671: The Best Restaurants In America Aren’t Always New with Jon Bonné

0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.

0:31there is this push and pull that I think I think honestly most of us have like we do want to check out somewhere new and cool and fun we do want to go back to a place we love and we're you know we all in our minds are able to somehow resolve that and yet um the the list making media machine is still struggling with it. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59JonBenet is Resi's managing editor, a two-time James Beard Award winner, and author of The New French Wine and other books. I always love having Jon in the studio, and today we talk in detail about the Resi 100, a decisive and illuminating list of restaurants around the United States that define dining today. The list has a very strong point of view and highlights restaurants in both big cities and smaller communities that serve exceptional food that alternately might be comforting or daring, traditional or completely new. It's a fantastic list, and we cover many of the entries while also zooming out to talk about interesting examples of Mexican cuisine, the American Nordic movement, and naturally the modern wine bar scene.

1:45I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:51JonBenet, welcome back to This is Stace. How are you, my friend? I am fantastic. How are you doing? I'm great. I love having you back. You have such a strong mind for restaurants and wine and really just food culture as a whole. So I'm going to take advantage of this time because I have so many questions to ask you. Before we get to the Resi 100, I just want to know, like, where have you been dining out, Jon? in New York, in your hometown of Philly now? New York, where have I been dining out? Karima, which is just, you know, it's like just such a compelling, it's all compelling. Opsi's Village, which it's funny, like I get a lot of like very, like a full range of thoughts about the pizza, but like their tavern pizza, you know, is amazing and the wine list is amazing and it's so much fun.

2:41And Philly, you know, I will always be hanging with like the super at super Foley Good King folks. Amah is so good. And it's kind of a sleeper hit. But this place, Kisho House, which upstairs is sort of, you know, Robota kind of, you know, like Asian-ish, fusion-ish cocktail situation. And downstairs, the omakase chef worked for Jesse Ito, was a chef at Hiroki, like was, you know, sort of did like the A-list sushi loop in Philly and is doing this crazy killer omakase that I, you know, I probably should gatekeep, but I won't because I, you know, I want everyone to enjoy omakase they can afford.

3:33Yeah, it's wonderful to know that Philly has an omakase that you co-sign on, having had them around the world, really. What a great city. I mean, I want to have you back to talk only about Philly. We'll do that. Just do a road trip. Yeah, we'll love to do a road trip. I try to make it down many times a year. Let's talk about the Resi 100. Terrific list. Has a really strong point of view. And I love in the intro how you write, quote, you decline to play when someone wants to indulge in a game of best restaurants. because it's our belief that there's only a best restaurant for you. How then did you come up with 100 restaurants when the idea of the best restaurant is so personal?

4:13Yeah, from like a universe of 10 ,000 goodness knows how many. Yeah, goodness knows. So the notion of a best restaurant for you is really one of the north stars of editorial that we think about a lot, which is that we all know why these lists exist. ours or anyone else's. But, you know, when you get into this notion of best, like, fair enough, I get it. It's a useful word. But, you know, there's, first of all, we're getting better, but there's still an awful lot of best meaning, kind of fancy, slightly fussy, slightly tweezer-y, you know, vibe. Like I said, it's getting better, thank goodness.

4:58But it's also just, you know, there's um i i really do believe that that the the the strength of american restaurants day of of american dining is that we've we found this remarkable diversity and and people are excelling at lots of different things and some of it is more traditional some of it is innovative and and hybridized and, you know, hyphens colliding and all of it. And so, you know, we felt that, you know, there's so much interesting stuff going on out there. You know, the 100 is for sure not a static thing. But, you know, you got to pick a number eventually. And, you know, 38 was already taken.

5:46Yeah. Bless them over at Vox Media Corp. but you know we wanted to really you know capture I think the full sort of diversity of what's going on. I love it in so many ways but what I like most about your list of restaurants is that you really lean into restaurants that have been open two, five, ten, eighteen years and I think a lot of these lists sometimes they're called best new and you have to obviously have a time stamp but many of these lists from the New York Times, Bon Appetit, to Food and Wine, and I can name all the publications that make lists, they are driven by PR and the buzz created by this kind of apparatus that we have to acknowledge.

