Bong
Bong, Brooklyn’s tiny Khmer hotspot, electrifies — both in the sense of its lime green walls and its kinetic energy. Couples, hovering on stools, swipe fried squid through a sunshine-yellow sauce of salted egg yolk. Diners spill onto the sidewalk, sucking down fried, head-on shrimp. Groups crowd around platters of fried fish, pawing for leaves of fish mint, then ooh and ahh as a heap of lobster, still in its shell, arrives on a plate. Its only description on the menu is “IYKYK,” and you’ll want to know this lobster: It’s drenched in a potent ginger sauce and piled atop rice to catch the savory, herbal drippings.
Many New York City restaurants are small and busy; not all of them feel this boldly alive nor so instantly themselves. That Bong already feels so concentrated is only natural: Owners Chakriya Un and Alexander Chaparro honed their vision of Khmer cuisine through their sought-after Kreung Cambodia pop-up. For years, they have been asserting Cambodian flavors — the pungency of kreung, a foundational spice paste; the vibrancy of herbs — in a dining scene in which the cuisine is otherwise sparse. Clams machew, Un’s take on a sour soup that’s often made with meat, turns humble celery into a vivid star. Everything here nods to family history; Un’s family grows many of those herbs and aromatics.
This is a menu with little sense of capitulation to trends, and it isn’t coy as it invites newcomers to Khmer cuisine. Un and Chaparro blend old stories with new ones for a restaurant that feels singular. They bonded over rollerblading, for instance, so it features prominently in Bong’s branding and permeates into its freewheeling vibe. Across the country, new restaurants are celebrating their highly personal visions of Cambodian food. At Bong, the cuisine’s future is brash, bold, and highlighter-bright. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter
724 Sterling Place / Brooklyn, Ny
Chef Chakriya Un and partner in business and life, Alexander Chaparro.
The whole dorade served lettuce wrap-style with tuk m'pill and tuk trey koh kong.
Charred Cambo Corn with sweet and salty coconut milk and charred scallion oil.
bong's natural wine list includes a selection of bottles from around the world.
ChòpnBlọk
507 WESTHEIMER ROAD / houston, tx
The Buka bowl with short rib in red stew, served with scallion rice.
Chef and owner Ope Amosu makes the rounds in the dining room.
A copy of Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama on display.
The mix-and-match BYO Chòpd Salad.
Tunes from Afrobeats artists like Tems and Omah Lay as well as the gripping scent of suya spice invite guests into the culinary universe of the African continent at ChòpnBlọk, Houston’s principal West African fast-casual joint. Equal parts party and gastronomic history lesson, the restaurant celebrates the African diaspora’s legacy of flavor, fusion, and downright fun.
To gain cooking experience, owner Ope Amosu worked the night shift at Chipotle after long days at a Fortune 500 company, then swapped his suit for chef’s knives when he launched at Post Market. It was all part of the shrewd Nigerian American chef's mission to add West African food to the nation’s fast-casual landscape. He opened a standalone location in 2024 in the colorful Montrose community — garnering restaurant awards and landing on the James Beard semifinalist and Michelin Bib Gourmand lists.
Amosu’s staple dishes made it to Montrose: the smoky trad bowl; short rib buka stew steeped in spiced tomato sauce; the refreshing bissap and basil Oga Palmer; and the iconic Golden bowl, centering a vegan Motherland curry of Nigerian honey beans cooked down with East African coconut curry. His deep reverence for African art, design, and culture made the jump, too. Local Gin Design Group and creative designer Zainob Amao helped craft an interior that tells the story of an overexploited, albeit miraculous continent, with wallpaper incised with the silhouettes of African women, a rotating bookshelf of the diaspora’s most prized cookbooks, and a mud wall of Texas clay paying homage to rural African home structures. A bouncing soundtrack grows louder as the evening begins, bringing the continent’s energetic rhythm to the already humming neighborhood. Lunch-friendly options and a lounge-like atmosphere at night have enshrined the restaurant as a community mainstay and blueprint for West African chefs across the country to tell other long-overdue food stories. — KS
The Happy Crane
Nestled in a glittering glass box on Gough Street, the Happy Crane is the culinary playground of chef James Yeun Leong Parry, who transforms his personal memories and experiences cooking in Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, and London into modern, playful dishes for a San Francisco audience. Parry has experience working in multiple Michelin-starred restaurants yet his dining room isn’t austere; the Happy Crane feels warm, the type of place where couples, friends, and multigenerational families can gather for a taste of something at once familiar and strikingly new.
