In October 2005, a few months after Eater New York launched its blog posts that obsessively tracked the city’s juiciest restaurant gossip, the site introduced the Eater 38, described then as “a new site feature and our answer to any question that begins, ‘Can you recommend a restaurant?’” (The number, it must be said, was proudly arbitrary.) In that iteration and countless ones since — spreading across the country onto maps on every single Eater city site, into international versions, and onto nationally scoped lists in the mid-2010s — the 38 encompassed the must-eat essentials of a city at any given time. Taken all together, each collection told the of-the-moment story of a local dining scene.
To celebrate Eater’s 20-year anniversary, we’re crafting the ultimate version of the Eater 38, one that showcases the restaurants we’ve savored and celebrated the most over the past two decades. Restaurants, like Eater itself, had to have debuted in 2005 (or later) to qualify, and much like that overly used Eater 38 copy in those early years, they cover the country, span myriad cuisines, and collectively should satisfy all of your restaurant needs, save for those occasions when you absolutely insist on spending half a paycheck.
Our list of the 38 most essential American restaurants of the past 20 years will debut in the pages of the first-ever Eater magazine this fall. But as an amuse bouche, here’s a behind-the-scenes sneak peek.
Meet the Tastemakers
To complete the herculean task of creating our list of the 38 most essential American restaurants of the past 20 years, we asked some of the nation’s most esteemed chefs and industry insiders to share the restaurants that inspired (or continue to inspire) them. The members of this group are a powerhouse of who’s who in dining — leaders who have enriched their local communities with their visions of hospitality, left a positive impact across the nation’s restaurant industry, and collected hundreds of accolades and awards among them. Meet the Eater Culinary Council.
As a group, their votes were tallied along with those of our staff to construct the Ultimate Eater 38.
And while the full ballots are locked in our vault, these chefs agreed to reveal five restaurants they’ll never forget:
José Andrés
Nina Compton
Hugo Ortega
Marcus Samuelsson
Ellen Yin
Somni, Los Angeles
Angler, San Francisco
Bill Addison
Bill Addison is the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times. Before moving to California in 2018, he spent five years as Eater’s national critic, writing about every facet of America’s dining culture. Addison has also held food critic positions in San Francisco, Dallas, and Atlanta. He received the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award from the James Beard Foundation in 2023, among numerous other accolades.
José Andrés
José Andrés is a chef and owner of José Andrés Group, with dozens of restaurants around the world. In 2010, he founded World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that provides food relief in response to global crises. Andrés’s culinary and humanitarian work has been repeatedly recognized by the James Beard Award Foundation. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and made the Time 100 list in 2012 and 2018, and Time 100 Philanthropy list in 2025.
Mark Canlis
Mark Canlis is the fourth-generation restaurateur behind Seattle’s Canlis, which opened in 1950. After serving as an Air Force captain, he helped open Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke in New York City and worked at Union Square Cafe and Eleven Madison Park before returning to Seattle and overseeing the modernization of his family’s restaurant. Canlis has been nominated for 15 James Beard Awards and won three.
Sue S. Chan
Sue S. Chan is the founder of Care of Chan, a premiere event production agency that collaborates with some of the world’s best culinary, film, fashion, art, and design brands. Prior to founding the agency in 2016, Chan was the brand director of Momofuku, where she opened restaurants in NYC, Sydney, and Toronto and oversaw public relations and marketing.
Amanda Kludt
Amanda Kludt is the former editor-in-chief of Eater and the former group publisher of Eater, Punch, Thrillist, and PS. After joining Eater in 2008, she expanded the website from a blog to an award-winning service, reporting, and entertainment publication. She is now responsible for leading newsroom projects and initiatives at the New York Times.
Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel
Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel is the chef and co-owner of Birdie’s in Austin. After falling in love with ingredient-driven cooking in Spain, she moved to Chicago, where she cooked at Lula Café. In NYC, she worked at Cru, Del Posto, Blue Hill New York, Gramercy Tavern, and Untitled at the Whitney. She was a James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Texas in 2024.
Adrian Miller
Adrian Miller, also known as the Soul Food Scholar, is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, recovering attorney, and certified barbecue judge. He previously served as a White House special assistant to President Bill Clinton and as a senior policy analyst for Colorado governor Bill Ritter Jr. He lives in Denver.