6:30And this is not against PR. I have friends in PR and we obviously book the show via representatives. But I think sometimes the PR folks are doing too good of a job with these lists. I'll say they're doing maybe too efficient of a job. Okay, that's great. You're a little stronger with it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes work that goes on to get a lot of people on these lists is what it is. You know, my time in newspapers gave me a, what I will argue is a healthy skepticism of those processes. um but you know look yes new is great um says the guy who literally has three books with new in the title um but you know there's even frankly when i was when i was doing let's say the new french wine like new does not fundamentally mean brand new like it you know new and shiny it means that there is a new spirit to it um and for whatever reason in restaurants that doesn't I mean, doesn't quite translate.

7:33You can't directly do that. I mean, when you're saying a new restaurant, it is a new restaurant. But at the same time, how many of us spend our lives just going to new restaurants? And so, you know, yes, of course, it's buzzy, it's new, you know, you want to capture sort of the shiny thing. But that's not actually how our dining lives exist. Right. Right. And I think we sometimes as diners need to remind ourselves of new five years ago and look back. And I think a great example is Lila Lila Yacht Club, which is at the top of the Resi 100. And that's a restaurant that's been around for a decade.

8:08They took a little bit of a pause during the pandemic. But I remember when BA wrote about them in 2015 and their best new, I was like, I got to go there. This place seems really interesting. I went, I think sometime around 2017, I had a great meal there. But honestly, John, I had forgotten about them. And here they are at the top of the Resi 100. Really, really cool. Tell me about it. So, I mean, as a former San Franciscan, I, you know, always love to my time there. Ravi Kapoor is an amazing chef. He, you know, he was well trained in kind of more formal cooking. But, you know, his background is Hawaiian, Chinese, South Asian.

8:49Like, you know, he brings a lot of his own sort of story to quite literally the table. Jeff Hanek, who is his business partner in it, you know, ran some of the greatest restaurants in San Francisco, including NOPA. So these are, you know, these are, for lack of a better term, these are grownups. These are folks who, like, know how things work. And, you know, honestly, being open a decade is an enormous achievement that I think sometimes we forget about. again like you focus on the new and you stop thinking about look like once those reviews fade into the rear view once it just kind of becomes bau like business as usual you know like the restaurant has to go on and that's a question of how good a job you're doing with the people who keep coming back and you know i i would argue that that everything going on at leo leo like all of Robbie's cooking is as innovative and extraordinary today as it was 10 years ago.

9:49Like, it's not like it's just, oh, well, everyone's doing kind of neo-Hawaiian with, you know, with their own kind of Bay Area slash, you know, multi, you know, multi-hued twists, right? Like, it's really a place that, you know, that set, you know, set a bar when it opened, and I think is still there. And, you know, at some point, again, like I am clearly pro-innovation, but at the same time, people who are doing amazing stuff and are continuing to do it. And Chiquito, I would argue, is a good example on this coast where you're like, that was innovative. It is innovative. And every new Basque place that comes along, like they're finding ways to iterate.

10:38but you know it was a groundbreaking restaurant and it is still an incredibly important restaurant that is not none of the none of the things on in either are tired they're not like gonna go having like you know homemade spam again seen this before yeah it remains fresh you could say the same for houseman too staying in new york entirely like in tribeca like that's a place that um is over a decade old now and has a lot of regulars and locals but um and houseman is interesting because it, you know, I mean, nothing there is wild and groundbreaking, but it is, I think, you know, their menu looks very much like Quo Vadis in London, and that may or may not be intentional, but Quo Vadis, same thing.

11:21They're just like, they have figured out the things that they do perfectly, and you see iteratively over and over again subsequent sort of waves of admirers. So Houseman is fascinating because, you know, through, you know, a decade or so of, you know, of evolution of different cooks, of different critics, every single one loves it. It's like it really is this kind of like, you know, like down low favorite. Well, I think he cooked a prune and I think it's for people who like miss prune in some ways. And I think a lot of writers like miss prune. So they go to Houseman instead. And of the era, prune was right.