Across the menu, the food — which skews toward Cantonese, though includes references to Sichuan and Beijing dishes and flavors — is delightful without devolving into jokey, conceptual without feeling pretentious. Take the crab rice roll: Cheung fun are a dim sum staple typically stuffed with shrimp and pork. Parry uses these fresh, tender rice rolls as luxurious noodles in wet hor fun, which is a gravy-laden flavor bomb of crab butter and Shaoxing wine topped luxuriously with Dungeness crab and pops of salmon roe. Although flavors at the Happy Crane bounce all over the place in a dizzying show, Parry and his team remain rooted through an appreciation for tradition and history. They lovingly resurrect Hong Kong’s gum tsin gai (gold coin chicken), a historically frugal dish made with pork trimmings, chicken liver, and bao that has fallen out of fashion; in Parry’s version, homemade bao serves as the base for rosé chicken liver mousse and folds of coppa. These small touches demand attention, making clear that Parry is taking up the torch of tradition and carrying it in his own way. — Dianne de Guzman, regional editor, Northwest
Chef James Yeun Leong Parry layering coppa on top of reimagined gum tsin gai.
A spread of dishes that are simultaneously classic and pleasantly surprising.
A sign, created by artist Evan Yee, announces “Happy Crane” to passersby.
Sugar snap pea dumplings, finished with pea foam and delivered in a steamer basket.
Kafi BBQ
8140 N. Mccarthur boulevard / irving, tx
Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi spent years drafting his love letter to Texas’s halal community through the most quintessential Texas language: barbecue. Taking inspiration from his Iraqi parents, as well as meals at non-halal restaurants like Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que that he enjoyed as a kid, Abdul-Kafi was determined to create a traditional Texas barbecue experience that everyone — those who eat halal food as well as those who don’t — could maximally enjoy.
The results are as classic as they come, featuring items like sausages and beef dino ribs, although with some remarkable innovations. Abdul-Kafi sources halal wagyu beef from nearby Wagyu-X in Itasca, which he uses to make three types of beef sausages, including an Iraqi sausage that’s an homage to childhood meals of kebabs and vegetables. He also uses the wagyu for brisket, which he dry-brines for 24 hours, smokes, and flavors with a 13-ingredient, saltless seasoning rub that contains a host of spices, such as sumac, that are omnipresent in Iraqi cuisine. For iconic Texas Twinkies, usually made with jalepeños, cream cheese, and bacon wrappers, the chef has to get inventive, encasing his version with beef belly, cured for two weeks and smoked for six hours.
The sides are just as playful: Thick-cut potatoes are fried in beef tallow, producing fries with fluffy fillings and a crispy exterior. A macaroni and cheese of smoked Gouda, Gruyere, and extra sharp Tillamook cheddar arrives dusted with warm, crusty breadcrumbs. There are three types of pickles, all brined with different vegetables of the chef’s persuasion. For dessert, Abdul-Kafi merges influences and techniques, incorporating elements of Iraqi mahalabia (pudding) into a cardamom-infused bread pudding. If your stomach still has room, add Mom’s Basbousa for good measure — the syrupy, coconut-laden cake makes for the sweetest finish. — KS
Pitmaster Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi delivers a batch of his Texas Twinkies.
The dino rib in all its glory, presented on branded butcher paper.
Mom’s Basbousa is the ideal way to finish.
Applying Abdul-Kafi’s secret, distinctive spice blend.
451 Gough street / San Francisco, ca
Ki
111 San pedro street / los angeles, ca
In the labyrinthine subterranean level of a Little Tokyo building, a bespectacled Ki Kim stands behind the tasting counter at Restaurant Ki with a pair of silver tweezers in hand, deftly stacking ruby red cubes of tuna atop cylindrical gimbap that hover on a translucent glass bubble. The contemporary Korean tasting menu restaurant is the most personal project yet for Kim, who stepped away from his previous restaurant Kinn in 2023. Situated just a few miles from the nation’s most prominent Koreatown, which blossomed after the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, Ki is writing the next chapter of Korean fine dining.
