Food & Wine Restaurants of the Year 2016

New York City: If I were going to spend the entire day at a single restaurant, it would be High Street on Hudson. In the cozy West Village space, F&W Best New Chef 2014 Eli Kulp has teamed up with baker Alex Bois and pastry chef Samantha Kincaid to offer an incredible around-the-clock array of dishes. In the morning I’d start out with the Hickory Town breakfast sandwich with Lancaster bologna, fried egg and pickle mayo. Lunch would be the duck-meatball sub. At night, my order would be honey-glazed chicken with chicken-skin Caesar. It’s designed for sharing, so hopefully I’ll have made a friend during my dream day. 637 Hudson St.; highstreetonhudson.com

Raleigh, North Carolina: I have no idea how FedEx delivered the 1,900-pound, custom-made-in-Texas grill that is the focus of Ashley Christensen’s gorgeous restaurant (named for its previous lives as both a mortuary and a bank). Christensen has mastered the tricky art of live-fire cooking, using her grill to make everything from insanely good littleneck clams with embered butter to The Pig, an epic pork chop that is brined, braised and then cooked to charred and juicy perfection. 105 W. Hargett St.; ac-restaurants.com/death-taxes

San Francisco: When Gabriela Cámara opened her acclaimed restaurant Contramar in Mexico City, she broke a few rules. “Nobody was serving ceviches or tostadas in an elegant environment,” she says proudly. “That was food you would eat in a market or at a beach shack.” Now the star chef has brought her sensational Mexican cooking to the Bay Area. At Cala, the menu is predominantly seafood, prepared with local ingredients: “I made a point of not bringing many products from home,” Cámara says. Once again, she’s doing unconventional things, making tamales with sea urchin and charred habanero-leek relish, trout tostadas with fried leeks, and abalone-and-oyster aguachile (ceviche) with sea beans. Cámara is also shaking things up outside the kitchen by hiring nonviolent felons. “They get out of jail, and they can’t find jobs,” she notes. “And there’s a serious staffing issue in the Bay Area.” If you need another reason to love what Cámara is doing, walk to the alley behind Cala and grab one of the outstanding tacos she sells from a counter on weekdays; with luck she’ll be serving the stewed pork with orange. 149 Fell St.; calarestaurant.com

Chicago: At Monteverde, chef Sarah Grueneberg (above) goes beyond the boundaries of her kitchen: She has a pastificio, a table where she and her team make some of the most outstanding pasta in the country. A giant mirror hangs over it so diners can watch an Italian nonna in action. There are original pastas—like wok-fried strangozzi noodles—and traditional Italian ones, too. You can see a cook stuff tortelli verde with spring greens and ricotta; a few minutes later it arrives at the table bathed in green-garlic butter. 1020 W. Madison St.; monteverdechicago.com

Minneapolis: Across the country, people are eating better food and drinking better beer every day. I can’t imagine a more satisfying place to do both than Brewer’s Table. Upstairs from the vast Surly beer hall is this 70-seat dining room, where chef Jorge Guzman oversees a deceptively simple-sounding menu. The four-course tasting is a bargain at $70, especially since it includes beer pairings. Guzman serves sopa de lima as an ode to his Yucatán heritage, preparing the tortilla soup with avocado-leaf-infused chicken broth. His steak frites comes with bone marrow gel and a brilliant powdered béarnaise sauce, plus a glass of Surly’s barrel-aged Pentagram beer—destination-worthy on its own. 520 Malcolm Ave. SE; surlybrewing.com

New Orleans: Alon Shaya (left) has joked that he wanted to open a restaurant with no silverware. In fact, at Shaya, his remarkable Israeli place, it’s easy to forgo forks and knives. The pita that he constantly pulls from the oven is ultra-tender and pillowy, and the scent perfumes the room (Shaya might be the country’s best-smelling restaurant). That bread is terrific for scooping up the supercreamy hummus with toppings such as crispy fried cauliflower. There are also monumental dishes like short rib couscous, but to go silverware-free, stick with the pita and hummus. 4213 Magazine St.; shayarestaurant.com

Los Angeles: I’m outrageously proud of LocoL, the restaurant that supports the unlikely concept that fast food can be a force for good in the world. It is the brainchild of F&W Best New Chefs Roy Choi (class of 2010) and Daniel Patterson (class of 1997), but that’s not the reason I’m the hugest supporter. Located in L.A.’s underserved Watts neighborhood and Oakland, LocoL employs and trains people from the community to run the operation. It also uses top-quality ingredients—like Straus Family Creamery milk for the soft-serve sundaes—but manages to keep prices superlow. The most expensive items on the menu are the $6 bowls, which include crushed tofu with vegetable stew. Choi and Patterson taught the staff to griddle the $2 bean-and-cheese foldies (tortillas) and the $4 LocoL Cheeseburgs with tangy chile “awesome sauce,” served on a bun created by the legendary Tartine baker Chad Robertson. Not everything on the menu is healthy, but the food at LocoL feels good for you on many levels. 1950 E. 103rd St.; welocol.com

Washington, DC: It’s no small feat for a restaurant to source 95 percent of its ingredients from the region, especially if the area is the mid-Atlantic, which isn’t necessarily known for bountiful produce. To turn those ingredients into outstanding food is more challenging still. To do this at The Dabney, chef Jeremiah Langhorne obsessed over historic cookbooks. The resulting dishes—aged ham toast with truffle Mornay sauce, peanut butter cake with celery ice cream—taste wonderfully modern but have roots that go back hundreds of years. The local pride extends beyond food to an excellent list of hard ciders, all also found in the mid-Atlantic. 122 Blagden Alley NW; thedabney.com

Austin: Rene Ortiz is a guy who loves hyperbole (like a few other chefs I know). In this case, his food is so good, it usually deserves everything he says about it. At his bright, airy café in a converted Laundromat, Ortiz creates next-level versions of the standards. Take mussels, which I’d gotten bored with. Ortiz cooks his Prince Edward Island ones in a broth enhanced with ground pancetta and salami, then throws in chopped Castelvetrano olives and fermented serrano chile butter. They’re unbelievable. Likewise, he mixes a little bacon and lard into his burger blend, so it’s superrich and funky. Laura Sawicki, Launderette’s incredible baker, makes the buns. “They’re the squishiest ones on the planet,” says Ortiz. Next door to Launderette is Ortiz’s new project, Mr. Mc’s Grocery Market. What looks like a Quick Mart is in fact a lovingly curated specialty food store, with bottles of Pol Roger Champagne in the cooler next to the Bud Light. Mr. Mc’s serves a few NOLA-inspired dishes, like boudin and a muffuletta made with superb salami and mortadella and homemade olive salad. “It’s the best in the world,” Ortiz says. 2115 Holly St.; launderetteaustin.com

Boston: If you want to experience the genius of chef Matt Jennings in one dish, order the Grande Plateau (below) at his handsome brasserie. Standing three feet high, the tower is loaded with the local seafood that Jennings is so passionate about, like Northeast oysters and Jonah crab claws. But what’s truly sensational is his seafood charcuterie—swordfish lardo, tuna head cheese. There’s traditional pork charcuterie on offer here as well, including country pâté and salami, served with pickles and mustard made in house. 120 Kingston St.; townsmanboston.com