11:58Like nothing, nothing was groundbreaking, but it was nothing as groundbreaking as Zuni. But, you know, 30 years later, there's there's you know, you get off the plane in San Francisco and you go of the Zuni chicken because, you know, you are you are allowed to do things that are that are classics. Well, I want to also touch on some restaurants that maybe our listeners don't know about. And I've not been to this restaurant. It's called Huckleberry House in North Dakota. Tell me about it. In Bismarck, yeah. So Chris Tello, Cody Monson, both from North Dakota, wanted to clearly do something that I think paid tribute to their home state.

12:33This is a place that is kind of, you know, big, airy, very Scandinavian building on the banks of the Missouri. And it is kind of, you know, you were saying like sort of the other new Nordic. Like, yeah, I think this is their take on what sort of like prairie sort of Nordic slash German cooking would be if you rolled it forward into the 21st century. And so, you know, it's I think, you know, they they had a sense of like, let's do curried pumpkin dumplings. Let's do, you know, smoked salmon rillette, like, you know, like a fried pastry with birch sap syrup. Yeah. We're just like, you know, it's it's it's it's I think having this vision of like, let's be rooted in this place that may not be, you know, it's not New York.

13:27It's not Chicago. It is its own place, but it has, frankly, a very long tradition. if you're thinking in terms of sort of Nordic settlers in the Midwest. You know, that like there has been Nordic cooking in this country for a whole lot longer than Rene Rizzeppi has been alive. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, there's I think it's exploring a different food way. And North Dakota is especially interesting to me because Marilyn Haggerty, who had a brief moment of fame, she was a restaurant critic in Grand Forks, who I think caught a fair amount of mockery for reviewing the Olive Garden and then was uplifted quite rightly by Anthony Bourdain who realized that there's a much deeper and more textured food life in this country than we tend to give credit for, again, to this notion of best new.

14:21And so you have to look for interesting, great things that people are doing wherever they're doing. Yeah. And I noticed that right away looking at the list that this is not a coastal elite list by any means. And you really did the work to kind of span across the country. Includes Portland, Maine. Cong Tu Bat is there. It's a restaurant that specializes in pho and other Vietnamese staple dishes. But there's definitely some twists going on. Tell me about it. Yeah. So this is, it's been around again for certainly since pre-pandemic. So, and Vien Dewey and Jessica Sheehan, I think they wanted to do kind of their like, you know, their like sort of zany, very colorful, very outre take on starting kind of as a pho place, but evolving from there.

15:11And so, you know, I mean, like Tam Tam in Miami, which is amazing. This notion of like, let's let's have like, let's do like a Vietnamese style party and just make it our own and make it fun. And, you know, and reflect kind of, you know, like the aesthetics of the current generation. And, you know, so they were into that as well. But Portland, Maine is maybe a little bit less obvious of a place to do it. But they're having a blast. You know, they're doing like Rancho Gordo beans in a turmeric lemongrass curry. Sounds delicious. Which, honestly, if you found that in New York, you'd be like, this is pretty rad.

15:48Yeah, yeah. And so – and honestly, with the whole list, it just – it kept being discoveries where you're like, you know, this is really innovative and really thoughtful. And folks who are, again, like, you know, bringing their threads with them but not simply saying, you know, I'm going to make the, you know, quintessential – I'm going to make the quintessential, you know – Bonseo or something. Right. And so, yeah. And so it's super exciting. And now they just opened a Cambodian place as well. So I love, you know, like it's, again, you just, it's, it's seeing, I think, that there are these, these cities.

16:28And I mean, I think we had at least 40 cities across the list, you know, where there's just, there's dynamism and there's this usually young, but not always, you know, kind of upcoming, up and coming cohort of chefs and restaurateurs who are just like, you know, when you honestly, and we've talked about this before, when you take some of the New York, L.A. economics out of it and you let people innovate somewhere that they can actually afford to rent a restaurant, they can afford to take risks, I think you see just how deep the innovation in American cooking is. Yeah, and I think I'm linking to the article in the show notes.

