava beans and sauce américaine has so many overlapping ideas that at some point you stop trying to figure out the inspo and just let the deliciousness wash over you. That’s kind of a hallmark of the cooking at My Loup — technically impressive but never too cerebral. Ditto a beverage program that’s quirky, fun, and always a bit unexpected. (Don’t miss the Boulevardier Blanc.)

The whole roasted fluke at Foxface has become a force of nature in NYC dining — a massive platter with potatoes and greens, drenched in olive oil. True, there’s nothing groundbreaking; you could go several miles west to Newark’s Ironbound and get similarly Portuguese renditions. But David Santos is the sort of chef who finds the sublime in both simple and complex forms. His woodfired oven turns fish into fetish object. But Santos, owners Sivan Lahat and Ori Kushnir, and new wine director Max Leleux (ex Ten Bells BK), also want diners to embrace the challenging. “Natural” nods to the leanings of the wine list, one of New York’s most thrilling right now. And despite headlines for dishes like kangaroo tartare, the real complexity here is found, say, their pastas, such as malloreddus tossed with uni and saffron, a tribute to S.F.’s La Ciccia; or a tooth-edged spiral of girella with peas and blood sausage. Other seafood is similarly a joy in Santos’ hands, never in mild ways. (To serve gooseneck barnacles is a downright dare in these days of TikTok aesthetics.) And that’s the real joy of Foxface — how it asserts itself, very much in the lineage of Santos’ former boss David Bouley, who set a template for offering bold magic on the plate.

A revival of Colonial-era cooking was not likely on anybody’s dance card, but that has in fact come to be (see also the slow-burn success of Jody Williams’ Commerce Inn). This one can be credited to Clare de Boer, the respected English chef at New York’s King and Jupiter, who found a Revolutionary-era tavern a couple of hours north up the Taconic Parkway. The choice is perhaps more evident given de Boer’s history cooking at London’s River Cafe, a font of new British cooking, and Pine Plains’ location in the Hudson Valley, some of the world’s richest agricultural land. This reveals itself in dishes like pot-roasted vegetables with barley, and a halibut with butterball potatoes, artichoke and a salsa verde, along with hearty, archaic sounding fare like mussels cooked in cider, braised rabbit, and a substantial fish pie. This might all sound a bit simple, unless you’re familiar with de Boer’s cooking at King, which exulted in simple-sounding pleasures that were profound in their flavors. Stissing House yields much the same, except with an upstate prism — the sort of great country cooking that follows in the best tradition of a tavern welcome.

Buckhead may not be the most academic Atlanta neighborhood, but believe us when we tell you that if you’re a book lover, it’s worth a trip to see Katie Barringer and Jordan Smelt’s clean, well-lighted place. Here’s a bibliophile’s dream: Barringer, who formerly ran the city’s beloved Cover Books, has filled the wall shelves with a deft selection of titles that lean to design, art, food, and wine. If many restaurants use books as props, these are very much meant to browse and buy. That could just be a novel twist, no pun intended, except that Smelt (ex Cakes & Ale) runs a great room and has built one of the city’s top wine programs, and chef Jason Paolini’s plates are compelling studies in flavor — a tiny bit French, a smidgen New Southern, but mostly just eye-opening, as with a merlot-braised cabbage with dashi and baby shrimp, or roast duck with creamed collard greens (and foie gras, natch). Lucian has perfected the notion of “third space,” whether you’re around the block or visiting from several time zones away.

Two things New York has perfected? The steakhouse and the pub.  OK, a third thing — the blossoming of Korean American cooking for every budget and aesthetic. Samuel Yoo, who broke the mold with his Golden Diner, has wrapped all three together in NY Kimchi, as well as its accompanying pub, Golden HOF. The former is a Korean steakhouse, and while that’s not new ground (see: Cote) Yoo took a slightly more populist route. Yes, you can get 24 ounces of dry-aged porterhouse for $160, but much of the menu has economic solidarity with nearby Koreatown — hangar steak for $44, lamb chops for $46, the latter in tribute to the legendary Keens. Upstairs, Yoo has bar food at Golden Hof — his take on a pub burger, wings, and a “rosé rigatoni” that sounds strikingly familiar to a West Village spicy vodka situation. One more thing: Did we mention these are on 48th Street, right by Rockefeller Center? Not only are they worth a visit themselves, but they’re the perfect solution to the traveler’s conundrum: a great Midtown meal.

There’s a reason that those who know dining come to Charleston with one non-optional stop. In part, that’s because oysters are pretty much a mandatory part of a visit (with no shortage of options, including The Ordinary and Darling Oyster Bar), but Leon’s has long springboarded into a realm of its own. Yes, there are fine bivalves. But you’re also here for fried chicken that has earned Leon’s much of its reputation. And with all that, you’re here for an astonishing selection of grower Champagne to complete the trifecta. (Add on a coconut daiquiri or michelada with a Miller High Life pony chaser to complete the effect.) Like we said, there’s good reason Leon’s is more or less on perennial Notify.

Been to Emeril’s lately? It’s ok if you haven’t — as much as the Lagasse name is etched into American food culture, Emeril himself was part of a TV era that’s long been subsumed by social media, the internet, all that.  Of course, his flagship restaurant has been a mainstay of New Orleans dining all along, and lately it has gotten a bit of a glow-up with the arrival of E.J. Lagasse, Emeril’s son, who now runs the kitchen and has brought some new, finessed touches — in a tasting menu that offers his own take on French-Creole cooking: an oyster stew with Herbsaint cream, boudin with Creole mustard, and importantly, a savory salmon cheesecake with kaluga caviar. The wine program too is all strengths right now, and is complemented with a new wine bar that offers access to the list’s deep cuts with more casual bites. So while we love all the new energy in New Orleans, we’re also here for a classic to get some fresh energy.