A Guide to the Best Restaurants in America

Where the Locals Eat spotlights the best restaurants in America. We prefer to highlight local restaurants that contribute to the dining culture of a city, striving to avoid chain restaurants in our selections (with a few notable exceptions - like smaller regional chains). Both WhereTheLocalsEat.com and our LocalEats iPhone App includes thousands of listings, from pizza parlors and delis to the finest steakhouses and sushi bars. Each listing includes price range, maps, directions, user feedback, menus and more.

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National Restaurant & Dining News

Thomas Keller Makes Fried Chicken on 'Today'

From Grub Street San Francisco: Thomas Keller showed up on the Today show Nov. 6 to promote Ad Hoc at Home, All-Clad cookware, and, naturally, teach Al Roker and the team how to make his famous fried chicken. Ann Curry is visibly horrified by Keller's direct handling of the scorchingly hot fresh-from-the-oil chicken, and he reassures her by pointing out that after years in the kitchen, he's got "asbestos fingers." Watch the video for that, plus plenty more hijinx.
 

Playboy's Top 10 Late-Night Diners

From Chuck Sudo of Playboy: Late nights at diners are undiluted shots of Americana. Set among heaping mounds of starch, bottomless cups of coffee and enough polished chrome to mark a Golden Age, the best diners evoke nostalgia for years gone by. Wherever there‚s a last call, late-night diners serve as salvation for those who aren't quite ready to go home. And while late-night diners are consistent, regardless of where they're located and right down to waitresses who call all their customers, "Hon," there are a few establishments that are a cut above the rest. READ MORE

The Best Food Books of 2009

From Lynn Andriani, Publishers Weekly: Last week’s issue of PW listed our editors’ picks for the best books of the year. Five out of the 100 were books about food: Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller (Artisan); Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater by Frank Bruni (Penguin Press); Gourmet Today: More than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen, edited by Ruth Reichl (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes by Lidia Matticchio Bastianichand Tanya Bastianich Manuali (Knopf); and Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan (Clarkson Potter). While we’re the first to agree those books deserve props, here are 10 more (plus 10 honorable mentions) from this year that also warrant attention.

Best "meat isn’t everything" cookbook
Almost Meatless: Recipes That Are Better for Your Health and the Planet by Joy Manning Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond (Ten Speed)

Manning and Desmond want to help Americans compose meals that are both tasty and filling without having a slab of meat as the overbearing star ingredient. They do an admirable job, with a burger recipe wherein black beans and bulgur are mashed together with a minimum of ground beef to make a patty that is full-size, fully delicious and less meaty; a recipe for gyros using a small amount of lamb amped up with tzatziki sauce and fava beans fragrant with lemon, garlic and fresh herbs; and other great dishes. Read More

What's a Po Boy to Do, but to Star in a Big Easy Fest

From John T. Edge in The New York Times: THIS month, New Orleans is having a party for the po’ boy.

At the New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival on Nov. 22, as brass bands play and celebrators hoist drinks, serious-minded panelists will tell tales of long-lost po’ boy shops. They will speak of the import of this city’s signature sandwich, piled with roast beef and gravy or corn-flour-breaded and fried shrimp, slathered with mayonnaise, paved with sliced pickles and sliced tomatoes, strewn with shredded lettuce, wrapped in butcher paper. READ MORE

I Love Lunch: The Musical

From the group Improv Everywhere, filmed at the Trump Tower atrium for a segment on The Today Show.
 

100 Things a Server Should Never Do

By BRUCE BUSCHEL of the New York Times: Herewith is a modest list of dos and don’ts for servers at the seafood restaurant I am building. Veteran waiters, moonlighting actresses, libertarians and baristas will no doubt protest some or most of what follows. They will claim it homogenizes them or stifles their true nature. And yet, if 100 different actors play Hamlet, hitting all the same marks, reciting all the same lines, cannot each one bring something unique to that role? READ MORE

Emeril Lagasse's Burger Ambitions

From Paul Frumkin of Nation's Restaurant News: Emeril Lagasse has named his upcoming burger restaurant Burgers And More, or BAM, after his signature expression, and said he doesn't want the brand to be a premium burger "gimmick."

The restaurant, set to open Nov. 22 in the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pa., will specialize in hamburgers made from a blend of prime and grass-fed beef, Lagasse said at a New York City press conference Monday. READ MORE

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Restaurant & Food Events

Upcoming Restaurant & Food Events

Oyster Roast, Jacksonville Nov 20
Ham Jam, Jacksonville Nov 21-22
TV Diner Gala, Boston Nov 21
Big Easy Fest, New Orleans Nov 22
12 Days of Christmas at Meadowood, St. Helena, CA Dec 4-19
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