The Infatuation’s Highest-Rated Restaurants In America

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.

PHILADELPHIA

There’s nothing else in Philly quite like Provenance, a restaurant that serves a procession of 20-plus modern French dishes. The $225 tasting menu wanders from caviar-topped or gold-dusted seafood snacks to more substantial—but no less intricate—helpings of scallop and seared pork belly in a kimchi beurre fondue. It’s the kind of place where a single dish has three duck preparations, somehow packaged in just two bites, and desserts are almost too stunning to eat. But for all the unbroken sauces, savory sabayon, and utensil-swapping between courses, Provenance doesn’t feel so serious. It just feels f*cking great.

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.

HOUSTON

Nancy’s Hustle in Houston is the cool restaurant that gets better with every visit. The music is effortlessly curated and the lighting is set to the perfect hue of date-night amber. It's one of the hardest reservations to book, but Nancy's is worth the effort. The menu rotates with the seasons, but count on the mainstays like the fluffy Nancy Cakes, double-patty topped with briny pickles, and the delicate lamb tartare to be on the menu (which means they should also be on your table).

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. 

AUSTIN

A meal at Birdie’s in Austin is homey and thoughtful, like a backyard dinner party thrown by your very talented chef friend where creative plates keep coming and you can never seem to find the bottom of your wine glass. The food is “New American” in the sense that it’s difficult to pin down the exact influences other than seasonality and stuff that simply tastes good, but that’s not really important anyway. What’s important is showing up with a date or a few friends, ordering as much of the constantly changing menu as possible, and trying to choose a favorite between dishes like refreshing carrot soup, perfectly al dente tortiglioni, and soft serve drizzled with jam and Sicilian olive oil. No two meals are ever the same, and that’s part of what makes dinner here so exciting.

NASHVILLE

If restaurants could have astrological signs, Bastion's would be Gemini. That’s because this Nashville spot has two very distinct sides: a rollicking, come-as-you-are bar with nachos and punch bowls, and a small dining room that’s serving one of the best and most well-thought-out tasting menus in the city. While the menu changes, you can count on a minimalist style of cooking that’s confident without being showy. The service is typical of similar fine dining places—welcoming, but not annoyingly in-your-face—but at Bastion, you can bring your own records and play them for the room. We also love that you can skip the tasting menu altogether and grab a stool at the bar upfront if you just want some of Nashville’s best nachos.

Langbaan in Portland, Oregon is always the right call for a big night-out dinner when you want to spend a small fortune on modern Thai dishes built to impress. It's from the restaurant group that includes Eem and Yaowarat, and takes over Phuket Cafe Wednesday-Sunday (Phuket Cafe is still open then). The ever-changing $135, five-course tasting menu will start with a parade of sweet, spicy, and funky one-bite wonders, like their signature Hokkaido scallop, and then move on to plates like a knockout gaeng luang—the soupy curry with roe-topped king salmon wouldn’t be out of place at a highly prestigious restaurant in Bangkok.

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.

HUDSON, NEW YORK

New York’s Hudson Valley has not-so-quietly become one of the most interesting food regions in the country, and Lil Deb’s Oasis is the crown jewel we plan all of our Upstate getaways around. It’s impossible to not feel hot at this restaurant, which looks like a neon-filled dive bar but serves decadent dashi risotto and perfectly tender scallop tartare atop of a salty prawn chip. Pretty much everyone here is wearing a crop top, and wine descriptions read like cryptic Connections solutions (tasting notes include “tiny pants” and “overdue apology”). Always order the whole fried fish—digging into the crisp, piping-hot flaky goodness with your bare hands before dipping it into the citrusy sauce is a sensual experience.

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.