The 9 Best Restaurants In America 2024 - The Infatuation (2024)

photo credit: Evan Sung

Most of The Infatuation’s restaurant and bar guides start with “The Best” this or “The Best” that. And unlike how you might call a good friend a best friend or a perfectly lovely afternoon the best day ever, we quantify what best means with a ratings system that goes from 1-10, which you are welcome to read about here.

What’s most important to know is that we consider both food and overall experience, as well as that tingly feeling that only a truly special restaurant, falling in love, or an electric shock can give a person. A question we often ask ourselves is, “How recommendable is this restaurant?” We go from there.

This guide takes the best restaurant from all of our Best Restaurant guides combined—it highlights the highest-rated restaurant in each of the 11 US cities where we have full-time staff. These are the most recommendable restaurants in America right now.

THE SPOTS

NEW YORK CITY

Like a ’90s nightclub plopped into the middle of NYC’s Lincoln Center, Tatiana glows blue and chain-link gold, blasts Lauryn Hill and Biggie, and serves the most exciting food we’ve tasted at a fancy restaurant, ever. You’ll have just as much fun clocking tracks on the throwback playlist as you will dissecting all the menu’s references to NYC classics, from Afro-Caribbean hot bars to Chinese take-out. You’ll even find a nod to the Cosmic brownies at corner bodegas. We’re especially fond of the absurdly tender short rib pastrami suya, served with caraway coco bread, inviting you to build sliders. Tatiana is one of the hardest reservations in town, but for a restaurant that feels like a paradigm shift in New York fine dining, it’s well worth it. Ask about the jello shots.

LOS ANGELES

What makes a restaurant the highest-rated in LA? For starters, you could dine at this family-run Thai spot in Sherman Oaks a hundred times and have a completely different—and equally special—experience each time. Come on Tuesdays for dry-aged fish tacos and collaborations with guest chefs, farmers, and foragers. Show up on just about any other night to drink wine that’s been sourced from a Slovenian commune and eat Southern Thai fried chicken you will be thinking about for the rest of your life. Then there’s the outdoor omakase—a multi-course, reservation-only experience where outdoor grills shoot twirling embers into the air. We get asked what our favorite restaurant in LA is every single day, and we used to give rambling answers that started with, “It depends…” Not anymore—the answer is Anajak.

MIAMI

It makes sense that Tâm Tâm in Miami started out as a sexy pop-up supper club, because dinner here is still a social event worth circling on your calendar. But you’re not coming to this Vietnamese restaurant in Downtown just to post a forehead selfie in one of the curvy mirrors on the wall. You’re here to eat some of the most delicious food in Miami. Many of Tâm Tâm’s best dishes—like the sticky fish sauce caramel wings and the tamarind glazed pork ribs—are gloriously messy. Maybe don’t wear white. But Tâm Tâm has even found a way to make washing your hands an absolute blast. We won’t spoil it, but pick the second bathroom on the right.

CHICAGO

Oriole in Chicago will give you one of the best meals of your life for a high price tag ($295). Despite the price, the environment (which you enter through a non-working freight elevator in an alley in the West Loop) isn’t stuffy at all. Attentive servers provide just the right amount of context while presenting you with dishes that will reframe your thoughts—like a truffle pasta with the power to finally convince you that truffles aren’t always a scam. And when it's time for the foie gras course (billowy foie mousse topped with blueberries on toasted brioche) you’ll be moved to a counter seat in front of the open kitchen, because we can only assume the chefs want to watch your face while you eat it.

SAN FRANCISCO

There’s no place in San Francisco like Noodle In A Haystack. This pop-up-turned-restaurant in the Richmond has just 12 seats. It’s run by a ridiculously charming husband and wife duo that’ll gladly swap Tokyo recs as you dig into chawanmushi from across the counter. Throughout the night, eight to 10 Japanese-inspired courses ($195) land in front of you like they were dropped into this mortal dimension from the pearly gates. The two standout bowls of ramen rotate, but they’re always made with custom, impeccably boiled noodles and jazzed up with twists you won’t see on any other tonkotsu bowls around town. It’s damn near impossible to get a reservation here, but once you do, know that you’ll never look at another noodle soup the same way again.

SEATTLE

This eight-seat wood grain counter in Seattle is more than a 10-course dinner inspired by the owners’ Filipino heritage. It’s a billboard for the Pacific Northwest and a meal that should be required by law for every resident. Each dish represents a part of history that connects our city to Filipino culture, and Archipelago only uses ingredients exclusively sourced throughout the region. That means you’ll get plates like tart vinegar-cured kinilaw with local ginger served on a sardine tin to shout out the cannery workers from Seattle, and the vibrant halo halo topped with “pineapple ice.” Pineapple doesn’t grow here, so it’s pine plus apple—which is just one example of how intentional the entire production is. After two hours, you’ll walk away from Archipelago with a belly full of outstanding lechon (crispy skin and all) and a newfound appreciation for both Filipino food and the surrounding PNW.

ATLANTA

New American restaurant Lazy Betty didn’t just kick off the tasting menu boom in Atlanta, it set the standard for what lavish multi-course experiences could be. The menu shifts frequently to incorporate a range of seasonal ingredients—and to keep repeat diners on their toes. Courses sway from straightforward (tender filets of cod or wagyu beef in a buttery wine sauce) to unexpected (a beef wellington play with a giant scallop coated in a herby truffle custard). Decorated with statement lighting and tons of live plants, their Midtown location is the perfect middleground, where you’ll be welcomed whether you strut in with a floor-length fur before catching a show at the Fox or straight from denim day at the office.

AUSTIN

No restaurant in Austin is more dedicated to the concept of “local” than Dai Due in Cherrywood. This place does things the hard, Oregon Trail way. That means brined pork chops and 80-day dry-aged ribeyes cooked over a wood-fired grill, wild Hill Country game, and a menu made from locally sourced everything. It’s as Texas as it gets—with a semi-casual formality to match it—and every dinner here is just a little bit different from the last, with a menu that changes nightly. Fortunately for you, there’s no concern of dying from dysentery to experience it.

HOUSTON

Kata Robata in Houston operates on a level most places only dream of. Despite its long sushi list, plus izakaya dishes like silken chawanmushi, and smoky grilled hamachi kama, the Upper Kirby spot never gets bogged down or skimps on quality. Everything runs like clockwork, as though it’s been pumping out sushi and grilled skewers since the beginning of time. Whatever you’ve come here for—a proper omakase at the sushi bar, or a simple bowl of ramen—Kata handles any situation with ease.