A flurry of one-bite snacks starts the constantly evolving menu — horse mackerel lies on a mound of rice with acidic baek-kimchi; an octopus’s tendrils nest around a sauce made from its head. From there, a quenelle of perilla ice cream on a bed of jewellike heirloom tomatoes and stracciatella, a late summer dish, is surrounded by a leaf fanning out in all directions like a Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park. Lobster paired with a nutty doenjang sauce gets dusted with a piquant dried raspberry powder. After two desserts — a porcini ice cream sandwich shaped like a cartoon mushroom, and a pearlescent bowl filled with omija berry granita and cranberry jellies that burst like grown-up Gushers — Kim and his team slice fresh fruit as if they’re hosting dinner in their own homes. While some preparations may look unfamiliar, Kim consistently evokes a sense of nostalgia that lingers long past the last bite. At Ki, cooking is about deeper connections between the chef and the traditions of Korean hospitality, and between the customers and Kim, who bears his memories in each course. — Rebecca Roland, deputy editor, Southwest
A striking presentation for bluefin tuna on the summer menu.
Ki Kim plating lobster with doenjang sauce and dried raspberry powder.
Digging into the elegantly plated octopus.
The entrance to Ki feels like entering a private world.
Luncheonette
147 Cumberland avenue / portland, me
Angela Lee had a vision for a meze-style restaurant that could serve dishes and flavors from all over the world. She had broad experience in New York to pull from, having built her pastry credentials at Petee’s Pie Company and worked as a whole-animal butcher and as a fish butcher at the Meat Hook and Osakana, respectively. Her husband, Alex LeBlanc, had worked as a sous chef at Sailor and a chef de cuisine at Gus’s in Brooklyn. The couple returned to LeBlanc’s hometown of Portland, Maine, introducing a charming, expansive menu that reflects their experiences. The restaurant, which initially focused on lunch but increasingly includes dinner options, drew Mainers immediately for vegetables dressed in gochujang and sesame, bibimbap fortified with za’atar tofu, and celery root remoulade, all heartened by nods to Lee’s Korean American heritage.
It felt like good karma to the team that their miniature, 100-plus-year-old space had a long history of housing Portland institutions like Cumberland Shoe Repair Shop, Peddleman’s/Falafel Underground, Katie Made Bakery, and Silly’s restaurant. Lee and LeBlanc added their own eclectic touches, including beautiful fixtures to store chilled appetizers, hanging potted plants, kitschy wall art, and old church pews found at local antique stores and on Facebook Marketplace. The duo enforces a "no top 40" rule, nurturing a tranquil space with jazz, R&B, and folk music.
But as talented chefs, Lee and LeBlanc always center exceptional food. For baba ganoush, they combine roasted eggplants with coriander, fennel, tahini, Champagne vinegar, lemon, and olive oil; there’s a roasted koginut squash pavê with Parmesan bechamel and Fresno pepper; and sourdough Pullman-style bread is the foundation for sandwiches with miso-marinated pork, a powerful Thai basil relish, Kewpie mayo, and mozzarella. There’s a point to all their eclectic choices: Idiosyncrasies make the restaurant truly sing. — KS
Co-owner Angela Lee cuts into a fresh pie.
A hefty slice of tomato pie loaded with eggplant and ricotta.
Luncheonette’s cozy, historic, shoebox-sized home.
Co-owner Alex LeBlanc slices roasted pork.
Mister Pio
4502 e. thomas road / phoenix, az
There’s nothing more elemental than chicken roasted over a roaring open flame. That’s the recipe for every meal at Mister Pio, a strip mall spot in Phoenix where chefs and co-owners Justin Nasralla and David Goluboff bring fine dining chops to Peruvian pollo a la brasa. They serve the chicken by the half or whole, or shredded and placed into a rustic roll. A huge Josper rotisserie oven, just one of a handful of such models in the U.S., spins up to three dozen birds near the front door, acting as an open hearth and calling card for a restaurant confident in its purpose.