Christina Nguyen
Christina Nguyen is the executive chef and co-owner of the restaurants Hola Arepa and Hai Hai in Minneapolis. A self-taught chef, she started Hola Arepa as a food truck in 2011 with her husband, Birk Grudem, before transitioning it to a permanent home in 2014. She received the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest in 2024.
Kwame Onwuachi
Kwame Onwuachi is the chef of Dōgon in Washington, D.C., the forthcoming Maroon in Las Vegas, and Tatiana in NYC, which the New York Times named the No. 1 best restaurant in the city in 2024. His accolades include Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2019, Esquire Chef of the Year in 2019, Forbes 30 Under 30, the Time 100 list, and the James Beard Award for Emerging Chef.
Hugo Ortega
Hugo Ortega is the executive chef and owner of H Town Restaurant Group in Houston, which includes Hugo’s, Caracol, Xochi, Urbe, and Backstreet Cafe. He began his career as a dishwasher and busboy at Backstreet Cafe and later became its executive chef and owner, along with his wife, Tracy Vaught. In 2017, he received the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest and the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award.
Femi Oyediran
Femi Oyediran is a sommelier and the co-owner of Graft Wine Shop and Tutti Pizza in Charleston, South Carolina. He made Wine Enthusiast’s 40 Under 40 list in 2018 and was named Sommelier of the Year by Food & Wine in 2019.
Marcus Samuelsson
Marcus Samuelsson is the chef behind restaurants including Red Rooster, Metropolis, and Hav & Mar in NYC; Red Rooster Overtown in Miami; Marcus Bar & Grille in Atlanta; and Marcus DC in Washington, D.C. In addition to appearing as a TV personality on food shows like Chopped, he is the author of multiple books, including the best-selling memoir Yes, Chef. He has won eight James Beard Foundation Awards.
Chris Shepherd
Chris Shepherd is the founding director of the food and beverage industry-focused nonprofit Southern Smoke Foundation. He founded and co-owned the restaurant group Underbelly Hospitality — including its acclaimed restaurant Underbelly, which helped change Houston’s culinary landscape when it opened in 2012 — until 2022. Shepherd was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in America in 2013 and received the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014.
Jazz Singsanong
Jazz Singsanong, known for her mastery of Southern Thai cuisine, is the owner of the longstanding Jitlada Thai Restaurant in Los Angeles and is considered a leader in showcasing regional Thai cooking. The Los Angeles Times has said that Jitlada offers “some of the most beloved Thai food” in the city. Singsanong was a finalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef: California in 2022 and 2023.
Lien Ta
Lien Ta is the founder of the Los Angeles restaurant Here’s Looking at You. Before its closure in June 2025, HLAY was recognized as Food & Wine’s Restaurant of the Year in 2016 and was a semifinalist for the Outstanding Hospitality James Beard Award in 2022. Ta and the late chef Jonathan Whitener were also the owners of All Day Baby, which spent five years in business.
Mike Traud
Mike Traud is the founder and executive director of the Chef Conference, which has hosted events in Los Angeles, NYC, and Philadelphia that bring together industry and education. Traud cooked in the kitchens of Osteria, Vetri, and Zeppoli before transitioning to teaching hospitality law. During his time in education, Traud was the chair and founder of the Philly Chef Conference from 2013 to 2023.
Nina Compton
Nina Compton is the chef of Compère Lapin in New Orleans, which she opened in 2015. From 2018 to 2025, she also operated Bywater American Bistro, which Eater New Orleans named its Restaurant of the Year in 2018. The same year, she received the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South. Compton is also the author of the cookbook Kwéyòl / Creole, published in 2025.
Chris Williams
Chris Williams is the chef and owner of Lucille’s in Houston, which he opened in 2012 as a tribute to his great-grandmother, culinary pioneer and businesswoman Lucille B. Smith. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he founded the nonprofit Lucille’s 1913 to address food waste and food insecurity in Houston. He was named a James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur semifinalist in 2022 and 2023.
Erick Williams
Erick Williams is a chef and the founder of Chicago’s Virtue Hospitality Group, which includes Virtue Restaurant & Bar, Mustard Seed Kitchen, Daisy’s Po-Boy and Tavern, Top This Mac and Cheese, and Cantina Rosa. He received the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2022. Virtue was named an Eater Best New Restaurant in 2019.
