Country guide

Iconic restaurants
in United States

A personal selection of 25 memorable dining rooms in United States: places chosen for their architecture, history, atmosphere and enduring sense of place.

New Orleans, United States

Antoine’s Restaurant

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →New York, United States

Balthazar

I selected it as an essential place to experience.

View this place →Bessemer, United States

Bright Star Restaurant

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →New Orleans, United States

Café du Monde

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →New York, United States

Delmonico’s

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →Brooklyn, United States

Gage & Tollner

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →New York, United States

Grand Central Oyster Bar

I selected it as an essential place to experience.

View this place →Pittsburgh, United States

Grand Concourse

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →Wilmington, United States

Le Cavalier

I selected it for its distinctive setting, atmosphere and sense of place.

View this place →New Orleans, United States

Arnaud’s

A complete expression of the French Quarter: historic rooms, Creole ritual, carnival culture and old-school hospitality under one roof.

View this place →Seattle, United States

Canlis

A rare restaurant whose architecture shaped both its regional identity and the way generations of Seattle diners mark an occasion.

View this place →Miami Beach, United States

Joe’s Stone Crab

Joe’s is bound to Miami’s origin story and to a regional ingredient whose popularity the restaurant itself helped create.

View this place →Los Angeles, United States

Musso & Frank Grill

The room is a working archive of the boulevard’s writers, actors, deals and rituals rather than a nostalgic reconstruction.

View this place →San Francisco, United States

Tadich Grill

Gold Rush history, Croatian-American ownership and a remarkably persistent service style give Tadich a sense of continuity rare in the American West.

View this place →Chicago, United States

The Berghoff

It preserves a major strand of Chicago’s cultural history in a large, atmospheric downtown restaurant that still functions at full scale.

View this place →New York, United States

Sardi’s

Few restaurants embody their neighbourhood as completely: Sardi’s preserves Broadway history through its rooms, rituals and celebrated walls of portraits.

View this place →New York, United States

The Russian Tea Room

A singular New York institution where theatrical history, exuberant design and Russo-Continental dining create an unmistakable sense of occasion.

View this place →New York, United States

Tavern on the Green

A quintessential Central Park destination where New York history, park scenery and celebratory dining meet.

View this place →New York, United States

The Campbell bar

I selected it as an essential place to experience.

View this place →New York, United States

Keens Steakhouse

A surviving New York chophouse where theatrical history, distinctive interiors and a famous culinary tradition still belong together.

View this place →New Orleans, United States

Commander’s Palace

A defining New Orleans dining institution where historic surroundings, exuberant service and modern Creole cuisine remain inseparable.

View this place →New Orleans, United States

Galatoire’s

This is not a museum-like room but a living social stage: elegant, noisy, multigenerational and inseparable from New Orleans’ particular culture of public dining.

View this place →Tampa, United States

Bern’s Steak House

Bern’s is gloriously unlike a contemporary luxury restaurant: immersive, eccentric and built up over seventy years. Its elaborate rooms, tableside rituals, cellar tours and dessert finale turn dinner into a distinctly Tampa institution.

View this place →Tampa, United States

Columbia Restaurant

Scale, continuity and architecture make Columbia exceptional: this is a working Spanish-Cuban restaurant complex shaped over generations, not a modern theme setting, and its dining rooms embody Tampa’s cigar-city heritage.

View this place →New Orleans, United States

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant

The beauty here is cultural as much as decorative: chandeliers, white linen and vivid art frame a dining room whose hospitality helped shape American history, while the Chase family still serves gumbo, shrimp Creole and fried chicken.

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