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Our 50 Favorite Restaurants of 2022

The Restaurant

List 2022

50 places in America we’re most excited about right now.

The Restaurant List

50 places in America we’re most excited about right now.

2022

Sept. 19, 2022

We traveled widely and ate avidly as we built the annual list of our favorite restaurants in America. From Oklahoma City to Juncos, Puerto Rico, to Orcas Island off the coast of Washington State, our food reporters, editors and critics found revelatory Ethiopian barbecue, innovative Haitian cooking and possibly the most delicious fried pork sandwich in the United States.

While we love to see a dynamic new dining room open its doors, we’re equally impressed by kitchens that are doing their best work years in. So while some of our picks debuted just this summer, others have been around for decades. The one thing they do have in common: The food is amazing.

These are the 50 restaurants we love most in 2022.

View List

Abacá  

  San Francisco

In a soaring, sunlit dining room framed with hanging plants, Francis and Dian Ang and the team behind the Filipino pop-up Pinoy Heritage make every dinner feel like a party, complete with pancit and lumpia, habit-forming barbecue sticks of beef tongue and homemade longanisa, and a series of platitos that change in step with Northern California’s seasonal seafood and produce. Look for a QR code that leads you to a "secret" menu of some of the Ang family's favorite snacks, including balut and duck hearts. TEJAL RAO

Opened August 2021

Website restaurantabaca.com

Photographs by Melissa de Mata / Creative West

Anajak Thai  

  Los Angeles

Technically speaking, Anajak Thai is 41 years old, but when Justin Pichetrungsi took over the Sherman Oaks bistro from his parents a couple of years ago, he built on the Thai menu and natural wine list in thoughtful and utterly delicious ways. Go for the more experimental omakase-style menu on the weekend, the freewheeling spirit of Thai Taco Tuesdays, or anytime you manage to get a table and spend time with the whole grilled sea bream in a bright green pool of tangy nam jim or Southern Thai-style fried chicken. TEJAL RAO

Opened 1981

Website anajakthai.com

Photographs by Lauren Justice for The New York Times

Andiario  

  West Chester, Pa.

When Tony Andiario and Maria van Schaijik moved from Phoenix to West Chester, Pa., in 2017, they landed in his home state and not far from her parents. The restaurant the couple opened the following year suggests other incentives. The peppery local radicchio, for instance, which Mr. Andiario sets in a tangle over sheer slices of porchetta di testa, atop a golden round of chestnut crespelle. Or Pennsylvania guinea hens coated in a cream sauce thick with local mushrooms. Italian restaurants are popular vehicles for showcasing regional ingredients. Mr. Andiario takes things a step further, persuading diners to believe, at least over the span of a meal, that there are few places better situated for cooking Italian food than this college town 30 miles west of Philadelphia. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened March 2018

Website andiario.com

Photographs by Dan Sauer

Apteka  

  Pittsburgh

It is not shocking to find an excellent Eastern European restaurant in a city where pierogi listicles count as clickbait. The twist at Apteka is that the food is vegan; the thrill is that you won’t notice anything missing. The co-chefs, co-owners and life partners Kate Lasky and Tomasz Skowronski build depth, texture and flavor with fermentation, ingenuity (don’t miss the celeriac schnitzel) and cultured nut milk as lush as crème fraîche. Their produce-driven food is shaped in part by Mr. Skowronski; a son of Polish immigrants, he grew up visiting relatives with abundant gardens in and around Warsaw. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened February 2016

Website aptekapgh.com

Photographs by Christine Armbruster for The New York Times

Audrey  

  Nashville

Sean Brock brings every bit of his culinary, intellectual and history-loving self to this restaurant, which was named for his grandmother and is dedicated to interpreting and honoring Appalachian food. What does that look like? Some dishes come from a Noma-like lab where, for example, he extracts the essence of the dried snap beans called leather britches and turns it into a demi-glace, which he uses to slick a succotash built from nixtamalized hominy and a pickled version of the same bean. An ember-roasted lion’s-mane mushroom crowns the dish. Mr. Brock’s hand has touched every part of the restaurant, from the rare collection of outsider art on the walls to the meditation room for staff upstairs. KIM SEVERSON

Opened October 2021

Website audreynashville.com

Video and photographs by William DeShazer for The New York Times

Bacanora  

  Phoenix

At this corner restaurant lit up in neon, the caramelo stands apart. It’s a nontraditional take: a corn tortilla grilled until crisp and piled generously with salsa, queso fresco, plump pinto beans and shreds of carne asada. But this place is hardly a one-hit wonder. There are practically no misses on the short menu of Sonoran food, anchored by a large grill (there are no ovens or stoves) and the chef Rene Andrade’s uncanny ability to balance brightness, salt and acidity. He’s the kind of cook who puts as much care into a side of beans as he does into a special of grilled yellowtail collar glazed with tangy chamoy — and it shows. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened February 2021

Website bacanoraphx.com

Photograph by Caitlin O'Hara for The New York Times

Bacoa Finca + Fogón  

  Juncos, P.R.

