The 20 Best New Restaurants of 2025

""The goal was always to have a restaurant in the Fillmore," Fernay McPherson says. During six years cooking soul food in an Emeryville, California, food hall, the chef's sights were set on returning to the historic San Francisco neighborhood three generations of her family have called home."

"Jhonny Reyes was compelled by a similar pull toward home when he opened Lenox in Seattle. In a restaurant decorated with Puerto Rican coqui frogs and tropical plants, the chef transforms the bounty of the Pacific Northwest into dishes tracing his family's path from San Juan to New York City to Seattle, where Reyes grew up."

Minnie Bell's Soul Movement anchors Fillmore Street with brown butter cornbread and Friday-only fried fish, reflecting Fernay McPherson's family roots and neighborhood ties. Lenox in Seattle channels Jhonny Reyes's Puerto Rican heritage using Pacific Northwest produce, including broth-soaked mustard greens. Other standout restaurants translate personal histories into menus, such as Vinai honoring Hmong culture and Avize invoking Alpine traditions with unexpected touches. Chefs emphasize locally sourced ingredients, regional bounty, and culturally specific techniques to create singular, autobiographical dining concepts that resonate with communities and showcase diverse American culinary narratives.

Read at Bon Appetit