Lee Ann Wong
Lee Ann Wong is the chef and owner of Koko Head Cafe in Honolulu, which she opened in 2014. After competing in the first season of Bravo’s Top Chef, she worked as the show’s supervising culinary producer for the next six seasons and competed again in Top Chef’s 15th and 17th seasons. In 2022, she was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific.
Ellen Yin
Ellen Yin is the founder and co-owner of High Street Hospitality Group, which operates Fork, High Street Restaurant & Bakery, and the Wonton Project in Philadelphia, as well as a.kitchen+bar in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The James Beard Foundation named her Outstanding Restaurateur in 2023, and Philadelphia Magazine recognized her as one of the city’s 150 most influential people in 2024.
I am so proud of my friend Aitor [Zabala] for everything he’s done at Somni. He’s always been looking beyond the horizon in search of the pure essence of the greatest ingredients available anywhere and has now achieved the dream of many, many chefs: three Michelin stars.
You will find some of the best seafood in the country at Angler. The way they are sourcing their fish and shellfish, and their mastery of smoke and fire, put them on another level.
If you want to understand how a restaurant can be deeply embedded in its community, inviting everyone in to learn and grow together, you need to visit Andy Shallal’s Busboys and Poets — a testament to the idea that food can inspire social change.
Busboys and Poets, Washington, D.C.
Sean Sherman is doing something big at Owamni and beyond. He is preserving, reviving, and evolving some of the deepest stories about American history, about the Indigenous people who have shaped our foodways and always called this country home.
Owamni, Minneapolis
When Bazaar opened in Beverly Hills in 2008, it introduced a whole new kind of restaurant. It captured the wonder, the “what if,” and the whimsy of what food can be: pure, playful joy. We have opened many Bazaars since then — in Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago, D.C., and New York — each one with the same DNA of creativity and magic.
Bazaar, Beverly Hills
It’s a French bistro with Southern accents. There’s a lot of focus on farmers and showcasing their best ingredients on the plate. His cooking is super soulful, super beautiful. You feel like you’re eating at your Southern grandmother’s table.
Vern’s, Charleston
Bar Kabawa, New York
Lisa Nelson is a one-man show in the kitchen. Her Trinidadian cooking is just the most beautiful thing. She is not trained classically. She made food for her kids at home, and people in the neighborhood would smell it and ask her to make a little more — and they paid for it. She is somebody who took a leap of faith and is just killing the game.
Queen Trini Lisa, New Orleans
The food is so interesting and exciting, and really a continuation of what Omar Tate has brought to Philadelphia. They’re doing an amazing job with incredible food.
Honeysuckle, Philadelphia
I just love seeing Caribbean food at this level, and chef Paul Carmichael really showcases recipes that are not very common. To have Caribbean food so well done, it brings me so much excitement. When I visited with a friend, he served us a beautiful okra appetizer and a roasted breadfruit with good butter, sea salt, and pepper jelly. My friend and I were literally not speaking the entire meal: We’re cutting the breadfruit and trying to take all the flesh off the skin like a mango, and trying to get every last morsel.
I appreciate very much the work of chefs Diego Galicia and Rico Torres bringing inventive Mexican cuisine to San Antonio, where Tex-Mex cuisine is king. We did the same thing in Houston, so I know the challenge. But they’ve made names for themselves in their city and beyond.
The food and drink feel both refined and homey at the same time. Chef Louis Roger brought Barcelona to the heart of Houston, and we are grateful.
Mixli, San Antonio
BCN, Houston
Chef and co-owner Anita [Jaisinghani] is a dear friend of mine, and she’s dedicated her soul to Indian cuisine. It’s very deep, very complex, and sustainable, too — and Anita is thoughtful and precise, as is her food.
Pondicheri, Houston
The food here is honest and personal. One that got my attention is that they cook the pig like we do in Mexico for carnitas: They use the whole pig, the hair, the ears, the tail.
Compère Lapin, New Orleans
Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t often toot my own horn, but I have to select one of my restaurants here — with great pride and some hesitation. But I truly feel that with the opening of Xochi, my wife, Tracy Vaught, and I and our entire team did something unique and special.
Xochi, Houston
Nancy Silverton is just an incredible force. If you think about what she did with her restaurant group, it reminds me of [Michael Jackson’s one-two punch of] Off the Wall and Thriller: The bread became the pizza bar; the pizzeria became the butchery Chi Spacca. There’s so much California, so much skill, so much joy with Nancy.