Unlike a typical farm-to-table restaurant, Bacoa plants its tables right in the middle of the farm, in the rolling mountains about 30 miles south of San Juan. In truth, the property grows just a fraction of the ingredients that Raúl Correa, Xavier Pacheco and René Marichal transform, most often over fire, into dishes that are rustic and sophisticated in almost equal measure. But the sense of place is so firm you can almost touch it as you sit on the verandah eating thin, almost delicate bacalaítos on a stick with improbably good garlic ketchup; shrimp over smoky fideuà with the requisite crisp bottom crust; marinated rabbit left on the grill until it starts to char and served under crisscrossed leaves of flash-fried culantro. PETE WELLS

Opened August 2019

Website bacoapr.com/en/

Video and photographs by Sebastian Castrodad for The New York Times

Bonnie’s  

  New York City

Decades ago, Cantonese cuisine spread far and wide through the United States. At Bonnie’s, the chef Calvin Eng makes it all seem new again, no easy trick. He serves a creamy dressing thick with garlic chives — he calls it Chinese ranch — as a dip for salt-and-pepper squid. There is a version of cacio e pepe in which the pungent sheep’s milk cheese is replaced by fermented tofu. You could probably write a dissertation about his char siu McRib as a metaphor for the experience of Chinese immigrant families in America. The dining room is packed pretty much from the minute the doors open, which suggests that Brooklyn understands what Mr. Eng is trying to say. PETE WELLS

Opened December 2021

Website bonniesbrooklyn.com

Video by Lanna Apisukh for the New York Times and photographs by Adam Friedlander for The New York Times.

Brennan’s  

  New Orleans

Restaurants that last a long time go through phases, and Brennan’s has gone through more than most. In the mid-20th century, it helped put New Orleans on the culinary map. It has been mostly a tourist destination ever since, and not always a recommendable one. That changed when Ralph Brennan, a descendant of the restaurant’s founder, bought it. Since reopening in 2014, the sprawling, opulent, coral-pink restaurant in the French Quarter has been on a roll. There is a clean-lined sheen to the chef Ryan Hacker’s shrimp rémoulade, turtle soup and blackened redfish, interspersed with welcome innovations like octopus étouffée. If the strategy sounds familiar — a historic restaurant with one foot in the past, the other in the present — that’s because it is. What sets Brennan’s apart? It’s fun. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened 1946

Website brennansneworleans.com

Photographs by Chris Granger (interiors) and Eugenia Uhl (food)

Cafe Mutton  

  Hudson, N.Y.

If you’ve been to Warren Street, the main drag of Hudson, N.Y., then you know just how upscale the small town has become. But Shaina Loew-Banayan’s Cafe Mutton, just steps from that main drag, is refreshingly down home. Orders are taken at a counter and seating is first come first served. If there’s anything upscale about this restaurant, it’s the careful attention paid to turning otherwise pedestrian items like fried bologna sandwiches, crepes and rice porridge into the very best versions of themselves, and the best version you’re likely to try in any small town anywhere. NIKITA RICHARDSON

Opened May 2021

Website @cafemutton on Instagram

Photographs by Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Canje  

  Austin, Texas

The chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph made a name for himself in Austin with the pastries at Emmer & Rye and Hestia, which he co-owns. Here at Canje — an ode to his Guyanese roots, with a menu that also stretches across the Caribbean — he has switched gears, with brilliant results. The food is a tangy, spicy, bright, coconutty dreamscape. Tilefish soaked in tamarind and rum butter. Prawns brushed with a verdant green seasoning and smoked chiles. A tres leches cake drenched in coconut milk. What makes the jerk chicken so supercharged with flavor? Mr. Bristol-Joseph ferments his seasoning. And plan on at least one order of the buttery Guyanese-style roti per person. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened October 2021

Website canjeatx.com

Video and photographs by Jessica Attie for The New York Times

Chicken’s Kitchen  

  Gretna, La.

The busiest day at Chicken’s Kitchen is the first Tuesday of every month, when customers start lining up as early as 7:45 a.m. (doors open at 10:30) for stewed oxtails. But there are always lines at this takeout-only restaurant, where the menu changes daily. On Wednesdays, crowds form for smothered turkey necks and braised greens, on Thursdays for blackened catfish and crawfish hush puppies. The restaurant is named for its owner, Marlon Chukumerije, a New Orleans native, known as Chicken, who taught himself to cook by watching his grandmother, his mother and the Food Network. And it’s well worth a trip to Gretna, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened September 2020

Website Chicken’s Kitchen Facebook

Video and photographs by L. Kasimu Harris for The New York Times

Daru  

  Washington, D.C.

