184 Best Restaurants in USA

This sophisticated eatery serves innovative Southern cuisine in an upscale environment for a dining experience that’s elegant without compromising on fun. The menu changes six times a year to keep up with the freshest ingredients, and their award-winning wine menu shouldn’t be overlooked. There’s bar seating on both the first and second floors, but for a table, a reservation is your best bet.

Operating inside The Myrtles plantation home, this stunning restaurant is a boon to any food-focused traveler visiting the St. Francisville area. The menu is comprised of southern classics cooked over the flame: short rib lasagna, a 45-day dry aged rib-eye, and grilled local redfish on a bed of blue corn grits are just a few of the stars. Weekend brunch is a favorite, as are weeknight specials, like Wednesday's half-price glasses of wine. On Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, a seven-course chef's tasting menu, with an optional wine pairing, is offered.

Contemporary treats—of both the food and cocktail varieties—abound at this hip, sleek gem on Pensacola's hottest Downtown strip. The menu's Southern and seafood favorites feature seasonal ingredients, modern preparation techniques, and artistic plating.

The name of the game here is playful, modern Southern cuisine made with local Texas ingredients. You can choose from corn fritters with hot honey and jalapeño ranch, chicken-fried chicken with duck-fat cream gravy, Wagyu meat loaf, and so much more. You really can't go wrong, whether you opt to enjoy the farmhouse-style interior or relax on the expansive patio lit with twinkle lights. But the best night to visit might be Sunday, when there's a three-course special supper starring fried chicken and set to the tune of a live music soundtrack.

Serving Nashville-style fried chicken (at different levels of spiciness), this casual restaurant is a little ways from downtown, but a local favorite and one of the best places for a cheap meal or takeout picnic. Large chicken platters, sandwiches, sides, and your pick of sauces are all loaded with flavor; order the fried pickles with zippy ranch as a snack. Family platters feed 8–15.

This beloved Southern California institution has been serving up its signature comfort food to everyone from Stevie Wonder to President Obama since 1975. The no-frills eatery, still in its original location, offers a unique combination of crispy, well-seasoned fried chicken alongside fluffy, golden waffles—a pairing that has become legendary in the region (just ask Snoop Dogg, one of their most ardent and frequent customers). The menu features various chicken cuts and waffle combinations, as well as classic soul food sides like collard greens, mac and cheese, and cornbread. While the wait times can be long, especially during peak hours, many patrons find the experience worth it for the generous portions and satisfying flavors. The restaurant's low-key, diner-like atmosphere adds to its charm; while there are other locations now, the original location is the best ambassador for this unique dish.

Roscoe's is the place for down-home Southern cooking in Southern California. Just ask the patrons who drive from all over L.A. for reasonably priced fried chicken and waffles. The name of this casual eatery honors a late-night combo popularized in Harlem jazz clubs. Friday and Saturday nights, Roscoe's Hollywood location stays open until 4 am.

This daytime-only spot from Charlie McKenna, who made his name on the local barbecue scene, packs in locals and students for Southern-accented brunch and lunch fare in a light-filled space with a modern farmhouse vibe. The dishes are hearty—think beignets and chicken fried steak—so a good plan is to dine with abandon and then walk it off on a stroll to Promontory Point.

A modern take on Southern dining, Ruthie’s offers meat-and-three (or two), meaning diners pick a meat dish and their choice of sides. Most of the meats—running from brisket to salmon to strip loin—are prepared on a smoker or wood grill, while the crisp-topped macaroni and cheese is the most popular side. But be sure to read the menu, because options change seasonally. The herbs are grown at the restaurant’s community garden plot. The green-and-white diner-style interior is a little sterile; the patio is the perfect place to be on a pleasant day.

The roadhouse decor—corrugated-metal walls, Mexican-tile floor, thick-wooden-slab tables, neon beer signs, and Edison bulbs hanging by ropes from the tall ceiling—contribute to this chipper soul food restaurant's let's-party ambience. Crispy fried catfish, buttermilk fried chicken, barbecued pork ribs, and the Yabba Dabba hunk of beef on a single bone top the entrée list; "lighter" fare includes several sandwiches and sides like deep-fried chicken skin with hot sauce.

This unassuming café set in a one-time bungalow is the island's go-to breakfast spot for omelets, biscuits, and piles of pancakes. Lunch and dinner offerings shift to an array of sandwich options, seafood entrées, and fried platters. It's kid-friendly and has a dine-outside deck, but come early if you don't want to wait for a table for brunch.

This country café in Madison, Tennessee, has a home-cooked appeal. Try a loaded biscuit for breakfast or a pimento-cheese-and-bacon sandwich for lunch, and don’t forget to check the cabinet for a daily selection of house-made pastries and desserts. By the time you leave, the staff will know you by name.

Traditional Southern home cookin' comes with a smile at Sisters of the New South, where you'll be greeted as "honey" or "baby" (or both) as you place your order. Try the smothered pork chops or the fried whiting, though you can't go wrong with the generous "Meat & Three"—a choose-your-own foodie adventure. Oxtails served with collard greens, red rice, and yams is a perennial favorite.

