Surprising no one, Bon Appétit editors eat out. A lot. It’s all in the service of our Best New Restaurants of 2026, where we zigzag the country to spotlight the chefs and restaurants delighting diners with innovation, personality, and storytelling. As we research and debate our list, our team considers the holistic experience of each restaurant, from vibe to deliciousness, but the base unit of measure?
It all starts with what arrives on the plate. To be a food writer is to never have enough data on a phone plan: Our camera rolls and notes apps are full of detailed (and not-so detailed) ramblings and snippets of meals we’ve loved and have tried to document. From a superlative blood sausage in Los Angeles, to a taco blending Lebanese and Mexican flavors in Philadelphia, this smattering of 13 dishes is merely a glimpse at the hundreds we loved over a year of travel.
While we can’t possibly feature everything, these dishes stand out for their flavor, technique, and the sheer fact that we can’t stop thinking (or talking) about them. —Joseph Hernandez
Chicken Wings à la Koffman
Le Calamar (Best New Restaurant 2026)
Austin, TX
A stuffed chicken wing is not exactly a novel concept, but this French-Texan bistro nails it completely. Alluding to the famous French chef Pierre Koffmann stuffing pig trotters with chicken mousse at his renowned London restaurant, La Tainte Claire in the ‘70s, Le Calamar’s version is deboned and stuffed with a savory blend of huitlacoche, veal sweetbreads, and chicken breast, resealed, glazed, and finished over a binchotan grill.
One wing per diner feels mandatory
One wing per diner feels mandatory. And Le Calamar’s take is earthy and rich, but somehow goes down easily in bar snack form, where you’ll soon wish you had another. —Kate Kassin
Beach Sandwich
Little Fish Melrose Hill
Los Angeles, CA
On its face Little Fish Melrose Hill seems like your familiar modern seafood restaurant, but scan the menu and you’ll see how unbound by convention owners, chefs, and partners Niki Vahle and Anna Sonenshein really are.
You won’t find the typical seafood raw towers, lobster rolls, or buttered clams here. Instead, there are abalone-stuffed cabbage rolls, a pork and shellfish sausage, and my favorite, the beach sandwich. A delightfully unhinged combination of airy ciabatta, a thick slathering of spiced aioli, guindilla pepper, a few kettle potato chips, and the star: plump, soy-cured mussels so tender they nearly melt on the tongue.
When it arrives on the table, the cocktail pick-skewered two-bite affairs feel not nearly enough. It’s a clever dish and perhaps the best evidence of the duo’s culinary playfulness. —June Kim
Fried Chicken
Leo’s (Best New Restaurant 2026)
Santa Fe, NM
Dining at Leo’s is a cacophony of spice, texture, and the pleasure of communal gluttony—there are plenty of dishes to call out as a “best dish,” but I had to pick one.
Leo’s fried chicken is an impressive version
Leo’s fried chicken is an impressive version of a universally beloved dish that is at once recognizable and instantly craveable. It starts with a breading as brittle as the earth’s crust. Biting into it feels tectonic, cracking and flaking and crumbling, the gravity of umami keeping it all together. Impossibly juicy to its core, the chicken is served with a clever tofu-mustard sauce that’s tangy, savory, and smooth (not unlike ranch but also definitely not ranch) and a winning, aromatic jiao chili sauce that burns with a sweet heat.
The dish speaks to Leo’s exploratory menu which inspires that most delightful of sounds at a packed table: a pure, blissful silence as everyone shares the same moment of delight. —J.H. Two Can Play That Game
Honeysuckle (Best New Restaurant 2026)
Philadelphia, PA
Among the cheekily named dishes Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate offer on their revelatory tasting menu at Honeysuckle in Philadelphia is this interplay of quail and leeks.
Braised leeks hold their own against the supple quail leg, both absorbing the rich foie jus and allium romesco, and a little spark of kumquat. Either component could stand on its own. But together, they form an intense double Dutch of flavor. —Jamila Robinson
French Onion Soup
L’Echelle
Portland, OR
L’Echelle, a warmly-lit French bistro in southeast Portland, Oregon, serves a confidently classic menu from chef Mika Paredes.