Back in 2017, Dante Datta and Suresh Sundas envisioned Daru primarily as a cocktail bar with some stellar bites. What finally materialized last August at the easternmost end of the city’s H Street corridor was a truly imaginative Indian restaurant, with dishes like a supple hunk of burrata submerged in a pool of fragrant black dal, and a sprightly moilee appetizer studded with scallops. Vestiges of the cocktail bar that never was remain in boozy concoctions featuring green cardamom, coriander and masala chai, as well as in the name: Daru is the Hindi word for country liquor, or hooch. TANYA SICHYNSKY

Opened August 2021

Website darudc.com

Photographs by Scott Suchman for The New York Times

Dear Annie  

  Cambridge, Mass.

Vibes have officially come to the Boston ‘burbs. On Massachusetts Avenue, the main drag in Cambridge, Dear Annie is the perfect advertisement for itself. There is an effervescence to the room — playful neon signage, come-hither shelves of natural wines, brightly hued tableware — that spills out to the streetside patio dining area. The food is equally charming. Mussels pickled in house are the best dinner-party version of tinned fish. The grilled cheese with poblano and corn jam is a perfect high-summer bite, and the compulsively dippable seafood fumet may be the best thing to happen to the bread course since butter. BRIAN GALLAGHER

Opened March 2022

Website dearanniebar.com

Photographs by Sophie Park for The New York Times

Dear Margaret  

  Chicago

Ryan Brosseau and Lacey Irby know that French-Canadian cuisine is misunderstood. That’s why a message at the top of their restaurant’s web page warns, “No, we don’t serve poutine!” What they do serve is smooth duck liver pâté crowned by pink lemon marmalade and buckwheat granola; split pea panisse riding stewed mustard greens with housemade paneer; and beef-tallow-fried smelts from Mr. Brosseau’s native Ontario. Mr. Brosseau, the chef, and Ms. Irby are first-time restaurateurs. Thanks to the grace of its cooking and service, Dear Margaret feels like an old soul. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened January 2021

Website dearmargaretchi.com

Photographs by Michelle Litvin for The New York Times (food and exterior) and Anjali Pinto for The New York Times (portrait)

Elvie’s  

  Jackson, Miss.

Elvie’s opened in early 2020, six weeks before pandemic restrictions caused it to temporarily close and roughly 40 years after modern American bistro-trattorias started to proliferate across the Deep South. Meals here proceed seamlessly from New Orleans-style baked oysters to pork tonkatsu, vegetable lumpia to redfish amandine, shrimp remoulade to cacio e pepe. Chef Hunter Evans, who owns Elvie’s with his fellow Jackson native Cody McCain, brings a sure hand to these dishes, served in a tastefully restored, once-abandoned home in an emerging cosmopolitan section of Mississippi’s capital. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened February 2020

Website elviesrestaurant.com

Photographs courtesy of Elvie’s

Evette’s   Chicago

Mitchell Abou Jamra struck upon novel ways to make a splash with tacos in a city already rich with taquerias. The most ingenious may be the tortillas he fills with jalapeño tabouli, whipped feta and bacon-y crisp halloumi in a gloss of Aleppo pepper oil. If you choose to order the three tacos for $14 (as you should), you’re going to want to try the gyro and chicken shawarma versions as well. Take them to a windowside stool in the sunny little cafe Mr. Abou Jamra named after his Lebanese grandmother, and daydream of what could happen if the chef ever turned his talents to Middle Eastern enchiladas. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened October 2020

Website evetteschicago.com

Photographs by Lucy Hewett for The New York Times

Freya   Detroit

Located in a neighborhood where the bones of the city’s past economic might are still visible, Freya’s resourcefully repurposed building is a sign of more recent resilience. Inside, the soundtrack is chosen by diners from a collection of vinyl records listed in a bound volume, like bottles of wine; Motor City artists are well-represented. And still the thing that feels most Detroit about the place is its food. Douglas Hewitt, an owner, and the chef de cuisine Phoebe Zimmerman execute the four separate prix fixe menus — the vegan one is particularly impressive — with cool confidence, producing gorgeous, skillfully balanced dishes that deserve to be sources of hometown pride. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened November 2021

Website freyadetroit.com

Photographs by Elaine Cromie for The New York Times (portrait) and Jacob Lewkow (food)

Gabriella’s Vietnam  

  Philadelphia

The presentation of the food here is as thrilling as the flavors, and a meal can quickly turn into a party. Bánh bèo chén, or water fern dumplings, arrive open face and in individual bowls topped with crackled pork and shrimp, with nước mắm on the side. Bánh bột lọc comes in the form of chewy tapioca sheathed in banana leaves that you unwrap like a gift. A catfish hot pot is housed in a tureen with tomatoes and okra bobbing at the surface of the tangy, sweet broth. The restaurant is minimally decorated — perhaps because the food does all the talking. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened February 2021

Website gabriellasvietnam.com

Video and photographs by Lanna Apisukh for The New York Times

The Harvey House  

  Madison, Wis.

