The Best
New Restaurants in America in 2025
Across the United States, new restaurants are serving outstanding, abundant food and capturing different experiences, backgrounds, and dining interests. They’re celebrating African diasporic cuisine in a fast-casual format; applying fine dining expertise to Peruvian pollo a la brasa; and extending the footprint of beloved Cantonese, Sichuan, and Beijing flavors.
But the stakes of serving diners have never been greater. Confusing tariff policies have forced restaurants to find cheaper ingredients. Pre-shift meetings now include instructions for dealing with ICE agents targeting immigrant communities. A precarious economic landscape challenges new restaurants in every way.
And yet, restaurants are rising to the occasion — and having fun doing it. In Los Angeles’s historic Altadena community devastated by fire, a restaurant has transformed live-fire hearth cooking into a community salve. In Northeast Texas, the state’s growing Muslim community now enjoys divinely crafted halal wagyu barbecue. In Georgia, Alpine dandelions and smoky schlutzkrapfen find an unexpected, albeit perfect home in the Deep South. From coast to coast, tasting menus are taking guests on journeys through the Caribbean or deep into reimagined Korean culinary traditions.
This vanguard of dining speaks to the nation’s evolution, often most visible on the table. Despite threats to the fabric of American communities, restaurants remain cornerstones of activism and hope, building on decades of irreversible progress. This year’s crop of best new restaurants exemplify an industry emboldened by innovation, flavor, and the diners that make it all worthwhile. Pull up a chair, and let’s eat. — Kayla Stewart, senior editor
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