You’ll find tender duck confit, crisp-yet-creamy frites,
You’ll find tender duck confit, crisp-yet-creamy frites, and tiny pillows of toasty gnocchi Parisienne in brown butter. And then there’s the French onion soup. It arrives, as expected, in a crock topped with a crouton, so much cheese, and a sprig of thyme. As you sink your spoon in—nudging the bread, readying for a cheese pull—an aromatic cloud of mouthwatering steam envelops you.
It’s sublime: the stock is heady with beef and sherry, and bold enough to marry with, rather than disappear under, the Gruyère. The onions have been cooked low and oh-so-slow, turning sweetly silky. Every spoonful is masterfully balanced, slicking your lips with moreish flavor. —Kelsey Jane Youngman
Parisian Gnocchi
Creepies (Best New Restaurant 2026)
Chicago, IL
When David and Anna Posey of Elske in Chicago opened neo-bistro Creepies next door last fall, it quickly became the hottest table in town.
The Francophilia here is obvious, but not over the top—Chicago is squarely baked into its identity. The menu from chef Tayler Ploshehanski is simply fun, rethinking bistro classics with a Midwestern take. Don’t miss the Parisian gnocchi, so cloud-like they practically evaporate on the palate, topped with a brittle sheet of pastry that invites someone to dramatically shatter it.
Savory ham, Swiss cheese, egg yolks,
Savory ham, Swiss cheese, egg yolks, and a sharp mustard, round out this joyful, winky nod to the croquier madame sandwich, naturallement. —J.H. Grilled Berkshire Pork Collar
Banshee
Philadelphia, PA
Banshee’s menu sometimes sets my culinary mind spinning. As someone who analyzes food most of my days, the restaurant’s flavor and ingredient combinations can shock, at least on paper.
Boquerones and Comte cheese working in tandem to finish braised leeks? Passionfruit on hamachi crudo? Yet each time, my faith is rewarded, as it was when I ordered the Berkshire pork collar with Tarbais beans and bearnaise sauce. Based on the ingredient list alone it should be heavy, unbalanced, and overly rich. Yet the buttery-tender pork collar was tempered by blistered cabbage, while the plump beans melded with the peppery bearnaise, bringing sauciness to every bite.
It manages to be both unabashedly meaty yet restrained, with the tangle of cabbage and taut beans holding their own against a slab of sous-vided, grilled, and balsamic agrodolce-lacquered meat—it is essentially the best pork chop you have ever had. Oh and by the way, if you happen to be at Banshee and they have the guava panna cotta with grilled and pickled pineapple on the menu, don’t think too hard before ordering it.
I promise it’s great
I promise it’s great. —Chris Morocco
Moronga
Lugya’h by Ponchos Tlayudas
Los Angeles, CA
You know a dish is going to be good when it comes with a hefty side of lore. Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison shared with me that chef Alfonso Martinez received the recipe for his renowned moronga, a type of blood sausage, on his wedding day from his future father-in-law.
His hope was that the family recipe could bestow some success onto his daughter and Martinez. And sure enough, success followed. Ponchos Tlayudas has been a local favorite for years, starting from when it was a pop-up serving crackly, meat-topped tlayudas once a week in South LA. It has since graduated to a brick-and-mortar in the shiny new Maydan Market in West Adams. The moronga is truly marvelous, eye-opening, so good it’ll make you groan.
Deep red, speckled with pork fat, smoky from chile, and balanced with an undertone of mint. One bite converts you for life; it’s no surprise why the moronga has been passed down from generation to generation. —J.K. Foie Gras Eclairs
Cassis
Milwaukee, WI
There is something truly diabolical about these petite eclairs, which come in sets of four at Cassis, a dreamy French brasserie and wine bar conjured alongside a riverbank in Milwaukee’s artsy Third Ward.