The cavalcade of kitsch pervading many modern supper clubs invites diners to consume their meals with ironic detachment. But Harvey House distinguishes itself with sincerity. Joe Papach is a former French Laundry sous chef who opened the restaurant last year with his wife, Shaina. Their innovative but faithful takes on the classic supper-club repertoire beg one to ask, what’s not to like about pea soup (poured tableside into a cloud of Cheddar mousse)? A relish tray (with trout roe)? Lake Superior walleye (fixed with a thin, crouton-crisp slice of pumpernickel)? In the capital city of the supper-club capital of the world, Mr. Papach’s flirtations with perfection feel patriotic. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened July 2021

Website theharveyhouse.com

Photograph by Nicole Franzen

Here’s Looking at You  

  Los Angeles

Lien Ta and Jonathan Whitener’s quirky little restaurant on the edge of Koreatown reopened this year, buzzing with energy, noise and new ideas. It’s one of the restaurants that define the culinary moment in Los Angeles, as it continuously reshapes itself with dynamic dishes that are easy to love and hard to categorize, like frogs’ legs with salsa negra. TEJAL RAO

Opened January 2022

Website hereslookingatyoula.com

Photographs by Oriana Koren For The New York Times

Kabob Grill N’ Go  

  Phoenix

Pick a skewer, any skewer. At Kabob Grill N’ Go, large cases display swords of lamb, beef, pork ribs and chicken, each marinating in a different blend of spices — cayenne, sumac, black pepper — the flavors rooted in Persian and Armenian cuisines. Once you’ve made your choice, the co-owner Tony Chilingaryan, who does the butchering himself, will grill your selection over mesquite wood to order, basting the meat with his secret sauce. Expect to wait at least 20 minutes, but you’ll be rewarded with kabobs that are juicy beyond belief. Douse everything in Mr. Chilingaryan’s pepper-forward take on chimichurri, and you’ve got what may be one of the best lunches in Phoenix. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened May 2020

Website kabobgrillngo.com

Video and photographs by Caitlin O'Hara for The New York Times

Kann  

  Portland, Ore.

At Kann, Gregory Gourdet realizes his long-gestating vision for a restaurant that treats the food of his Haitian forebears with the seriousness he learned to apply to Asian and European cuisine as a young chef working for Jean-Georges Vongerichten. With a staff led by the chef de cuisine Varanya J. Geyoonsawat, Kann leans into the lapel-grabbing power of dynamically spiced, live-fire cooking. If you didn’t know walking in that akra, griyo and legim were staples of Haitian cuisine, you’ll learn it soon enough, along with the history of Haiti and its food, both shaped by slavery and colonialism.

It’s hard not to admire a restaurant serving food this special, that dares to take so much more on its shoulders. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened August 2022

Website kannrestaurant.com

Photographs by Celeste Noche for The New York Times

Kato  

  Los Angeles

When it was tucked inside a strip mall, Jon Yao’s restaurant was scrappy and ambitious — fine dining without the trappings or liquor license. In its new luxurious space, Kato has grown into a more polished, formidable splurge, with dish after stunning dish inspired by the foods of Mr. Yao’s Taiwanese American upbringing, and plenty of options for brainy cocktails and pairings. Dinner here is proof that the formality of the tasting-menu format, with all of its conventions, can still be electrifying. TEJAL RAO

Opened February 2022

Website katorestaurant.com

Video and photographs by Adam Amengual for The New York Times

Kitty’s Cafe  

  Kansas City, Mo.

This is the kind of place where a customer announces, “I think I’m going to keep it light today” before ordering a cheeseburger and fries. But the pork sandwich is really the reason you should not visit Kansas City without visiting Kitty’s. Charley Soulivong, the owner since 1999, uses the recipe passed down by Kitty Kawakami, who founded the restaurant in 1951 with her husband, Paul. Those Japanese American roots survive in three tempura-battered pork cutlets that come stacked with julienne iceberg, raw onions, pickles — crunch layered with crisp — and dressed with a hot sauce that eats like spicy ketchup. Kansas City is known for destination barbecue. It ought to be better known for the Kitty’s sandwich. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened 1951

Website @kittyscafekc on Instagram

Photograph by Katie Currid for The New York Times

Leah & Louise  

  Charlotte, N.C.

