Esquire's Best New Restaurants 2024: Complete List and Analysis

Four Kings landed on Commercial Street in San Francisco's Chinatown with credentials that demand attention: Esquire's number-one new restaurant in the United States for 2024, back-to-back Michelin Plates, and a Pearl recommendation. The cooking by Franky Ho and Micjael Long anchors in Chinese technique at the $$ price point, placing it among the neighbourhood's most awarded casual tables.

Ranked #21 on the LA Times 101 Best Restaurants 2024 and #2 on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list, Azizam brings Iranian home-cooking to a compact Silver Lake café with no reservations and a concise menu built around mazeh, sandwiches, and mains. The kofteh Tabrizi — a herb-and-rice meatball with a fruit-and-nut centre — has become the dish that defines what the restaurant is trying to do.

Ranked third on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list for 2024, Budonoki brings a modern izakaya format to Virgil Village's low-key residential grid, pairing Japanese drinking snacks, sushi, sake, and cocktails in a neighbourhood-first setting. With a 4.7 Google rating across 177 reviews, it sits at the accessible, sociable end of Los Angeles's broader Japanese dining spectrum — closer to a local gathering point than a destination tasting counter.

Ranked #46 on the LA Times 101 Best Restaurants 2024 and #4 on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list, Camélia brings French-Japanese cooking to a Midcentury Modern bistro space in the Arts District. Sister to Echo Park's Tsubaki and Ototo, it applies the same community-rooted hospitality to a larger, more ambitious format, with a beverage program that treats sake and wine as equals.

Mae Malai Thai House of Noodles in Thai Town holds consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition (2024 and 2025) and ranked 57th on the LA Times 101 Best Restaurants 2024. The draw is boat noodles: a dark, spice-threaded broth topped with pork cracklings, built from a Bangkok recipe refined over decades. At under $10 a bowl, it sits in a category where craft and price rarely align this cleanly.

Opened in March 2024, Mori Nozomi earned a Michelin star in its first full year and landed on the LA Times 101 Best Restaurants list, ranked 53rd. Chef-owner Nozomi Mori runs an eight-seat counter in Sawtelle, leading an all-female team through a kaiseki-inflected omakase that folds farmers market pickles, fresh wagashi, and seasonal Japanese seafood into a format that reads as distinctly its own.

7 Adams holds a 2025 Michelin star and an Esquire Best New Restaurants nod for its five-course Californian prix-fixe on Sutter Street. Chef Bart Desmidt's kitchen applies focused technique to seasonal ingredients at a price point that sits well below comparable tasting-menu programs in the city. Reservations are competitive; plan accordingly.

Charlie's Napa Valley brings a contemporary American sensibility to Railroad Avenue in St. Helena, earning an Esquire Best New Restaurants nod in 2024 under chef Elliot Bell. The format sits in the accessible end of Napa's dining spectrum — a deliberate departure from the valley's tasting-menu defaults. Google reviewers rate it 4.5 across 134 reviews, signaling consistent execution at a price point well below the region's fine-dining ceiling.

Alma Fonda Fina earned a Michelin star and an Esquire Best New Restaurants listing (No. 9, 2024) within its first year, signaling that Denver's contemporary Mexican conversation now runs through this snug LoHi room. An eight-seat chef's counter anchors the experience; a four-section menu built around masa, crudos, and sharing plates rewards guests who order across all categories. Priced at $$, it sits below Denver's $$$$ Michelin tier without compromising ambition.

Opened in September 2024 inside the Salamander Washington DC hotel, Dōgon brings Kwame Onwuachi's Afro-Caribbean vision to the capital with a shareable menu that moves between West African, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole traditions. The Michelin Plate recipient earned a spot on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list for 2024 and Resy's Best of the Hit List in 2025. Chef de cuisine Martel Stone, a Chopped Next Gen winner, executes a tightly edited menu where every dish earns its place.

ITAMAE holds a Michelin star and a 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: South, placing it among Miami's most credentialed Peruvian kitchens. Operating out of Miami's Wynwood-adjacent Design District corridor on NE 1st Ave, the restaurant applies Japanese technique to Peruvian ingredients — a Nikkei lineage that has earned consecutive Opinionated About Dining rankings and Esquire recognition since 2023.

Little Sparrow brings the French bistro tradition to Atlanta's West Midtown with the kind of ease that takes genuine effort to achieve. Chef Bob Ryan's room earned consecutive Michelin Plate recognition in 2024 and 2025, alongside an Esquire Best New Restaurants nod at number twelve for 2024. At the $$$ price point, it occupies a deliberate middle register in Atlanta's fine-dining conversation.

