As the 2024 restaurant awards season nears a close, one of the biggest ones just joined the fray: Esquire’s Best New Restaurants in America is here. Now in its 42nd year, the list has recognized 35 of the coolest restaurant openings across the country, including San Francisco’s Cantonese hotspot Four Kings, which Esquire named Restaurant of the Year (it also featured on BA’s Best New Restaurants list this year).
Other California restaurants featured prominently on the list, too, including Los Angeles’s French-Japanese bistro Camélia from the hit Tsubaki team. And New York restaurants repped just as big on the list, including the Spanish-, Italian-, and French-influenced Demo from a couple of Wildair alums. Elsewhere, Denver’s MICHELIN-Starred Alma Fonda Fine made the cut, as did Philly’s seafood-forward Mediterranean restaurant Bastia.
Read on for the full list of Esquire’s Best New Restaurants, and then get ready to criss-cross the country so you can try them all.
Four Kings (San Francisco) — Also Restaurant of the Year
Azizam (Los Angeles)
Budonoki (Los Angeles)
Camélia (Los Angeles)
Mae Malai Thai House of Noodles (Los Angeles)
Mori Nozomi (Los Angeles)
7 Adams (San Francisco)
Charlie’s Napa Valley (St. Helena)
Alma Fonda Fine (Denver) — Chef Johnny Curiel was also named Rising Star of the Year
Dōgon (Washington, DC)
Itamae AO (Miami)
Little Sparrow (Atlanta)
Maxwell’s Trading (Chicago)
Acamaya (New Orleans)
Oun Lido’s (Portland, ME)
Vecino (Detroit)
Vinai (Minneapolis)
Le Veau D’Or (New York)
Sailor (New York)
Demo (New York)
Four Twenty Five (New York)
Naks (New York)
Penny (New York)
Tolo (New York)
Hellbender (New York)
Wildweed (Cincinnati)
Amy’s Pastellitos (Philadelphia)
Bastia (Philadelphia)
River Bar (Westerly)
Bintü Atelier (Charleston)
Kultura (Charleston)
St. Vito Focacceria (Nashville)
Mābo (Dallas)
Late August (Houston)
Atoma (Seattle)
Tanay Warerkar is a content marketing manager at OpenTable, where he oversees features content and stays on top of the hottest trends and developments in the restaurant industry. He brings years of experience as a food editor and reporter having worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, Eater, and the New York Daily News, to name a few.