Nasralla, whose mother hails from Lima, and Goluboff met while cooking at a Peruvian culinary school. Nasralla went on to cook in New York and Tokyo, eventually landing back in Lima at Kjolle, ranked No. 9 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. When the duo reunited in Phoenix in 2020, they aspired not to white tablecloths but to affordable, everyday meals — made using the best ingredients available. They source their chickens from a single farm in Pennsylvania; the birds come off the grill crackling, blackened, and juicy down to the bone. Lightly dressed salad greens from Mesa’s Steadfast Farm just 30 miles away create a fresh, vinegary foil to the meat, while triple-fried Kennebec potatoes shatter like stained glass, revealing interiors as fluffy as cotton balls. It’s all accented with a trio of sauces — spicy red-orange rocoto, creamy aji amarillo, and cilantro-tinted aji verde — as pretty as Pantone color chips. This sort of simplicity isn’t just sophisticated; it’s primordially satisfying. — Matthew Kang, correspondent
Chicken, fries, a trio of Technicolor sauces. Enough said.
Chef Justin Nasralla in his soon-to-be iconic pink Mister Pio tee.
Slicing into a chicken sandwich.
A sandwich loaded with verde sauce, confit garlic, and pickled Fresnos.
Kabawa
8 extra place / new york, ny
Going to Kabawa feels like entering a members-only dinner club. Step into the space, off an East Village alleyway (it used to be Momofuku Ko; the restaurant still lives under the Momofuku umbrella), and know that shorts are fine — the dress code’s “resort casual.” A host sweeps you to your seat at a square counter that frames the open kitchen. Then it’s time for the convivial Caribbean feast to begin. In the three-course, $145 prix fixe, chef Paul Carmichael presents a parade of ample, warm surprises, like the introductory course of supple roti and pepper jelly-butter, plantain and mango chutneys, and curried chickpeas.
Carmichael — who grew up in Barbados — is the evening’s headliner. He’s made a name for himself since helming Má Pêche over a decade ago, also under Momofuku, where he whipped up visceral tasting menus with Asian diasporic influences. But at Kabawa, he gets to turn inward and outward, showing the breadth and power of Afro-Caribbean cuisines while merging them with his personal history, island lore, and indigenous ingredients. Crescent-shaped raw shrimp get doused in a blend of sorrel, Scotch bonnet peppers, and thyme to evoke snacky Jamaican pepper shrimp; cassava dumplings swim in Creole sauce. Mixing and matching is encouraged — use your hands to scoop up some tender braised goat, smothered in a fiery curry punched up with habanero peppers and dried scallops; or mix the rich duck sausage into coconutty rice and beans. To cleanse your palate, something unexpectedly simple: tamarind pods, which you pop yourself by hand.
Kabawa isn’t about stuffy rules; it’s about having a good time. It’s the warm, welcoming dinner party to next-door sibling Bar Kabawa’s raucous house party vibes. The menu encourages diners to “fill yuh belly” — take a break to be happy (in these times), eat well, and enjoy yourself. — Nadia Chaudhury, deputy editor, Northeast
Chef Paul Carmichael prepares roti.
Slicing into the coconut turnover for two.
Street signs point the way in the alley outside Kabawa.
The Martini Kabawa, featuring coconut water.
Komal
3655 s. grand avenue / los angeles, ca
Komal opened in South Los Angeles's Mercado La Paloma in September 2024, but it took root there much earlier, when chef Fátima Juárez and her partner, Conrado Rivera, began working at Michelin-starred mariscos restaurant Holbox, also located in the market. After spending eight years nixtamalizing corn for chef Gilberto Cetina, the couple struck out on their own, opening a bustling, kaleidoscopic market stall across from Holbox like a leafy sapling sprouting up alongside a tree.
At Komal, the couple serves pre-Hispanic dishes Juárez grew up eating in Mexico City and Oaxaca. They form nearly every dish, like molotes de plátano nested in volcanic black mole and striking blue-corn quesadilla de flor calabaza, from indigenous corn sourced from Mexican farmers. Streams of diners make their way to the counter to order refreshing cups of jamaica or agua de nopal with cucumber and lime, before finding a table. They wait for Tacos Sonia, filled with tender beef shoulder, or lightly sweet pan de calabaza crowned with tangy sour cream. Juárez and Rivera are the perfect hosts during an often relentlessly uncertain time for Los Angeles’s immigrant communities, providing highly personalized service and, of course, exquisitely made tortillas. If Komal sounds like a rare find — a restaurant that is both extraordinary and finely tuned to its home — that’s because it is. — Mona Holmes, editor, Southwest
Chef Fátima Juárez and Conrado Rivera dole out cups of jamaica.
