Fall is when some of the country’s flashiest food publications name the year’s best new chefs and best new restaurants. Get in on the remarkable cooking happening at these standout spots.
Broken Spanish Comedor, Los Angeles
In the most welcome of homecomings, Ray Garcia, chef of the cherished, shuttered Broken Spanish, is back with Broken Spanish Comedor. This “iteration feels more self-assured,” said Bon Appétit when it named the restaurant one of the Best New Restaurants for 2026. Garcia’s cooking in this latest phase is “punchy, bold and assertively spicy.” Angelenos — or knowing visitors — are thrilled he’s back.
Honeysuckle, Philadelphia
Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate, the chef-owners of Honeysuckle, are “professional storytellers,” said Bon Appétit. Their background in visual arts and children’s books, respectively, is put to delicious use as the pair trumpets foods of the African diaspora in a “stylish living room” that feels like you’re in the “midst of a great party.” The restaurant’s Money Burger says it all: two beef patties on Japanese milk bread, napped with spunky cheddar and caviar remoulade.
John’s Food and Wine, Chicago
The food, off a wide-ranging menu that swerves from grilled cabbage salad with kimchi and candied sunflower seeds to branzino with cucumber and dill, is faultless. Yet the star of John’s Food and Wine, perhaps, is the business model, which “prioritizes paying every staff member a competitive wage and incentivizing them to stay and grow their career at the restaurant,” said Food & Wine magazine when it awarded the spot Restaurant of the Year last month.
The Paper Bridge, Portland, Oregon
You know your pho, so you may think you know the scope of Vietnamese food. The way pho is most often served in the States is southern Viet-style. But that’s only one way to do it. The Paper Bridge, an homage to the cuisine of the country’s north, would like to take you on a palate-expanding journey. Nearly all rice noodles served at Viet restaurants in the United States are dried; The Paper Bridge has “perfected its fresh rice noodles,” said Food & Wine, and those specimens are everywhere on the revelatory menu.
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