In Chicago's West Loop, Maxwells Trading occupies a converted warehouse on Carroll Avenue where the cooking moves fluidly across Japanese, Chinese, and Thai reference points. Dishes like soup dumpling tortellini with maitake mushroom and turbot with kombu beurre blanc earned the kitchen a 2024 Michelin Plate and a spot at number 13 on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list. The bar program and a rooftop kitchen garden round out a package that punches well above its price tier.

Acamaya in New Orleans presents Contemporary Mexican cooking anchored in Gulf seafood. Chef Ana Castro and sister Lydia serve standout plates like Chochoyotes with crab, Tuna Tostada with charred avocado, peanut and nori, and charred salsa verde crab claws. The James Beard–recognized kitchen blends Mexico City memory and Bywater ingredients, highlighting supple masa dumplings, bright citrus, and clean ocean brine. Expect subtle, layered flavors rather than overpowering heat, seasonal menu shifts, and a full bar with thoughtful cocktails and wines. Reservations are recommended; some walk-ins are available. Acamaya offers a refined yet approachable dining experience that pairs regional Mexican technique with New Orleans’ bounty.

Oun Lido's brings Cambodian-Chinese fusion to Portland's Old Port at 30 Market Street, earning a spot on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list for 2024 at number fifteen. Under chef Masayuki Otaka, the kitchen reinterprets classic Chinese technique through a Cambodian lens, producing one of the more distinctive menus in the city's already competitive dining corridor. A 4.9 Google rating across 99 reviews signals early and consistent approval.

Vecino brings modern Mexican cooking anchored in open-flame technique to Detroit's Cass Corridor, earning a spot on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list in 2024 at number 16. Chef Tyler Akin's kitchen draws on barbacoa traditions and wood-fired methods within a city that has grown comfortable with ambitious, genre-specific dining. A Google rating of 4.7 across 475 reviews signals early staying power.

Named after the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand where Chef Yia Vang's parents met, Vinai is Minneapolis's most culturally anchored restaurant. The kitchen reframes Hmong family cooking through a modern lens, earning a place on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list in 2024. It sits at the intersection of Northeast Minneapolis's immigrant food history and the city's broader reckoning with whose cuisines get fine-dining treatment.

Established in 1937 and revived in 2024 by Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr of Frenchette, Le Veau d'Or is the Upper East Side's clearest argument for classical French cooking as a living discipline. A prix-fixe menu anchored by pâté en croûte and poulet à l'estragon, a 100-label all-natural wine list, and a 2025 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur mark it as the most credentialed bistro revival in New York.

April Bloomfield's Fort Greene bistro has drawn lines around the block since opening, earning Opinionated About Dining's Casual recognition and a place on New York Magazine's 43 Best list in 2025. The menu trades in seasonal New American cooking with British gastro-pub undertones: direct, ingredient-led, and light on ceremony. Lunch and dinner each offer their own case for the trip to Brooklyn.

Demo holds a Michelin star and a La Liste score of 77 points, placing it firmly inside Vilnius's small tier of destination-level dining. Chef Tommi Tuominen's format of modern European small plates and serious wine makes it the city's clearest crossover between a precision kitchen and a wine bar. Evenings run Tuesday through Sunday from 18:00, with Saturday lunch service also available.

Positioned on Park Avenue inside a glassy midtown tower, Four Twenty Five pairs Jonathan Benno's classical precision with Jean-Georges Vongerichten's spice-driven global range. New York Magazine named it among the 43 best restaurants in New York for 2025, and Esquire ranked it among its best new restaurants of 2024. The result is a rare midtown address that earns serious critical attention rather than coasting on location.

Naks arrived on East Village's First Avenue in 2024 and landed at #22 on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list within its first year, a signal that Filipino cooking in New York is finally getting the critical attention it has long warranted. The kitchen works from Filipino culinary traditions without apology or oversimplification, placing it in a small but growing tier of American restaurants treating the cuisine as a serious fine-dining reference point.

Penny opened above Claud in 2024, converting the East Village building's bright second floor into one of New York's most closely watched raw seafood counters. Chef Joshua Pinsky works from little more than a binchotan grill and a refrigerator, and the restraint shows in every dish. With a 6,000-bottle wine list anchored in Burgundy and Champagne, the bar-only format rewards early arrivals and walk-in diners equally.