The quesadilla flor de calabaza with sweet corn sofrito and squash blossoms.
Shredding quesillo in the kitchen.
Order a lot to share at Komal. You’ll want to try it all.
Agnes and Sherman
Owners and longtime friends Nick Wong and Lisa Lee’s rise was inevitable. Wong, a Bay Area native, cut his teeth at Momofuku Ssäm Bar in New York, worked for Top Chef Masters winner Chris Cosentino at Incanto in San Francisco, and influenced Chris Shepherd’s multicultural menu at UB Preserv in Houston while Lee gained vital business expertise at DoorDash.
At Agnes and Sherman, in the Houston Heights, Wong realizes a long-held dream, reinterpreting Northeast diner culture through avant-garde Asian diasporic cuisine and Southern immigrant fare. There's egg foo young slathered in deep-brown gumbo flecked with crimson-striped crawfish tails, while cheeseburger fried rice evokes nostalgic memories of Big Macs. Elements of Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Korean cuisine, paired with flavors from Houston’s other immigrant communities, are illustrated in dishes like tteokbokki spiced with uda peppercorn and blanketed in a mountaintop of grated Parmesan, and the Taiwanese dip sandwich — Chinese hot mustard, pickled mustard greens, and shaved beef braised with scallion, tomatoes, chile de arbol, Shaoxing wine, and white and Sichuan peppercorns — served with a dipping sauce of tallow, soy sauce, and black vinegar. Red bean clarified milk punch and tumeric-laden frozen cocktails speak to beverage director David Perez’s pronounced, inventive influence, while desserts like a pandan sundae bedecked with peanuts and pei pa koa, round out an abundant meal.
Named for Wong’s parents, who occasionally make appearances at the host counter, the restaurant enlarges the growing Asian American influence in the traditional American brunch canon, seen at such institutions as Mémoire Cà Phê in Portland, Oregon, and Baby's Kusina and Market in Philadelphia. In a year when the concept of “being American” is under volatile interrogation, the duo’s extension of Americana is both essential and valuable, charming the roomful of diners who represent Houston’s myriad cultures and communities. — KS
Co-owner Lisa Lee sets a table in the space that evokes classic diners.
The egg foo young with crawfish and gumbo gravy.
Chef Nick Wong plates a soy-glazed roast duck.
A towering pandan ice cream sundae decorated with peanuts and pei pa koa.
Betsy
875 e. mariposa street / altadena, ca
That a live-fire restaurant like Altadena’s Betsy exists right now seems improbable. The barriers for it are immense; the restaurant, formerly named Bernee, opened 33 days before the Eaton Fire irreparably changed Altadena in January 2025, and the surrounding community continues to recover from the devastation. Driving up the stretch of Lake Avenue adjacent to Betsy’s Mariposa Street home can still feel solemn when passing empty lots where humming homes and businesses once stood. And yet Betsy has emerged with an unshakeable devotion to local ingredients and live-fire hearth cooking.
Almost everything in the restaurant gets touched by fire, from the Ibérico pork coppa with a smoky corn and pepper succotash to the fish of the day served over blistered tomatoes. Basque cheesecake arrives with a scaly black char; slicing into it reveals a silky center that balances sweet and creamy notes with the aromatic bitterness of smoke. While the restaurant stays tropically warm due to the fire that powers it, the extensive wine list is full of refreshing sips. You don’t just come to Betsy to eat; you do it to witness the power of community in action. The restaurant underscores how resilient this Southern California foothills town is, even as many Altadenans remain displaced. The atmosphere thrums with the desire to connect and linger, a vibrational pull that has converted many first-time diners to regulars even in its early months. Will Altadena heal? Yes. Will Betsy persist? If its unusual first year is any indication, absolutely. — Kat Thompson, audience editor, Southwest
chef Paul Downer sending out some goodness.