17:08You've got to read it because, John, what you've done, you wrote it. It's like 15 ,000 words. With a lot of help from all our students. Yeah, no, it's definitely using a lot of outside voices and editorial, your team. But you're tossing to other restaurants within each restaurant write-up. So I think you're getting a little snapshot of a community. And as you just mentioned, they're opening a new place. Well, it's mentioned there in the writing. And it's why it's worth reading. It's not just always about the restaurant. And it's great journalism. I want to stay in the Northeast. And I loved seeing this restaurant come up, Myers & Chang.

17:4018 years it's been operating in Boston. and it's one of those restaurants that is a classic. I read some reviews and like, I think the community of Boston is behind it, but it's not the new darling of Boston anymore. And it's great to be reminded about Myers and Chang. I had a great meal there a decade ago and now when I go to Boston, I'm like, I gotta go to Myers and Chang. There you go. And it's funny, so yeah, so it's kind of in the walk-off slot and I was a little bit deliberate because I was sort of like, I wanna, you know, Again, kind of like starting with Leo Leo, I felt it was important that we remind people that great talent and, again, innovation, it doesn't suddenly go away because you celebrate your third anniversary or your fifth anniversary, right?

18:27So you think about what Joanne Chang did when she launched it. And it was like, I mean, it was crazy at the time. It was like, you know, here's this like Harvard educated consultant who wants to, you know, become a baker and then a chef and just builds this amazing ecosystem. Again, like drawing on her threads, but also her interests and just acknowledging that, you know, she wanted to make the food that she and her husband wanted to make. and it was again it was innovative then and like you look at the menu now and you're like well this feels kind of familiar and the reason it feels familiar is that it has informed so many other restaurants that have come in its wake and it again like it it opened the door for a lot of other people to start to be able to explore that and to feel that they had a license to to make food that was for them personal and, you know, that brought new threads to, you know, to the dining conversation.

19:26Yeah, it's interesting as a diner, you sometimes when you see this name that looks familiar, you almost have to like pump yourself up to go there because it's not the new place. It's not the place that got that three-star New York Times last weekend. It's like the one that's been there forever. And like there's this bias, inherent bias as a diner that you're, that it's been around for 10 years. it must be dated. But your list goes against this argument, goes against this thread so well. And look, like, there are plenty of restaurants that do get dated. Yes. There are reasons that, you know, that restaurants need refreshes and whatever.

20:02Like, but I was just at PESH in New Orleans not long ago. And it's really fascinating. You're like, first of all, you know, they've obviously, like, polished things up, you know, a little bit over time. But you're like, for a restaurant that's been around basically, you know, like 15 years. This is still looking pretty, you know, pretty spiffy, pretty fresh. Everything is on point. Staff is amazing. Food is amazing. You're just like, to your point, yeah, I mean, it's you, yes, you have to stay in the game. But at the same time, I think it becomes difficult because we just, I mean, even in the absolute heyday of food media, there was never really a framework to keep acknowledging great restaurants.

20:44Beards is the only one really because of their outstanding restaurant requiring time. But that's like an awards organization. That's not an editorial outlet. You're so right. There wasn't the way we would call them legends, but that's kind of unfair. So weirdly, the one other organization that has done this for better or worse, and one can debate their prism, is Michelin. Yeah. And, you know, there is this sense with Michelin. And I think even there you sense their need to kind of keep looking for new. But the original concept of the stars and the bibs and everything after was, you know, you earn that over time.

21:27And, you know, there is something to be said, you know, again, regardless of sort of the specific choices, there is something to be said for earning, you know, for earning those stripes over time. And defending them. I mean, the term defend is always used with Michelin. and defending means that, yeah, longevity and you need to like continue operating at a high level, but also you need to keep, people need to keep going there and giving feedback and inspectors need to keep going there. Yeah, and my question would be, you know, you think about the criticisms of, you know, where chefs, specifically French chefs, felt enormous pressure within the system, which is obviously not the good part.