Tolo brings a serious wine program and refined technique to Canal Street's Chinatown, earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand and an Esquire Best New Restaurants nod in 2024. Chef Ron Yan's menu reads like a catalogue of familiar Cantonese forms executed with precision: salt-and-pepper tofu, sweet-and-sour branzino, herb-laden beef shank. The room is small, the tables fill fast, and the Zalto-glasses wine list signals ambitions that exceed the price point.

In Ridgewood, Queens, Hellbender occupies the charged territory between serious restaurant and neighborhood bar, where Chef Yara Herrera applies fine-dining technique to Mexican-American cooking without abandoning its roots. Named among Esquire's Best New Restaurants of 2024, the room moves to hip-hop and corridos while the kitchen produces dishes that reward attention: fried Oaxacan cheese, oyster mushroom tacos, and made-from-scratch Jell-O in rotating seasonal flavors.

Wildweed occupies a specific and convincing position in Cincinnati dining: a farm-to-table restaurant rooted in Midwestern foraging and freshly milled grain that also happens to be one of the region's most serious Italian kitchens. Recognised by Esquire as one of 2024's best new restaurants in the country and holding a Pearl recommendation, it operates from 1301 Walnut St with a chef's counter format that rewards advance planning.

Amy's Pastelillos landed on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list in 2024, bringing Puerto Rican pastelillos to Philadelphia's Fishtown neighbourhood with a 4.8-star rating across over a hundred Google reviews. The spot on Memphis Street sits in one of the city's most food-forward corridors, where national recognition has started to follow community word-of-mouth.

A Corsican and Sardinian kitchen in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighbourhood, Bastia landed at number 28 on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list in 2024. Chef Tyler Akin draws from the agrarian and pastoral traditions of two Mediterranean island cuisines, producing food shaped by cured meats, aged cheeses, and legume-driven preparations rather than the generic Mediterranean register most American diners expect.

A Michelin Plate-recognised Modern French restaurant on Rotterdam's Westerkade waterfront, River Bar pairs chef Patrick Gilmartin's kitchen with a wine program running to 4,500 bottles and a $25 corkage policy. The collaboration between the cooking team and wine director shapes a mid-range French address that punches above its price bracket in a city where fine dining tends to cluster at the four-euro-sign tier.

Bintü Atelier on Line Street brings West African culinary tradition into Charleston's dining conversation with a seriousness that earned it a spot on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list for 2024. Chef Bintou N'Daw Young works through an ingredient-led lens, connecting Lowcountry sourcing to West African technique in a city whose food culture has long drawn on those same roots without always naming them.

Kultura brings Filipino-Southern cooking to Charleston's Upper Peninsula, where Chef Nikko Cagalanan works a format that has earned the restaurant a place on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list for 2024. The premise is direct: two distinct culinary traditions treated with equal seriousness, not as novelty fusion but as a coherent, ingredient-led argument for why these cuisines belong together. Google reviewers rate it 4.6 across 243 reviews.

St. Vito Focacceria brings Sicilian-rooted focacceria tradition to Nashville's Wedgewood-Houston corridor, earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2025 and a spot on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list the year prior. Chef Michael Hanna's counter at 605 Mansion St operates in the casual-specialist register that Michelin's value tier was designed to recognize: serious technique, accessible format, no performance required.

Mābo brings yakitori to a serious register in North Dallas, earning a spot on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list for 2024 and Resy's Best of the Hit List for 2025. Chef Bounahcree Kim works a format rooted in Japanese skewer tradition, drawing critical attention in a city still building its Japanese dining identity. A 4.6 Google rating from early reviewers suggests the reception is holding.

Two consecutive Michelin Plates and an Esquire Best New Restaurants nod in 2024 mark Late August as one of Houston's more closely watched tables. Chef Sergio Hidalgo's Southern-meets-Afro-Asian kitchen on Main Street operates at a mid-to-upper price point where the cooking earns the room's attention rather than just its cover charge. Book ahead and go with an occasion in mind.

Atoma sits in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood, serving contemporary Pacific Northwest cuisine that earned an Esquire Best New Restaurants ranking in 2024. Chef Johnny Courtney and Wine Director Oscar Galvan run a dinner program with a 190-selection wine list weighted toward France and Italy, priced at the mid-range for both food and wine. A Google rating of 4.6 across 267 reviews signals consistent execution at a neighborhood level.