The heritage pork chop.
The extensive hearth touches much of Betsy’s menu items.
Altadena pride is on display in every aspect of Betsy.
Nadu
2518 n. lincoln avenue / chicago, il
Browsing through Nadu’s menu is like reading a collection of desi short stories. Each dish — Irani keema from Mumbai, tangra chile pork from Kolkata, meen gassi from Mangaluru — tells its own tale of place and heritage. The Lincoln Park restaurant, which translates to “homeland” in Tamil, comes from chef Sujan Sarkar, who arrived in Chicago in 2019 after stints cooking in Dubai, London, and San Francisco to help open West Loop’s Roop (then called Rooh). In 2022, he made his mark with Indienne, the city’s only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant, where he reinterpreted flavors from across India through French technique. At Nadu, Sarkar went in another direction, again presenting regional Indian flavors (including from his native Kolkata) in a modern setting, but this time grounded in traditional recipes.
The menu encourages diners to dive into regional Indian specialties seldom found in other local restaurants. You might start with the sticky inji puli pork ribs from the southwestern coastal state of Kerala, glazed in a tamarind-ginger-jaggery sauce; or wander up the coast to tangy, fiery Goan prawn balchão. Larger plates are meant for sharing, from the comforting mudhi mansha of Odisha — hearty, slow-cooked goat atop puffed rice — to the showstopping Dungeness crab milagu fry, another Kerala favorite, which arrives in a garlicky sauce spiked with Tellicherry peppercorns that bring the heat. Cocktails also highlight ingredients native to India; the Chai blends whiskey, vermouth, Campari, and clarified masala chai for a warming, complex sip, while the Til riffs on an Old Fashioned with sesame oil and soy. Digestive mukhwas arrive at the end.
Sarkar’s ambition at Nadu isn’t reinvention or oversimplified pedagogy — it’s honoring traditions that cross cultural lines, lineages, and foodways. The result is a restaurant that feels deeply rooted yet adventurous in scope. — Jeffy Mai, associate editor, Midwest
The benne masala dosa drizzled with coconut and tomato chutneys.
Chef Sujan Sarkar plating Nadu’s impressive crab milagru fry.
Murgh kalmi kebabs emerge from the tandoor oven.
Mukhwas arrives in branded packaging to end the meal.
Pastries That Feel Personal
Independent bakeries have boomed since the onset of the pandemic, and this year they continued to proliferate around bakers’ hyperspecific visions. The most compelling examples from around the country draw influences from personal histories and cultural foodways to create reflective interpretations of traditional and nontraditional pastries. At the intersections of these unique pie charts lie sweet and savory renditions that feel endlessly inviting, like bao filled with Spam or Japanese potato salad alongside mango ‘ulu bread and POG layer cake in Hawai’i, or flatbreads like malfouf safeha and potato fatayer that speak to a pastry chef’s hometown in the occupied Golan Heights territory. The through line remains personal narrative baking, which can shape the way a pastry tastes, the story it tells, and the impact it leaves. Pastry chefs now fearlessly lay it all out on the table — then knead it into something great.
The Year in Bakeries:
Read more on the year’s highly personal sweets
Tapori
600 H Street ne / Washington, D.C.
Set within earshot of trains whizzing into Union Station, Tapori is a crossroads for street foods from Nepal and India; here, diners share imaginative interpretations of dishes from Kerala, the Himalayas, Mumbai, and beyond. Chef Suresh Sundas and beverage director Dante Datta, who met while working at Rasika, swirl it all together into the funky, dinner party atmosphere they started developing at critically acclaimed Daru just down H Street.
Red-tinged Cauliflower 65 is a deep-fried wonder fringed with roasted garlic, curry leaf, and mustard seed. Steamed momos come loaded with wagyu beef, sitting in a pool of chicken broth, and topped with freeze-dried black Parmesan and dots of cilantro oil. The uttapam comes with blue crab, which feels obligatory in D.C. but works well. The kitchen preps podi masala dosas, properly sour from overnight fermentation, using a dosa grinder from India; to get their flavor (and the rest of the menu) right, Sundas and Datta teamed up with Nepali chef Baburam Sharma, who cooked for 20 years in India and Nepal. Sharma called in from Nepal while the team conceptualized the restaurant; they reunited under one roof just days before opening and quickly fell into lockstep, turning out pani puri and vada pav with combined decades of experience.
