"best restaurants" news and stories

At the end of the year, restaurant critics usually put together lists of the top restaurants - or the top dishes in Frank Bruni's case - creating a new "hit list" of restaurants for their city for the next year. San Francisco's list includes Dosa, Nopa, Coi, Kaygetsu and Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc. Seattle has cheap eats on their list, as well as pricier places, as does New York. All are surely fine eateries, but these lists are not the be-all and end-all of dining in their respective cities. Are your favorite restaurants included?

Restaurants are left off because they aren't trendy, aren't new or are just plain overlooked and I know that some places that I like to eat don't always make the cut. I'm not saying that this makes them the best restaurants in any given city, but that doesn't mean that they don't deserve some recognition. Is anyone up for making our own list of reader favorites from around the country/world? List some of your favorite restaurants in the comments (along with a city and/or website, if applicable) and we'll see if we can't come up with something even better than the standard newspaper top tens.

I look forward to annual lists like this, Esquire's Best New Restaurants of the Year. Sure, I never go to 99.5 of them (OK, probably more like 100% of them), but I like reading about new places that have opened, what various chefs around the country are doing, and I'm intrigued when there are places around Boston mentioned. I just gotta get off my ass and visit some of them.

This year's list includes two Boston restaurants, Om and Sorellina. Other new spots making the grade including A Voce (NYC), Ecco (Atlanta), Acadiana (Washington, D.C.), Country (NYC), Proof On Main (Louisville, KY), Guy Savoy (Las Vegas), and Cut (Los Angeles), which was also named The Restaurant of the Year. There are also a few other categories, including Chef of the Year, Best New Design, and Four Chefs To Watch.

Take a look at the list and let us know which restaurants you'd add to the list. Make sure you name the city and why it's so good.

How can you compare a restaurant like Alinea, where some of the dishes test our conceptions of the term "food" to a restaurant like Zuni Cafe, which makes wonderful contemporary bistro fare? You really can't, but Gourmet magazine tried to do just that when they put together their list of America's top 50 restaurants for 2006. The two types of food at Alinea and Zuni are almost at the opposites of the dining spectrum, so the reviewers at Gourmet compared the innovation, execution and satisfaction that arose from dining at both of them, as well as every other restaurant on the list below. Since they are subjective assessments, it is safe to say that the order of this list might not be precisely accurate, at least not for your personal tastes, but it is still a list of excellent restaurants, all of which are worth eating at if you have the chance.

1. Alinea – Chicago, IL
2. Chez Panisse – Berkeley, CA
3. The French Laundry/Per Se – Yountville, CA; New York, NY
4. Spago – Beverly Hills, CA
5. Joël Robuchon at the Mansion – Las Vegas, NV
6. La Rêve – San Antonio, TX
7. Masa – New York, NY
8. Alan Wong's Restaurant – Honolulu, HI
9. Daniel – New York, NY
10. Le Bernardin – New York, NY

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Planning on doing some traveling this summer? Looking for a list of the dining hot spots that you should stop by for a memorable meal? Start with the go list from Food and Wine magazine, which picks out 376 restaurants chosen by "plugged in correspondents" from 50 cities around the world. They have the goods on restaurants like Michael Mina in San Francisco, Rockpool in Sydney, Ferran Adria's Fast Good in Madrid and Felix in Hong Kong, including a picks at both the high and lower ends of the price range.

Now, it's not possible that a list like this, even such a large one, would have all the great eats of any given city, but you aren't likely to have a bad meal by picking any of their choices. If you're traveling somewhere a little off the beaten path that isn't on the "go list," or are looking for something specific, it might be best to turn to another source of restaurant information. And the best resource, in my opinion, when traveling and looking for good eats is still Chowhound. Take some time to browse through their archives and look for recommendations, or pose a question on their message board if you're looking for something specific - like the best mexican food in Boise, ID.

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