Roughly the length of a toddler’s forefinger
Roughly the length of a toddler’s forefinger and shot through with velvety foie gras pate, they are startlingly easy to pop into one’s mouth in rapid succession–little sighs of pleasure in hors d’oeuvre form. The pastry is a light and airy conveyance to the unctuous, creamy foie within, while the crackly layer of flour, sugar, and butter that crowns each treat lands a contrasting crunch.
Such a superlative snacking experience unquestionably benefits from the space’s warm Parisian-like atmosphere, achieved by James Beard-nominated chef-owner Kyle Knall and wife Meghan through glowy, vintage-inspired light fixtures, mismatched wooden cafe chairs, soaring double-height ceilings, and bone-white tiled walls that gleam as they catch the dying sunlight filtering in through large arched windows.
One could linger in this room for hours alongside a crisp glass of Crémant de Loire. And, potentially, another foursome of foie gras eclairs for dessert. —Rachel Tepper Paley
Cabbage Salad
Anjin (Best New Restaurant 2026)
Kansas City, MO
There is such a disconnect between the size of Anjin’s cabbage salad and the depths of flavor it contains, I gasp all over again to recall the head-snapping pleasure of my first bite.
Arranged in a tight mound set inside
Arranged in a tight mound set inside a compact glass dish, it balances crisp folds of sweet and crunchy cabbage with a cast of ingredients that are shocking in their complexity. An earthy-sweet black sesame dressing clings to every ruffled leaf, along with tiny fried anchovies, crisp and chewy at once, and shattering shards of kombu salt caramel; it’s all punctuated by furikake, toasted cashews, and fresh mint.
This is not a fork and knife salad. It demands the precise use of chopsticks to liberate every bite from the tangled mound, slowing you down just enough to appreciate each element. —C.M. Chuleta Kan-Kan
Qui Qui
Washington, DC
The chuleta kan-kan at Qui Qui looks and sounds like a party. Appropriate for a Puerto Rican restaurant in D.C.’s Park View, where reggaeton flows through the dining room at full volume.
If you’ve got a group of at least three, order this enormous slab of fatty pork chop, loin, and belly, which is accompanied with generous helping of rice, beans, and fluffy, fried tostones, plus salsa verde and pickled onions. Each portion of the chuleta is equally tender and juicy, the fat cap rendered so crispy, a bite yields an audible crack. The meat is front and center, but mingling a toston or a spoonful of rice in the pork juices with the salsa verde steals the show.
—K.K. Swordfish Taco Amá Philadelphia, PA Can one
—K.K. Swordfish Taco
Amá
Philadelphia, PA
Can one dish sum up an entire restaurant? In the case of Amá in Philadelphia, the swordfish tacos certainly come close. Chef Frankie Ramirez’ broad definition of Mexican cuisine is on full display here, incorporating overt Lebanese flavors in a nod to the origins of al pastor-style cooking. The tacos feature za’atar rubbed swordfish kissed by a wood-burning grill, dabbed with tangy pools of labne and a salsa arabe, similar to harissa.
It is a dish that is thrilling in its own right, the meaty swordfish balanced by sharp herbs and the sensory riot of layered tangy, sweet, and savory elements. Eating it inspires an appreciation for the seamless integration of Mexican and Middle Eastern influences, melding to a state of emphatic brilliance in each bite. —C.M. Fun Guy Pizza
Jules (Best New Restaurant 2026)
San Francisco, CA
At Jules, the pizza is never quite what you’d expect.
The spin on a Margherita features tangy caciocavallo cheese alongside more traditional mozzarella. The Field Dream is made with corn pudding, a Thai basil pesto, and shrimp dust. Sometimes with such disparate ingredients, it’s hard to imagine exactly how the pizza on its way to your table might taste. Such was the case with the Fun Guy, a mushroom pie with nutty, Alpine hornkuhkäse cheese and loaded with maitakes, honshimejis, and local chanterelles.
Funky black garlic hides within that mushroom melange, and the pie arrives dotted with a dramatic, dark tamarind sauce. Each bite is a tumble of salty, sweet, earthy flavors—so much better than whatever pizza you were expecting to eat
Source: www.bonappetit.com
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