“Tapori,” literally “vagabond” in Hindi, refers broadly to Mumbai’s rowdy street culture and a Bollywood archetype. It also hints at the energy in the dining room. The design team at Streetsense transformed the former Fancy Radish space with wooden fish pendant sculptures; a mural depicting beloved Bollywood film Rangeela, painted by local bartender-turned-artist Patrick Owens; and lots of prismatic tiles. Order a cocktail — like a martini engineered with achaar brine — and join the communal table, which brings folks together in a city that has long felt very divided. — Tierney Plumb, editor, Northeast
Topping off a pani puri for the perfect bite.
Chef Suresh Sundas finishes lotus root chaat.
Dig into the saturated Cauliflower 65.
Fish pendants hang over Tapori’s communal table.
Avize
956 Brady Avenue NW / Atlanta, GA
Chef Karl Gorline is defining what it means to run an Alpine restaurant in Atlanta — his restaurant Avize, co-founded with sommelier Taurean Philpott, serves the cuisine of the Alps, focused on simple, local produce, game, dairy, and dried meats; but planting it in Atlanta requires another level of inventiveness. Gorline hits the nail on the head with his lemon pepper wet frog legs: The lemony morsels, playful nods to an iconic local flavor, taste like tender chicken doused in lip-puckering beurre blanc with roasted garlic, lemon, and yuzu togarashi, served alongside a dainty crystal bowl for discarded bones. Pair it with a glass of Champagne Paul Goerg and you’ll start to understand Gorline’s approach: high-end elegance meets low-key Atlanta swag.
Mississippi native Gorline, who cut his teeth at the Michelin-starred Atlas, has built a menu that bridges Southern ingredients and Bavarian influence: rabbit heart boudin, a nod to his time in New Orleans, gets served alongside duck; okra finds a partner in lamb; and a North Georgia Mountain trout crudo rounds out the Alpine-Southern connection. The hay-smoked duck, dry-aged for two weeks and deglazed in 1983 Armagnac, is the kind of decadent dish that sticks to your bones and memory alike. End with the black sesame tiramisu — earthy, mercilessly rich, and finished tableside with shaved truffles — and a sip of a 2011 Smith Woodhouse late-bottled vintage port to bring it over the top.
Inside, chic pairs of women donning large silver necklaces perch in booths with martinis in hand. It’s easy to sink into your chair and linger while Biggie’s “Party and Bullshit” plays softly over the speakers; a taxidermied white mountain goat keeps watch over the dining room into the late hours. Service is present but not intrusive because it’s a classy joint that knows how to chill. That’s nouveau American fine dining, baby. — Henna Bakshi, regional editor, Southeast
The Arpege Egg, an homage to the famous dish at Paris’s Arpège.
A taxidermied mountain goat gets friendly with whoever sits in this booth.
Chef Karl Gorline finishes the hay-smoked duck.
Duck heart boudin with habanada sauce espagnole.
Bayonet
2015 second avenue n. / birmingham, al
The South knows its heirloom tomatoes, but Bayonet, the hot new restaurant on Birmingham’s Second Avenue, takes them somewhere unexpected: stacked in a sandwich with swordfish “bacon.” James Beard semifinalist chef Rob McDaniel and his wife, Emily, bring the same local ethos to seafood that they apply at their beloved Southern grill, Helen, which sits next door. At Bayonet, they source Alabama oysters, run an impressive dry-aged fish program, and treat the Gulf with reverence and grit.