Mozza, Los Angeles
At Red Rooster, I really enjoyed the work of understanding African American culture to a deeper level. We decided to lead with Harlem and let people tell us what to do. This restaurant came from that place of joy and understanding, and I think that’s why it became so special.
Red Rooster, New York
What Rasika in D.C. and Tabla in New York did at the same time is bring Indian restaurants to the level you see in London; in American big cities, you hadn’t seen that before. And that’s what’s led to the moment that restaurants like Semma [in New York] are having right now.
Rasika, Washington, D.C.
Dominique Crenn is a great bridge between French fine dining and modern America. She’s an exceptional technician, and the way she does it makes it fun.
Atelier Crenn, San Francisco
Along with the Slanted Door [in San Francisco], these two entered pop culture in the most incredible way and talked to their heritage — but also to America.
Momofuku, New York, and Night Market + Song, Los Angeles
After the pandemic, everybody was trying to figure out how to change the restaurant model. With the supper club, where you know exactly how many people [you’re serving], it allowed chef Amanda Shulman to define her quality of life and that of her team members. It’s really groundbreaking. And the food is delicious.
Her Place Supper Club, Philadelphia
It’s a very mission-driven restaurant. And now there are more and more people who are opening restaurants with a specific mission or promoting something they are passionate about. She’s making something that’s delicious that also tells you about her values.
South Philly Barbacoa, Philadelphia
We [in Philadelphia] are passionate about farm-to-table sustainability, and chef Omar Tate’s team really does that to a degree. He’s continuing his narrative, and doing so with a slightly different approach.
Honeysuckle, Philadelphia
You can’t not acknowledge what Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook have done to really highlight Israeli and Middle Eastern cuisine at a high level. It tells a story of heritage: He made an approachable and accessible restaurant that influenced others in the city.
Zahav, Philadelphia
There are thousands of pizzerias all over the country, but they legitimized “pizzeria” as part of the American upscale dining scene by offering very well-done pizzas. Everybody loves pizza, and it democratizes that type of dining.
Pizzeria Beddia, Philadelphia
Tacos de barbacoa with consomé from South Philly Barbacoa. Nat Belkov/Eater
A dish from Atelier Crenn. Bill Addison/Eater
Goat curry with potato gnocchi from Compère Lapin. Denny Culbert/Compère Lapin
Offerings from Philadelphia’s Honeysuckle Provisions. Gab Bonghi/Eater
The eggs Benedict at Owanmi in Minneapolis. Owamni
José Andrés
José Andrés is a chef and owner of José Andrés Group, with dozens of restaurants around the world. In 2010, he founded World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that provides food relief in response to global crises. Andrés’s culinary and humanitarian work have been repeatedly recognized by the James Beard Award Foundation. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and made the Time 100 list in 2012 and 2018, and Time 100 Philanthropy in 2025.
Hillary Dixler Canavan
Hillary Dixler Canavan writes and edits What Are We Having?, a newsletter of original recipes and expert tips that helps busy families eat deliciously. She spent over a decade as an editor at Eater, where, as restaurant editor, she authored the publication’s debut book, Eater: 100 Essential Restaurant Recipes From the Authority on Where to Eat and Why It Matters.
The focus is simplicity: It’s the best olive oil, the best tomatoes, the best flour, and you can taste that. I’ve never seen a plate that’s not wiped down with the focaccia. It looks like a paintbrush; people are just wiping sauce with bread at the end of the night. We don’t want to waste a drop of anything because it’s so good.
Macchialina, Miami
The food is so interesting and exciting, and really a continuation of what Omar Tate has brought to Philadelphia. They’re doing an amazing job with incredible food.
Honeysuckle, Philadelphia
Editors: Hillary Dixler Canavan and Erin DeJesus
Writers: Bettina Makalintal and Kayla Stewart
Copy edited by Leilah Bernstein
Creative Direction: Nat Belkov
Design: Lille Allen
Editors: Hillary Dixler Canavan and Erin DeJesus
Writers: Bettina Makalintal and Kayla Stewart
Copy editor: Leilah Bernstein
Creative direction: Nat Belkov
Additional photography credits: José Andrés photo by Josh Telles; Hugo Ortega by Paula Murphy; Marcus Samuelsson by Daisy Vega; Ellen Yin courtesy of Realm