22:04But you're like, there's gotta be a sustainable version of this where you are allowed to keep being great and keep being recognized for it. And I mean, look, the ultimate recognition is people are continuing to come through your door. But it would, you know, I mean, I think, again, we want to at least dip our toe into how do you start to provide this ongoing recognition? How do you how do you lift up places that are that, you know, maybe they've been doing great work for six months. Maybe they've been doing it for 15 years. But, you know, it's it's important to acknowledge that both those things can exist on a spectrum.

22:38Hi there. It's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on Three Things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey. It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible. That's the This Is Taste listener survey, link in our show notes. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story.

23:27The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus. The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. You live in Philadelphia and you had to make some choices, some tough choices in spearheading this list.

24:09You landed on Southwark, which is a restaurant I was honestly unfamiliar with, which I love about all lists. I've had many editors on at all the major pubs talking about lists. And when me as a writer is exposed to a new restaurant on the list, I think you have done your job. I'd love to hear more about it. Yeah. So it's funny. I mean, and look, there was, I mean, yes, I would have given even more love to Philly if I could have. I mean, like Irwin's is on just like when Michael does there is amazing. Meeting House is on, which, again, you're like, you know, it's, you know, on one hand, it's kind of a it's kind of like bar doing bar food.

24:45And you're like, yeah, but, you know, you have a chef who could literally be cooking at the best restaurant in town who decided he wants to make like the world's most perfect roast beef sandwich. I'm like, I'm here for that. So am I. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, the thing with South Rock is, like, you talk to folks in Philly, you talk to folks in the industry in Philly, and over and over and over again, that is the restaurant that comes up. And that, to me, is always the sign. I'm trying to think. I mean, kind of Prune was that in New York. In some ways, Houseman is that. Like, it's, you know, it's a place that gets respect from peers.

25:17Yeah. And in its case, for 20 years now. And, like, food is amazing. um they also have another place ombra which is a little newer more sort of specifically italian more kind of tasting menu-y um but like cocktail program is amazing jamie rubin is the um does the wine is like one of the best sort of wine directors in town again one of these people is just like universally respected and you're like this is you know this is like this this is this is the pro game right yeah yeah and again you're it's it's it's one of these things where uh you know it's I think people who know it and keep going are delighted and, you know, and people who don't know it.

25:58The hope is this is a moment to to get to explore it and to give full credit. That was a pick from Sarah Maialano, who's our Philly hit list writer and amazing. Kind of like honestly, Myers and Chang was nominated by Eric Twardzik, who's our Boston writer. And so, you know, some of this is, you know, I wouldn't even say that I'd like to think I'm that smart. I'm, you know. Well, I love that you're giving credit to your team. Because, you know. I am lifted up by a tremendous, tremendous team of writers that we work with. And so, honestly, a lot of these in, you know, in our key cities were just, you know, great recommendations from the writers we work with.

26:41Who, again, like, they know the city super well. They know the level below the level. And so, yeah, it was, I mean, they made my job, honestly, kind of easy. Yeah, that's why the list is terrific. It's a real group effort. You write about this interesting dialogue between chefs of Mexican heritage and the food that interests them. You cite restaurants like Lele in Encinitas, California, Work and Class in Denver, Casa Susana in the Catskills, and Basso in Houston. I want to hear more about this dialogue, this discourse. It's not necessarily traditional Oaxacan cuisine. It's maybe something a little different, something more American.

27:23Yeah. American or, I mean, Leila is interesting because Claudette Zepeda, like, she just brought all kinds of stuff in. You know, whipped feta with a celery ceviche, right? Like, I mean, you look at the dip section and you're like, well, this could be like a Mike Solomanov jam at Zahav. And, you know, and obviously there's things that are a little bit more kind of coastal Mexican, but it's very much, I think, her view. And this is like, you know, a top chef chef, but bringing really, I think, a remarkable sort of, you know, like very personal perspective to it. Yeah, Casa Susana, it was fascinating because Robert Seetzin was actually the one who like really tapped into like this remarkable Mexican cooking up in the Catskills at a like Catskills resort.