11 Best New US Restaurants To Try In 2023
When a new restaurant opens up that looks like it has the potential to really knock the socks off of guests, every foodie's stomach starts doing cartwheels like a child the night before Christmas morning. The thought of navigating the terrain of a brand new menu tantalizes their palate in a way that can't be replicated – until, of course, another new restaurant opens up and gives them something to shriek with excitement about yet again. The restaurant industry is one of the hardest landscapes to thrive in; closures and bankruptcies are unfortunately common. When you find a special spot that manages to stick around awhile, it's like finding a diamond in the rough.
The last thing we want you to do is find yourself sitting at a table in a restaurant that isn't up to par, regretting every decision you made that led you there. So if you're on the lookout for the best new food spots of 2023 to explore, let this list act as your yellow brick road to a deliciously memorable Oz.
Bad Roman - Manhattan, New York
Anyone who considers themselves a huge foodie is well aware of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. Why? Because inside you can find Per Se, an overly elegant Michelin-starred restaurant serving up wildly delicious cuisine. And now the food-obsessed have another place in the same building to explore. It's called Bad Roman, and it's ready to leave a mark on the Italian food scene. The enormous 250-seat dining room is full of hanging plants, statues of wild boars and greyhounds, and awesome views of Manhattan skyscrapers.
As nice as the ambience is at Bad Roman, the main reason why people go to any eatery is for the food. Bad Roman's menu offers an array of enticing dishes. Anyone who loves oysters, tartare, and shrimp can explore the raw bar. You can order up meal starters like sausage and pepper toast, beef carpaccio and truffle chips, and filet mignon meatballs. After that, fill up the rest of the room in your belly with dishes like Osetra caviar gnocchi, short rib pappardelle, scallops piccata, or a whole roasted lobster piled with Calabrian pasta. The name might include the word "bad," but this place looks anything but that.
Chilte - Phoenix, Arizona
When a small pop-up food vendor eventually manages to open a brick-and-mortar location, it's a sign that whatever they were doing was working really well. It takes a whole lotta work and passion to get a business off of the ground, but that's exactly what the founders of Chilte did, and they now have the restaurant to prove it. In 2020, Chilte was nothing more than a street food stand serving up Mexican cuisine at local farmers' markets and breweries. But, there was clearly a winning recipe there, and now Chilte is a colorfully modern spot slinging awesome food to all who visit.
The menu at Chilte isn't overflowing with options, but the items they do have are enticing enough to make you forget that. You can order the mole flight, which comes with three kinds of mole, pickled blueberries, and Oaxacan grasshoppers. If you're feeling extra indulgent, add some Chilean prawns or bone marrow as well. Another option is the chorizo Bolognese with pineapple pappardelle pasta, pineapple jam, burrata cheese, and gremolata. "Eating at Chilte is a joy ... a thrill of discovery and awestruck appreciation runs through the dining experience," wrote Allison Young, a journalist for the Phoenix New Times.
Copra - San Francisco, California
"This is a project which is extremely close to my heart and it's very personal. Everybody says that when they open a restaurant, but it's very true for me." Those were the words spoken by chef Srijith Gopinathan regarding his new restaurant Copra. The Indian eatery had been an idea bouncing around his head for nearly two decades before it finally came to fruition. Now, the chef is able to dazzle guests with all the vibrant flavors of Kerala, an area on the southwestern tip of India where he was raised. One glance at both the décor and menu tells you he's serious about giving guests an incredible experience.
Indian food is known to erupt with ornate spices and flavor combinations, and never is it more evident than with these dishes. Start your meal with an order of oysters adorned with fermented chilis, tamarins, and white soy. If you're a fan of chutney, there's a shareable chutney board that comes with your choice of four chutneys, ranging from sweet to super spicy. Chargrilled bone marrow with shallot crisps, pickles, and egg omelet is also available, as is a crab curry simmered in roasted coconut, coriander, tamarind, and red onion. This is the kind of food you implore people to try after you leave.
S&P Lunch - Manhattan, New York
Sometimes it's the simple stuff that really sweeps your appetite off its metaphorical feet. This is exactly the kind of food that S & P serves. You'll be able to pronounce everything on the menu, and you won't get blindsided by a flavor you're completely unfamiliar with, and that's perfectly okay.
New York Times food critic Pete Wells wrote up a review of S & P Lunch including a claim about the pastrami sandwich that could potentially start a fist fight: it's "better, though much smaller, than the famous one at Katz's Delicatessen, which is not fantastic and never will be until something is done about the rye." When it came to the grilled cheese, he wrote, "The grilled cheese is made on excellent diner-style white bread griddled to the kind of even brown that some people spend fortunes trying to attain in a tanning booth." This is a man who knows good eating, and that's exactly what you'll find at S & P Lunch.
Boonie's Filipino Restaurant - Chicago, Illinois
Chicago, much like New York City, is a metropolitan area chock-full of reputable places and iconic dishes that visitors must try when they take the trip there. While Filipino food may not immediately leap to the forefront of your mind when you're deciding what to eat, you should definitely allow yourself to explore that option because it's delicious, plain and simple. One new spot that's looking to cement itself in the pantheon of great Filipino eateries is Boonie's Filipino Restaurant.
There are all kinds of great dishes here, from the appetizers to the desserts. Start your meal with crispy pork hash with egg and secret sauce served on a sizzling plate (gotta love that sizzle). Move onto short ribs, Skull Island colossal prawns, or pork belly after that. Then you can pamper your palate with a brown sugar and rum dessert called Milky Milky Ice Cream. One happy guest said, "Absolutely fantastic new restaurant with incredible food and amazing service. Just perfection!" Another wrote, "Don't miss out. Give it a try — you will fall in love. I certainly did!" This place might just have you putting Filipino food into your weekly meal rotation.
