Each fall you can practically hear the country’s restaurant community screech with joy. Because that is when some of the States’ finest food-centric publications debut their annual lists of the best restaurants and chefs in the nation. They send battalions of writers and editors to investigate the state of dining in the U.S. of A. Why not then have them tell you where you should be eating this fall?
Popoca, Oakland, California
The San Francisco Bay Area has had a strong Salvadoran population for decades. It was perhaps inevitable that a chef would come along and have his personal way with the cuisine of that central American country. Anthony Salguero “makes one of the most delicious versions of El Salvador’s national dish,” pupusas, said Bon Appétit. But there is much more to this live-fire restaurant that Bon Appétit also dubbed one of the best restaurants of 2024.
Sap Sua, Denver
Vietnamese at its soul; American in its reach: Sap Sua is a restaurant where “Vietnamese flavors blend into those of other cultures — turmeric-batter fried catfish sandwiches topped with slices of American cheese or grilled corn ribs with shrimp aioli,” said Bon Appétit for its list of 2024 best new restaurants. Owners Ni and Anna Nguyen have been inching toward Sap Sua for at least a decade. “Really, in the loosest form, I think we’ve been working on it for as long as we’ve been together,” Anna Nguyen said to 5280 magazine.
Chilte, Phoenix
Chilte began as a farmers market pop-up and now Lawrence LT Smith has been named one of the year’s best new chefs from Food & Wine. “What Chilte does is pull from a tradition and experiment with it,” Smith said to the magazine. “We make it our own and push where Chilte is headed.” That tradition is Mexican, so there are flautas that might be filled with lamb neck and the kitchen’s Mexican-ized take on Korean banchan.
Kisser, Nashville
A lunch-only Japanese-inspired café, “the tight menu at Kisser embraces homey, traditional Japanese dishes, and sentimentality is occasionally, unapologetically at play,” said Food 7 Wine. Chef-owners Leina Horii and Brian Lea, winners of the magazine’s 2024 best new chefs award, oversee a menu of comforting dishes like Japanese curry onigiri (rice balls), chilled ramed salad with confit duck leg and blueberry-yuzu parfait.
Bomb Biscuit Co, Atlanta
A good biscuit is a telltale sign of good Southern cooking. Well, Erika Council, a Food & Wine best new chef winner for 2024, bakes a great biscuit. Her restaurant is an homage to the power of biscuits, whether those are lemon-pepper chicken biscuits, biscuits and gravy or a vegan egg and cheddar biscuit. “It just kind of all goes back to biscuits,” Council said to Food & Wine. “I don’t know why. It’s just a feeling I have when I make them.”
Alpenrausch, Portland, Oregon
Sausage was already king when made by the wurst magicians at Olympic Provisions. Now, the minds behind that venture have debuted their new homage, which “acts as a backdrop for a relaxed, cozy education in the food of the Alps,” said Bon Appétit when it named Alpenrausch one of the year’s best new restaurants. Expect rosti with smoked trout and trout roe, fondue for groups both small and large, and an array of herby Alpine spirits.
My Loup, Philadelphia
A restaurant that sits at the intersection of Montreal and Philly, My Loup is “bighearted and maximalist, proud but unpretentious, by turns serious and fun as all hell,” said Bon Appétit when it awarded the restaurant a slot on the best new restaurants of 2024 list. The menu veers from seafood to meat with ease. A mussel “potato salad” comes dressed with vin jaune; unripened grape juice sharply softens the richness of a foie gras and plum tart.
Neng Jr’s, Asheville
Adobo is all over the menu at this Filipino-Southern restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s there on a raw oyster preparation, as the base for a duck breast, even the spiky inspiration for the house martini. Chef-owner Silver Iocovozzi was one of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs for 2024 because Neng Jr’s “radiates unabashed, colorful, queer joy” and has a “riotous, freewheeling menu effortlessly veering between Filipino and Southern food.”