The palette of plums and golds is a stunning contrast to the original brick and wood that was uncovered during the renovation of this 19th-century cotton exchange building. Although the menu changes seasonally, perennial favorites—a layered appetizer of fried green tomatoes and jalapeño pimento cheese, shrimp, and locally ground grits, and the wonderful white-chocolate banana-cream pie—are always available.

At this bright and lively restaurant 3 miles outside of downtown, the menu primarily features modern southern dishes that don't stray too far from home: chicken-fried green tomatoes, Louisiana shrimp flatbread, and a smoke-fried chicken and biscuits entrée are just some of the highlights. The whiskey list is extensive, and the cocktails are exceptional. If you had too much fun the night before, the "Walk of Shame frites" could be exactly what you need.

This no-frills spot serves meaty masterpieces—no, really—like the Super Butt, house-braised pork with smoked sweet onions and potato cream cheese, and a generous rib-eye cheese steak. Add a hearty beer list and poutine (fries covered in gravy), and it's worth the drive. Heading to Kiawah Island? It's also an excellent weigh station en route.

Sunny Point serves food that's simple, well prepared, and not too expensive. Herbs and some veggies come from the restaurant's organic garden next door. Don't pass up the shrimp and grits or meat loaf (regular or vegetarian) with buttermilk mashed potatoes and sautéed greens.

College kids, families, and visitors brave the lines for a breakfast sandwich at this long-standing biscuit institution. Fried chicken on freshly made biscuits and huge cinnamon rolls are served at the drive-thru window; you may also park and walk up to order. The original location in Louisburg (an hour east) has indoor seating.

This casual restaurant serves delicious Southern comfort food like country fried steak, shrimp and grits, and blackberry barbecue short ribs. Business bustles at lunchtime for favorites like the pimento cheese fried chicken club.

This restaurant's full name is Sweet Potatoes (Well Shut My Mouth!), and once you have a taste of these Southern classics, you'll know why. Expect friendly service and more food than you could possibly eat.

A Harlem mainstay, Sylvia's has been serving soul-food favorites like smothered chicken, barbecue ribs, collard greens, and mashed potatoes to a dedicated crowd of locals, tourists, and college students since 1962. Owner Sylvia Woods may have passed on in 2012, but her restaurant and signature sauces, jarred and sold online and in the restaurant, are more popular than ever. Some say it's overly touristy—as the busloads attest—but it's still worth a visit. For the best bang for your buck, come during the week for the lunch special, where you can get one main and one side for only $14.

Using locally sourced ingredients, the chef at this small, independent redbrick eatery on Sanford's main drag creates Southern-fusion dishes. His house-made biscuits and gravy are renowned, the Saturday brunch menu features a Southern-style croque monsieur with candied collard greens, and dinner choices include pan-seared Florida catfish with bacon from Tennessee and the ever-popular shrimp and grits with corn from Zellwood, Florida.

Specializing in Southern specialties cooked on a charcoal grill, this Headhouse Square restaurant's extensive menu offerings include fried chicken, barbecue smoked ribs, shrimp and grits, and grilled swordfish. This fun, lively hot spot also has a busy bar, including a robust wine list and American whiskey selection, with mixologists pouring craft cocktails. Live blues and jazz music is performed on most nights, so check the website for upcoming bands and musical artists. 

Touting itself as a “Crafty Southern Pub,” Union Public House pairs fresh ingredients with creative ideas, like the Scotch egg starter or the grouper and shrimp corndog; they’ve even been known to put gold flakes on fried chicken. You can also make your own “meat and two” by choosing a meat, two Southern sides, and a sauce.

This energetic downtown restaurant is in the elegant space that once housed Lafayette's oldest bar. You won't find long-time Cajun classic dishes here; instead, creative renditions of local shrimp, oyster, and fish dishes are served side by side with steaks and pork chops served hot out of a large, wood-burning hearth. Save room for dessert: the doughnut bread pudding is the kind of regional-classic-with-a-modern-twist that Vestal is known for.

Featuring massive buttermilk biscuits, this brunch favorite is also acclaimed for its Bloody Marys.

Enjoy an idyllic stream-side setting that's just right to sip the signature sweet tea (served sweet, either hot or cold). Savor the sherried tomato bisque, or sample creative salads like dill pea or arugula tossed with strawberries and feta with a citrus vinaigrette. The attentive staff is eager to make recommendations from the limited menu while you share a basket of warm wild-plum muffins. 

On a residential corner off Magazine Street, this 40-seat restaurant focuses on southern Louisiana produce at its best. Chef Michael Stoltzfus builds a seasonal, oft-changing tasting menu that reliably draws inspiration from the local seafood bounty---including the likes of crab, oysters, fish, and shrimp---and turns out dishes cooked with fresh, hearty flavors. The sommelier is a joy; add on the wine pairing and he'll walk you through each choice with a narrative zest.

A quick coffee and snack from this popular, sunny locale is just as enjoyable as their long, decadent brunches. Try any of the epic "biscuit situations."

Robbinsville's best restaurant is a chef-owned gem serving specialties like local mountain trout with lemon-caper butter sauce and a grilled ribeye. Seating is inside and on the porch of a historic home.