Hav & Mar - Manhattan, New York
If you follow the wonderfully delicious and fast-paced world of food, then you've likely heard of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. Back in 2010, he opened Red Rooster in Harlem, and this is his first new restaurant in over a decade. The name Hav & Mar is a nod to his Ethiopian roots, with "hav" meaning "ocean" in Swedish and "mar" meaning "honey" in Amharic, the language people speak in his home country. The chef wants the restaurant to be "a reflection of Black joy and excellence." And, one way he's ensuring that message gets across is through awesome cuisine.
You have quite the decision to make when perusing the menu. If you're dining with a large party, you can start with the Black Mermaid's Tower, a looming obelisk filled with all sorts of creatures from the ocean, like poached lobster, blue shrimp marinated mussels, manila clams, charred octopus salad, and oysters. Other small plates (appetizers) include Hamachi with black ceviche, scallops and shiitake mushrooms, and udon soup with broccoli rabe, shiro, and Parmesan. Then make your way to entrées like corn-wrapped snapper, apricot-glazed chicken, and cavatelli pasta with crab, shrimp, and uni butter to wrap up a memorable night out.
Ember Kitchen - Austin, Texas
When you cook over fire, it's an almost meditative experience to stare deep into the glowing embers below your food and watch them breathe with life as fire imbues a wonderfully delicate smoky flavor into your meal, resting above it. Open-flame cooking does wonders for food. The website belonging to Ember Kitchen, a new Latin restaurant in Austin, prides itself on the live-fire cooking methods using coal-centric Josper ovens, and the food served there totally enforces that proud feeling.
If you love unleashing your inner carnivore, this is one place that certainly won't let you down. You can order up pork chops with Texas citrus marinade and charred peach mojo, a Texas Wagyu skirt steak with charred fennel and onions, or the half-chicken that comes ladled in black and white mole sauce. One guest who had a fantastic time said, "The cocktails, food, and service was beyond expectations ... Go now before it gets too hard to get in!" And, according to the website ATX Today, "You will remember a dinner at Ember Kitchen & Subterra Agave Bar."
Foul Witch - Manhattan, New York
Sometimes all it takes is a memorable name to intrigue you enough to explore a new restaurant. That's exactly what the name Foul Witch does. But don't let the image of an ill-tempered magic-wielding hag sway you into avoiding this great new Italian eatery in Manhattan's East Village.
The menu offers a variety of great options. You can start your meal out with the testa (head cheese), if you're an adventurous eater. According to Robert Sietsema of Eater, the testa was "juicy as hell and perfect with the free bread that appeared." If you love all things pork, the "stunning" pork neck is a must. It's "smoky and extensively seared ... meaning we ate the whole thing and found it supremely succulent," added Sietsema. Grilled tripe, polenta with sea urchin, and whole roasted turbot are just a few more of the awesome options. At Foul Witch, you'll likely fall under its delicious spell.
Atelier - Chicago, Illinois
It takes talent to be a chef. However, it takes even more talent to land yourself a semifinalist spot of the James Beard Awards, and that's exactly what happened to Christian Hunter, the head chef at Chicago's new restaurant Atelier. The guy knows his way around a plate of food, and he's thrilled at the opportunity to prove it to anyone who dines at his eatery.
Atelier isn't your typical restaurant where you sit down and peruse a menu for a few minutes before ordering up several different dishes that look appealing. It's a prix fixe tasting menu, which means everyone that goes pays the same price for the same meal consisting of a parade of small dishes that erupt with flavor and leave your mouth begging for the next. You can expect dishes like whitefish with pecans and roe, lamb with truffled mustard and pickled fennel, and sunchoke chowder with lamb bacon and caviar. There's even a foie gras crème brûlée for dessert. It's no wonder a reviewer on Yelp wrote, "The creative combination of fresh ingredients, innovative preparation methods and gorgeous presentation literally blew my mind. My senses reeled!"
Jun - Houston, Texas
Have you ever seen the hit Bravo show "Top Chef" and wondered what exactly happens to all of the contestants after the show ends? Some go back to their normal routines, with the story of the show under their belt. Others go on to make an imprint in the culinary landscape. That's exactly what Evelyn Garcia, a contestant in the show's 19th season – and winner of an episode of "Chopped" as well – did. She opened her first full-service restaurant called Jun (pronounced "june") in Houston that serves up "new Asian American food." It looks pretty darn amazing.
You know a place is well worth exploring when one of the reviews reads, "I loved every bit of my experience and recommend Jun all day long." June offers a ton of great Asian flavors in the dishes, like the curried lamb with pickled daikon and pistachio, and fried chicken with shrimp paste, ginger, and Thai chilis. There are also a slew of intricately crafted cocktails (and mocktails) to accompany the meal, such as the Open Sesame, with sparkling Junmai saké, toasted black sesame, lime, and yuzu tonic.
Five Acres - Manhattan, New York
New York City has a vibrant food scene, so making a name for yourself in midtown Manhattan can be next to impossible if you're not giving people what they want: an experience unique, delicious, and overall memorable. It seems like Five Acres, a new open-air spot in Rockefeller Center, has its ear to the ground when it comes to serving people up the goods.
If you like starting your meal with small plates before the entrees hit, you can choose from items like popcorn scallop and "steak & egg" tartare. Appetizers include options like surf and turf crab cakes, broccoli and cheddar soup, and a squash vase with shaved Asian pear, crispy prosciutto, and whipped ricotta. A journalist for Time Out had some stellar things to say about the grilled guinea hen entrée, writing, "The terrine is explosively game-adjacent and its accompanying root vegetable hazelnut financier is an excellent, slightly sweet accompaniment with a wonderfully caramelized bottom that's a subtly telling detail."