That tomato sandwich stars swordfish dry-aged and seasoned like bacon, while a Reuben swaps corned beef for swordfish cured like pastrami, piled high with slaw. Each is its own revelation — bold, smoky, and distinctly Southern. Don’t come looking for delicate sashimi; Bayonet’s seafood is proudly Alabamian. The opah in the crudo is cut thick, pompano arrives with peach barbecue, and the shrimp banh mi is sticky with fish sauce caramel. Don’t forget dessert either, like the steaming peach fried pie (flaky crust surrounding fruit caramelized into submission) or the Watermelon Icebox (fruity semifreddo and granita, mint, makrut lime, and honey). Besides being a powerful hot-and-cold combo when ordered together, these desserts are testaments to a menu, driven by sustainability, that shifts seasonally to showcase the region’s best produce alongside the Gulf’s bounty. Bright cocktails, like the Dressed Anonymously, with mezcal, yuzu, saffron, and sumac, beautifully balance acid and smoke.
At the bar, a regular nurses a gin martini and half a dozen oysters. A table over, women in their Sunday best tackle a seafood tower nearly as big as their hair. Bayonet shines for its sense of place. But it’s the Southern creativity — and that fearless swordfish bacon — that sets it apart. — HB
Hamachi crudo with kabocha squash and Asian pear.
Chef Rob McDaniel collaborating on a raw bar selection.
Two of the many fish to pass through Bayonet’s dry-aging program.
The Ora King Salmon and egg salad sando with caviar and chives.
A hi-fi listening bar built around ice cream and wine seems like an odd combination, but artists, dreamers, and doers thrive in Asheville, North Carolina, where the community quickly welcomed Potential New Boyfriend shortly after the city reopened following Hurricane Helene. Owner Disco created a haven on Haywood Road — full of comfortable couches, funky paintings, and a top-of-the-line audio system — where neighbors in need of socializing gather for BYO vinyl nights, guest DJs, and movie screenings. Like PNB’s record collection, the menu, by Disco and chef Dana Amromin, fuses the nostalgic with the new. Patrons can pair an apple cider sorbet sundae with Japanese vermouth, or go classic with a tiramisu and port. Scoops might include chai-ginger, Vietnamese coffee, or salted chocolate. Disco is usually on hand to help, though it’s the type of place where you can ask a customer at the next table for suggestions, too. — Erin Perkins, editor, Southeast
Potential New Boyfriend
This Year's best third place:
Read more about the community hangouts we loved this year
presented by:
The scallion waffle with sambal honey butter. photography by zach horst
250 w. 19th street / houston, tx
The lemon pepper frog legs encapsulate chef Karl Gorline’s high-low vibe. photography by andrew thomas lee
A “Situation” of fresh seafood from the raw bar menu. photography by cary norton
Betsy’s epic Caesar salad and charred broccolini. photography by tom mcgovern
You’ll want to know this lobster. IYKYK. photography by scott semler
The Golden bowl featuring smoky jollof jambalaya, chicken, and Motherland curry. photography by douglas sweet jr.
Mala-glazed Firecracker Shrimp with shiso, nori, and gamtae seaweed. photography by carolyn fong
Don’t hold back when presented with a full spread at Kabawa. photography by alex staniloff
Sides at Kafi, like the three-cheese mac, are just as compelling as the meats. photography by brittany conerly
The porcini ice cream sandwich, shaped perfectly like a mushroom. photography by stan lee
A full meal at Komal, featuring the Chuchito tamal, molotes de plátano, and a Taco Sonia. photography by thalía gochez
The roasted pork and mozzarella sandwich, in sourdough Pullman bread. photography by bonnie durham
Mister Pio’s massive Josper rotisserie oven doing its thing. photography by jarod opperman
The whole Dungeness crab milagu fry with ney choru. photography by aliya ikhumen
Ripping into the properly sour podi masala dosa. photography by rey lopez
Agnes and sherman
Houston, TX
Avize
Atlanta, GA
bayonet
Birmingham, AL
betsy
Altadena, CA
Bong
Brooklyn, NY
chòpnblọk
Houston, TX
The happy crane
San Francisco, CA
kabawa
New York, NY
kafi bbq
Irving, TX
Ki
Los Angeles, CA
komal
Los Angeles, CA
luncheonette
Portland, ME
mister pio
Phoenix, AZ
Nadu
Chicago, IL
tapori
Washington, D.C.
Potential New Boyfriend
This Year's Best Third Place:
Pastries That Feel Personal
This Year in Bakeries:
647 Haywood Road | Asheville, NC
Snacks, drinks, desserts — all the areas where Potential New Boyfriend excels. photography by tim robison
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