Don’t let that “registered landmark” jazz scare you off. In spite of its age (it opened in 1915) and its pedigree (the likes of Patti Smith and Bob Dylan have occupied its stools), Dante is an affable place. It wears its legend lightly but takes its cocktails seriously. The Negroni and its variants get granular attention, but if you want Read more...

In Nashville, south of Broadway’s three-chords-and-the-truth honky-tonks, there’s a place called Bastion. It’s in a manufacturing zone in Wedgewood-Houston, a neighborhood making room for the art galleries and creative types moving in. Bastion is a good fit here. It’s a lively room decorated with whimsical and sundry art objects that appear to have arrived from a well-curated flea market. There’s Read more...

Believe it or not, the cocktail world can get kind of monotonous. Barrel-aged this, fat-washed that—sometimes the circus tricks can leave a drinker feeling jaded. If you’re thirsty for true innovation, though, Marvel awaits. The imagineers behind its bar seem to be forging a new path forward, one that makes way for the nuanced magic of how ingredients interact: nori Read more...

It’s like three bars in one: First, a former piano bar—dark and unabashedly of the eighties. Next, an outdoor hipster hangout à la the great Broken Shaker. (The same company, Bar Lab, is behind this place.) Then, in the way back, a tiny rum shack that feels like it was plucked out of the Caribbean and placed in a parking Read more...

The weird corporate-plaza location adds to the dimension-altering head trip that is Bibo, an impeccably designed symmetrical space that has a Viennese-café-meets-Wes-Anderson-set vibe. The cocktails, like the whole experience, have an uncanny way of feeling retro and futuristic at the same time. What you’re drinking: The odd and wonderful High Note, a drink with toasted-sesame tequila, coconut cream, and Thai Read more...

Any hotel can fill itself with midcentury-modern furniture and call itself cool, but there’s something more deeply transportive about the JFK-era vibe of this lobby bar. For one, as the austere exterior will tell you, this was originally a federal building from the 1960s—the bones speak truth. As do the barmen in crisp white jackets behind the tiny five-seat brass Read more...

Nashville-style hot chicken can no longer be considered a trend or a local delicacy; its countrywide popularity over the last five years cemented its place in the foundation of American dining. But no matter how many people succumb to the masochistic pleasures of capsaicin and the endorphin rush that follows, or how many restaurant groups fashion their own variations, credit Read more...

Things Americans willingly wait in line for: rides in Disney theme parks, Black Friday sales, the latest iPhone, Aaron Franklin’s sublime array of smoked meats. I’d argue the latter leads to the greatest rewards. Texas barbecue functions as a ferocious, intensely observed sport unto itself; who crafts the most rapturous beef rib or the snappiest sausages fuel constant debate. What Read more...

No culinary leader in America deserves the honorific of “chef’s chef” more than Corey Lee. Easy labels don’t stick to his visionary cooking. Lee runs three San Francisco restaurants, including the bistro Monsieur Benjamin and In Situ at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but it’s at his flagship where his virtuosic talents most hold sway. Lee was born Read more...

If pushed to pinpoint one restaurant that I consider to be the “best” in America, I will time and again name Dan Barber’s Westchester County destination, the centerpiece of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Four-hour-plus meals here are elegant, interactive experiences: They begin with the front-of-house staff asking about interests and appetites, and then the first bites Read more...