2026 Food & Wine Top 10 US Restaurants

<strong>Kabawa puts Caribbean cooking into</strong> New <strong>York City</strong>’s serious <strong>prix-fixe</strong> conversation without sanding down its edges. The point is not luxury mimicry: sorrel powder, tamarind, allspice and <strong>Scotch bonnets</strong> are treated as structural ingredients, with <strong>Paul Carmichael</strong>’s Barbadian background framing a broader argument about the African diaspora and dining-room recognition.

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.

Canje brings Guyanese and broader Caribbean cooking to East Austin's 6th Street corridor, earning an Esquire Best New Restaurants #4 ranking in 2022 and a Pearl Recommended designation in 2025. With a 4.6 Google rating across more than 1,100 reviews, it occupies a distinctive position in Austin's dining scene — a city better known for barbecue and New American tasting menus than for the flavors of the Anglophone Caribbean.

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.

Emeril's opened on Tchoupitoulas Street in 1990 and built a category of its own: New New Orleans cooking that placed Louisiana's produce at the centre of serious fine dining. Now holding two Michelin stars and a 2026 La Liste score of 92 points, the Warehouse District flagship operates under Chef E.J. Lagasse, whose tasting menu reframes the restaurant's founding classics through a lens shaped by Frantzén and Core by Clare Smyth.

A seven-seat kaiseki counter in Downtown L.A.'s Row DTLA, Hayato holds two Michelin stars and ranked second on the LA Times 101 Best Restaurants list in 2024. Reservations open at the start of each month and close within minutes. Chef Brandon Hayato Go prepares each course in full view of diners, with commentary on provenance and seasonality that turns the counter into something closer to a seminar than a service.

Semma brought Tamil Nadu's regional cooking to Greenwich Village in 2022 and has not softened its position since. Chef Vijay Kumar's 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: New York State and a Michelin star confirm what the room already signals: this is South Indian food argued on its own terms, with fermented dosas, gunpowder spice, and falling-apart lamb that answer to no fusion brief.

Kalaya brings Southern Thai cooking to Fishtown with a conviction that the cuisine deserves the same quality ingredients and serious kitchen attention as any fine-dining address. Chef-owner Chutatip 'Nok' Suntaranon draws on the coastal province of Trang, producing fragrant curries, house-made pastes, and dishes built around authentic heat levels that Philadelphia's Thai restaurant scene had rarely attempted before.

Kann is Portland's James Beard Award-winning live-fire Haitian restaurant from chef Gregory Gourdet, ranked #117 on Opinionated About Dining's 2025 Casual North America list. Wood-fired cooking anchors a Caribbean-inspired menu that is entirely gluten and dairy-free, backed by a 550-bottle wine list weighted toward France and Oregon. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 4pm at 548 SE Ash St.

Mister Jiu's holds a Michelin star and a 2022 James Beard Award for Best Chef: California, operating from a historic Chinatown banquet hall on Waverly Place. Chef Brandon Jew reframes Cantonese banquet tradition through seasonal Bay Area produce, positioning the restaurant in San Francisco's top tier of contemporary Chinese-American dining. Google reviewers rate it 4.3 across more than 1,100 responses.