At Greg and Subrina Collier’s little restaurant, the ride starts the minute fried chicken skins seasoned in the style of Zapp’s voodoo chips hit the table. The names of the dishes are almost as fun as eating them: Wabbit Season, a classic Country Captain made with rabbit, or Mud Island, a perfect piece of blackened catfish with catfish stew. The real sleeper, though, is Leah’s Cabbage, named after Mr. Collier’s sister. He roasts whole conical cabbage, then bathes it in pork-neck bisque touched with pepper honey and chunks of smoked sausage. It will forever change how you think of cabbage. The restaurant, in a repurposed industrial development called Camp North End, is the first of five new places the Colliers and their restaurant group have planned for the complex, designed to provide opportunities to Black cooks and managers. KIM SEVERSON

Opened March 2022

Website leahandlouise.com

Photographs by Peter Taylor

Leeward  

  Portland, Maine

While the phrase “summering in Maine” might inspire visions of split-top buns bursting with lobster meat, it may soon conjure memories of Leeward’s conchiglie tossed with sweet Jonah crab, softened tomatoes and chiles and then showered with bread crumbs. Or perhaps the tomato and zucchini panzanella, pleasantly fishy from pops of trout roe, or the remarkable corn gelato — though dishes less tethered to summer’s peak, like clams and fregola in a spicy, fennel-tinged broth reminiscent of the finest hot sausage, shine just as brightly. The owners, Raquel and Jake Stevens (who is also the chef), have managed to capture the essence of a season on the water, where everything feels like golden hour. TANYA SICHYNSKY

Opened March 2020

Website leewardmaine.com

Photographs by Nicole Wolf

Little Mad  

  New York City

“Tasting menu” and “fun” don’t exactly go hand-in-hand, but at Little Mad, Sol Han’s Korean American restaurant, there’s no shortage of delight. Take the fried buhsut, deep-fried maitake mushrooms served with sour cream and onion dip and presented inside a halved onion, papery skin and all. Or the mad toast, which despite its amalgam of fine-dining buzzwords — truffle, caviar, Wagyu — sits perfectly at the crossroads of style and substance. And the prime galbi served “ssam party”-style may be one of New York City’s best new steak offerings. And that the whole thing comes out to $100 before tax and tip, well, that’s just magical. NIKITA RICHARDSON

Opened June 2021

Website littlemadnyc.com

Photographs courtesy of LittleMad

Little Saint  

  Healdsburg, Calif.

It may seem like a cheat to open a plant-based restaurant in the Sonoma Valley’s cradle of organic abundance. But it would almost be a shame not to open one, if you had not only a 24-acre farm nearby but also the cooking brain trust of Single Thread, Little Saint’s sibling restaurant with three Michelin stars. The food here, like the space, is bright and inviting. Chilled strawberry borscht levels up with a spike of curry and coconut yogurt. The smashed cucumbers with XO sauce and crispy rice lightly scorch and then refresh. And the crust on a chocolate tart will make you wonder why anyone uses anything but coconut cream as shortening. Most important, the preparations revel in the produce, rather than just ratcheting up the umami in a quest to conjure animal flavors. BRIAN GALLAGHER

Opened April 2022

Website littlesainthealdsburg.com

Video and photographs by Carolyn Fong for The New York Times

Locust   Nashville

Ask Nashville chefs where they eat on their days off, and more likely than not they’ll say Locust, the deceptively unassuming restaurant run by Trevor Moran, an Irishman who spent four years cooking at Noma in Copenhagen before landing in Nashville at the buzzy tasting-menu counter the Catbird Seat. There are no servers here. Mr. Moran or one of his merry band of chefs will coax you past the small menu and onto an exhilarating (and expensive) ride. They might be stuffing escargot into halibut or turning caviar, rice and raw, chopped bottom round from a Tennessee ranch into deconstructed sushi. Of course, you’ll order the dumplings, but end it all with the only dessert: a wild version of the Japanese shaved-ice confection called kakigori. KIM SEVERSON

Opened October 2020

Website locustnashville.com

Photographs by Andrew Thomas Lee

Lucian Books and Wine  

  Atlanta

That this perfect oasis in Atlanta’s glitzy Buckhead neighborhood was named after Lucian Freud, the renowned British painter and grandson of Sigmund, is only one indication of its sensibilities. Here you’ll find creamy omelets with caviar spooned over the top and French fries exactly the way you want them: crisp with hot, tender interiors, served with herbed mayonnaise. A roasted duck leg with crackling skin sits atop lady peas and cherry tomatoes. Ricotta gnudi might show up dressed in morels and English peas or cherry tomatoes and basil. All in a warm, light-filled cafe with about 40 seats, a small bar and a towering arched walnut bookshelf of art, fashion and cookbooks for sale, selected by Katie Barringer, who owns the place with her husband, Jordan Smelt, a gifted wine director. KIM SEVERSON

Opened July 2022

Website lucianbooksandwine.com

Photographs courtesy of Lucian Books and Wine

Lutèce  

  Washington, D.C.

At this charming Georgetown bistro, the chef Matt Conroy’s approach to French cooking is influenced not only by the progressive Parisian neo-bistros, but also at times by the cuisines of Mexico, the birthplace of his wife and collaborator, the pastry chef Isabel Coss. Charred napa cabbage is tucked between a sheet of creamy tahini and a duvet of sesame-flecked Parmesan, and the steak tartare is enlivened with fermented chiles. Ms. Coss’s desserts are refined yet playful. She is infinitely creative with the mille-feuille template, but other notable creations include a Concord grape granita with black sesame curd, and a honey ice cream hidden under shaved Comté cheese. You can leave your fate entirely up to the couple, who offer a surprisingly affordable four-course tasting menu. TANYA SICHYNSKY

Opened August 2020

Website lutecedc.com

Photographs by Isabel Coss

Ma Der Lao Kitchen  

  Oklahoma City

Lao food was once hard to find by name in American restaurants. But the chef Jeff Chanchaleune is one in a class of Lao American chefs boldly asserting their identity through food. And he is doing it on an artsy street in Oklahoma City. His cooking is unapologetic. Ground, roasted Thai chiles coat each grain of crispy rice in the nam khao. The moek paa — steamed catfish seasoned with two kinds of fish sauce and cooked in banana leaves — releases a pleasantly pungent fragrance when unwrapped. Coconut milk, galangal, makrut lime leaves and garlic weave eagerly through the food, and Mr. Chanchaleune wields these flavors with finesse. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened September 2021

Website maderlaokitchen.com

Video and photographs by Brett Deering for The New York Times

Mamey  

  Coral Gables, Fla.

How Miami is Mamey? It would not be unusual to find yourself navigating a crowd wearing little more than swimwear on your way to the host stand. When you get to your seat, you’ll get a taste of why the chef Niven Patel loves living here. Mr. Patel was raised in Jacksonville, Fla., and established himself locally with Ghee Indian Kitchen. At Mamey he has turned his attention to Latin and Caribbean flavors. His intelligent takes on unpretentious dishes — conch fritters with cilantro aioli, ceviche redolent of coconut, sticky plantains with tamarind chutney, mojo roasted chicken — are the kinds of things you dream of eating while you watch the South Florida breeze blow through the banyan trees. And don’t skip the mango custard. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened August 2020

Website mameymiami.com

Photographs by Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

MÄS  

  Ashland, Ore.

In a petite tasting menu restaurant down an alley in downtown Ashland, Josh Dorcak is creating what he calls Cascadian cuisine as a series of Japanese-influenced, picturesque miniatures of memorable poise. Salty plum-cured rockfish with fermented blueberries and compressed pluots; chawanmushi built from a corn dashi mixed with goat milk, enriched with king crab and finished with preserved roses and fresh marigolds. His eye-opening cooking requires almost no heat, is paired often brilliantly with sake and will leave you feeling as if you’ve drawn a breath of Technicolor mountain air. This summer, Sarah Cook became chef at Nama, the attached izakaya, giving southern Oregon yet another restaurant to brighten its star on the culinary map. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened April 2018

Website masashland.com

Photographs by Lindsey Bolling

Matia  

  Eastsound, Wash.

Orcas Island is both expansive and intimate, and Matia carries that same spirit of place. The dining room, often a refuge from steely cloud cover outside, feels like a country house, with a beckoning fire going in the corner. Looking at the menu can often inspire an “Is that going to work?” feeling. A pork chop with spring radish, bok choy, salsa macha and smoked date purée, for instance, or charred head lettuce, fennel marmalade, smoked egg yolk and oyster-mushroom conserva. But the answer is an emphatic “Absolutely.” You’ll have to take a ferry to get there, but what a worthwhile trip. BRIAN GALLAGHER

Opened May 2021

Website matiarestaurant.com

Photographs by Miles Fortune for The New York Times

The Musket Room  

  New York City

The Musket Room may strike you at first as a neighborhood hangout, especially if you start out at the bar, where people drop by to trade notes on dog walkers or the pop-up denim store around the corner. In fact, many of the drinkers do live in the neighborhood; they just happen to be hanging out at a place with some of the most elegant food in the city. The chef, Mary Attea, takes a globalist approach to flavor, borrowing ideas from Spain, Lebanon, Japan or anywhere else she feels like roaming. Few kitchens at this level are so accommodating: You can stay for a whole $109 tasting menu, or just order a couple of courses, or sit at the bar with a cocktail while you smear anchovy butter on a just-baked sourdough boule the size of a grapefruit. PETE WELLS

Opened June 2013

Website musketroom.com

Photographs by Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Neptune Oyster  

  Boston

After 18 years in the North End, Neptune is as much a part of Boston as tour guides in tricorn hats and “Go Sawx!” You will wait, often more than an hour, but once you are ensconced in a banquette, or better yet at the bar, you will savor the spot. Neptune is among the highest versions of the oyster bar form — pressed-tin ceilings, a marble bar, iced beds of oysters, clams and crab claws — but it is also more. Dishes like cuttle-ink risotto with generous chunks of lobster and Nantucket Bay scallop crudo with Persian cucumbers lift the menu above the merely canonical. There’s also a lobster roll, of course, but you didn’t wait all that time for a lobster roll. Or maybe you did. BRIAN GALLAGHER

Opened November 2004

Website neptuneoyster.com

Photographs by Ana M. Reyes

Off Alley   Seattle

The room is tiny — just six feet four inches wide, with 12 seats — but the husband-and-wife team of Evan Leichtling and Meghna Prakash maximize every square inch. Ms. Prakash runs the front of the house and assembles the distinctive wine list. Mr. Leichtling — who has cooked at the three-Michelin-starred Akelarre in San Sebastián, Spain — holds sway in the diminutive kitchen. Their combined sensibility lends dinners the raucous feel of a Lyonnaise bouchon, with an urban edge. The dishes are nose-to-tail accented with Pacific Northwest ingredients — braised tripe with morels and nora peppers; gooseneck barnacles with charred scallion aioli; fried pig head with preserved cherries and Walla Walla onions. And they will tantalizingly disappear from the chalkboard menu as the night goes on. BRIAN GALLAGHER

Opened August 2020

Website offalleyseattle.com

Photographs by Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Petite León  

  Minneapolis

The chef Jorge Guzmán was born and raised in the Yucatán, and that region’s cuisine animates a number of his arresting dishes, including al pastor pork collar, charred broccolini with mole verde and ancho chile-black garlic marinated bavette steak with a bright piquillo pepper sauce. The aesthetic here is inventive and comfortingly familiar (yes, there is a Caesar salad and a fancy cheeseburger), and it extends to the cocktails of Travis Serbus, a local bar veteran and Mr. Guzmán’s business partner. They opened Petite León in the fall of 2020, unsure what the future held. What emerged is a sophisticated restaurant as inviting as a corner saloon. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened October 2020

Website petiteleonmpls.com

Photographs by Eliesa Johnson for The New York Times

San Ho Won  

  San Francisco

A hulking charcoal grill is at the heart of Jeong-In Hwang and Corey Lee’s Korean barbecue restaurant, which turns out dark, glossy pieces of thickly cut galbi, beef tongue and fatty rib-eye cap that are gently smoky and impossibly juicy. Unlike many Korean barbecue restaurants, it’s not a communal cooking experience, but that means you can relax and leave the grilling to the restaurant’s virtuosic cooks. TEJAL RAO

Opened November 2021

Website sanhowon.com

Photographs by Aya Brackett for The New York Times

Semma  

  New York City

South Indian cooking has probably never had a more capable champion in New York than the chef Vijay Kumar. He makes the most of the region’s deep, lavish flavors, particularly those from his home state, Tamil Nadu. The chutneys are intense and vibrant. The sauces are richly layered and sumptuous with coconut milk. And the vegetable cooking is so focused and fresh-tasting it seems completely modern, even though Mr. Kumar hews closely to long-established traditions. Some of his recipes are rarely seen this far from home, like the stir-fried snails he learned to cook on his family’s rice paddies. But even more widely known dishes like dosas are done with a care that can make you think you’re tasting them for the first time. PETE WELLS

Opened October 2021

Website semma.nyc

Photographs by Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Sister   Dallas

Sister is not afraid to have some fun. The dining room aesthetic can best be described as Grandma’s house, but make it fashion. (Think high-end light fixtures mingled with antique plates and checkered tablecloths.) And the food? Italian-ish, emphasis on the -ish. White soy and hijiki give the thick strands of spaghetti vongole a funky depth. Shiitakes punctuate the Parmesan cream that sauces buckwheat lumache. The eggplant dip is darkened in color and heightened in flavor by black sesame. Sister resides in the former space of a widely beloved Dallas restaurant, the Grape. It is a worthy successor. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened September 2021

Website sempresister.com

Photographs by Manny Rodriguez

Smoke’N Ash B.B.Q.  

  Arlington, Texas

The owners, Patrick and Fasicka Hicks, can thank their customers, at least in part, for their utterly unique offering: Texas barbecue fused with Ethiopian fare. Smoke’N Ash B.B.Q. opened as a traditional barbecue restaurant in 2018. A year later, the couple added an Ethiopian menu, serving the food Ms. Hicks had grown up eating. Diners started asking for barbecue atop injera. The Hickses realized that those people were on to something exciting. The vibrant Ethiopian flavors — brisket comes lacquered with awaze, a spicy sauce made with berbere — are an ideal match for barbecue. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened January 2018

Website smokenashbbq.net

Photographs by Jessica Attie for The New York Times

Thaily’s  

  Chandler, Ariz.

Sometimes love stories yield exceptional food. In this case, that story belongs to Thai and Lee Kambar. After the two were married, Ms. Kambar, who is originally from Cambodia, learned to cook Iraqi dishes from Mr. Kambar’s parents. Soon, she started combining those Iraqi flavors with the Cambodian ingredients of her childhood — lemongrass, prahok, coconut milk. The blended dishes are the best ones at Thaily’s, like a special of lemongrass beef that Ms. Kambar cooks in an air fryer and wraps in garlic naan. Or a chicken curry flavored with palm sugar, fish sauce, makrut lime leaves and warm seasonings like cumin and cinnamon. These aren’t haphazard mash-ups; it’s thoughtful, intentional cooking that feels like a revelation. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened April 2021

Website Thaily’s Restaurant Facebook

Photographs by Ash Ponders for The New York Times

Tito & Pep  

  Tucson, Ariz.

The chef and owner, John Martinez, is a third-generation Tucsonan, and he is re-examining the ingredients of his childhood with cooking that is understated and remarkable. Take his seafood stew, inspired by chilpachole, from Veracruz. It starts with a deeply savory tomato broth infused with tostadas; shrimp and plush masa dumplings float throughout. Other dishes center on grilled meats, often served with not much more than a brightly seasoned salsa, local vegetables and herbs. How did he get something so straightforward to taste this remarkable? Often, the best restaurants are the quiet ones. PRIYA KRISHNA

Opened November 2018

Website titoandpep.com

Photographs by Jackie Tran

Twelve  

  Portland, Maine

A spare prix-fixe menu with few descriptors — “Mushroom, Grains, Mustard Greens” — can feel stiff. But in the hands of Colin Wyatt, a former executive sous-chef at Eleven Madison Park, that structure is liberating. The deliciousness is in the details: The butter paired with the pastry chef Georgia Macon’s Parker House rolls is whipped with dehydrated potato and tastes uncannily like a fresh-from-the-oven baked potato. The whey broth speckled with verdant chive oil that is served beneath a medallion of monkfish is a silky marvel, and the hazelnut crème anglaise that comes with the playful, large-format chocolate pudding is perfectly salty. In a town often declared a diner’s paradise, Twelve makes that all the more true. TANYA SICHYNSKY

Opened July 2022

Website twelvemaine.com

Video and photographs by Ryan David Brown for The New York Times

Yeyo’s  

  Bentonville, Ark.

This flagship restaurant of a family business began when Hector Rios, known as Yeyo, turned a plot of land in northwest Arkansas into a small farm. The farm supplies the food truck that his son Rafael started in 2012, just as it does this restaurant, which opened in 2017 and focuses on the cooking of the Rios family’s native Michoacán. It has evolved to include cuisine from across Mexico, and the restaurant’s food is as good as its back story: mole-draped chicken enmoladas, crisp-edged memelas topped with queso and nopales, housemade tortilla tacos filled with aromatic cochinita pibil, juicy barbacoa and spicy lengua. There’s a burgeoning restaurant scene in this city, best known as the headquarters of Walmart. The Rios family is one reason. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened January 2017

Website yeyosnwa.com

Photographs by Trent Bozeman for The New York Times

Zaab Zaab  

  New York City

Aniwat Khotsopa, who goes by Tong, cooks as if he’s been waiting to be put in charge of a kitchen all his life, which is more or less the case. He labored away for decades in Thai restaurants from Bangkok to State College, Pa., before the owners of a place in Brooklyn where he was working tasted his larb and realized he deserved a stage of his own. At Zaab Zaab, in Elmhurst, Queens, he brings high-definition clarity to Isan cuisine. His larb ped Udon, a specialty of his hometown, has other things on its mind than just strafing you with roasted chiles; you register peppery and floral and bitter flavors weaving in and out, at least until the skin melts from your face. PETE WELLS

Opened April 2022

Website @zaabzaabnyc on Instagram

Photographs courtesy of Adam Friedlander for the New York Times

Zitz Sum  

  Coral Gables, Fla.

Pablo Zitzmann grew up loving the teppanyaki and dim sum restaurants in his native Bogotá, Colombia, where he attended an Italian-language middle school. Zitz Sum’s joyfully flavorful food is built on a foundation of that experience. The won ton in brodo encapsulates the restaurant’s sensibility: straight-ahead chicken won tons floating in a dashi-and-Parmesan rind “tea,” and finished with olive oil. Mr. Zitzmann opened the restaurant last year with Natalia Restrepo, his wife and the pastry chef. Dumplings are a signature (har gow sells out fast for a reason). South Florida flourishes — guava hoisin on the brisket bao, grouper with coconut beurre blanc — are a reminder that far-flung cuisines have been merging in this part of the world for a long time. BRETT ANDERSON

Opened April 2021

Website zitzsum.com

Photographs by Scott McIntyre for The New York Times