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In my first year as the restaurant editor at Food & Wine, it should not be surprising that I spent a lot of time eating and drinking, as well as thinking about eating and drinking (and also time in airports). And 2024 was an exceptional year for doing just that (sometimes you can even eat pretty well in an airport).
This year, we celebrated 13 fantastic 2024 Food & Wine Best New Chefs, named Burdell in Oakland as our Restaurant of the Year, and identified the year’s biggest trends in restaurants, drinks, and cooking.
From coast to coast, over the course of tens of thousands of miles of travel, visits to dozens of cities, meals at hundreds of restaurants, and thousands and thousands of bites, these are the 11 standout dishes that I loved the most and still can’t stop thinking about.
Squab at Four Kings (San Francisco)
Courtesy of Pete Lee
There’s often a line to get into Four Kings, the red-hot new-school Cantonese restaurant in San Francisco’s hilly Chinatown. One of the many reasons for this line might be the 1990s Cantopop jams that get blasted in the dining room, but the other reason is there are only 15 squabs available every day, and you need to get there on the early side to score one. As the saying goes, the early bird gets the squab. The whole squab, head and feet still attached, gets marinated, smoked, and then deep-fried to order, a multi-day process that results in rosy, succulent meat with a glistening, burnished skin. Chopsticks are ineffective; you will need to use your hands. Get in there and be the bird you know you are.
Ham & Cheese, Cullum’s Attaboy (San Antonio)
Food & Wine / Raphael Brion
Everything about the French-influenced, brunch-only, new-school diner Cullum’s Attaboy in San Antonio screams indulgence, from the at-cost truffles (when in season) to the mounds of caviar, from the tableside Champagne cocktails to the profligate use of butter. There’s the quietly named “Ham & Cheese” — a toasted sandwich with ham and Gruyère, stacked high in a pool of béchamel that’s served not on a plate but a sizzle platter — a spellbinding excess that just borders on the indecent. But then the classic French omelet with hollandaise comes out, and all bets are off.
Roast Duck at Burdell (Oakland)
Food & Wine / Eva Kolenko
The preparation for the aged and roasted Sonoma duck, one of the mainstays of the menu, changes with the seasons, and a recent version involved cherries alongside duck drippings, as well as an impossibly delicious dirty rice studded with braised duck leg meat and duck offal. There’s big grandma energy at Burdell in Oakland — Food & Wine’s 2024 Restaurant of the Year — and the casual yet precise cooking feels like a glorious Sunday feast (assuming your grandma cooked at some of the Bay Area’s best restaurants — anything’s possible).
Boudin Boy at Ayu Bakehouse (New Orleans)
Courtesy of Sam Hanna
The Boudin Boy — essentially a sausage and egg roll meets a Cajun Hot Pocket meets French viennoiserie — is a dizzying work of art at Ayu Bakehouse. You will find Best Stop boudin alongside soft-boiled eggs, ensconced inside super flaky laminated croissant dough, resulting in that whole crispy exterior and warm, savory interior interplay. Served alongside chili crisp for dipping, it’s a thrilling marriage of a bunch of cultures colliding, which is about as New Orleans as it gets.
Lao’d Smashburger, Lao’d Bar (Austin)
Courtesy of Lao’d Bar
Just when you think you’ve seen it all with smashburgers, leave it to Laotian-American chef Bob Somsith — at his night market-esque, brick-and-mortar restaurant Lao’d Bar in the outer fringes of East Austin — to come up with a genuine, new take. In this marvel of an umami bomb, Somsith makes the caramelized smashed patty out of an aromatic and savory homemade Lao pork sausage, topping it with rice-fermented pickles and a jeow bong-aioli slaw. He winds it all together with bacon and American cheese, and it’s absolutely bursting with both Lao and American flavors, all at the same time.
Wisco Fried Cheese Curds at Butterbird (Madison, Wisconsin)
Courtesy of Butter Bird
Comfort food classics like fried chicken and root beer floats are a serious affair at Butterbird. Even the coleslaw here is seriously good. But what stopped me dead in my tracks were the Wisco Fried Cheese Curds. Primed in buttermilk, tossed in the fried chicken dredge, and then deep-fried, the local cheese curds are sheathed in an otherworldly, gnarled outer shell. Essentially chicken-fried cheese curds (just, uh, without the chicken), they gloriously crackle, making all other cheese curds seethe with jealousy.
Hashbrown and Roe, Molly’s Rise and Shine (New Orleans)
Food & Wine / Raphael Brion
Copious caviar was a huge restaurant trend of 2024, and one of the most joyously brilliant ways to eat caviar was on top of a working class hashbrown. A shining example would be the Hashbrown and Roe at Molly’s Rise and Shine, an itinerant special that really should be part of the regular menu. Topped with chives and an umami-heavy anchovy crème fraîche, it’s a spectacular achievement in the genre of the fancy hashbrown, for which there sadly is no award (but there should be).
Pizza at Leopardo (Los Angeles)
Courtesy of Bonjwing Lee
The wood-fired “neo-mochito” pizza at 2011 F&W Best New Chef Joshua Skenes’ newish LA restaurant Leopardo — sporting a bulbous, nearly sweet crust with a springy, chewy texture that’s reminiscent of mochi but notably without the traditional sourdough tang — is unlike anything else out there. The menu here seems to be in a state of constant, chaotic flux: recent dishes like the wild boar lasagna served tableside and the Hello Satan pizza (with fermented chilis, wildflower honey, and pepperoni) both appear to be long gone, but that’s what makes frequent revisits at Leopardo even more worthwhile — surprise, delight, and the potential future of pizza.
Tuna Sashimi Tasting at Mr. Tuna (Portland, Maine)
Courtesy of Mr. Tuna
While handrolls make up the bulk of the menu at Mr. Tuna, the regularly appearing but off-menu special that is the tuna sashimi tasting will knock your socks right off into Portland’s Back Cove. Pure and unadorned, the specific cuts will vary based on what’s in season and what’s available, but it’s a narrative told by Jordan Rubin, aka Mr. Tuna himself, and might include different cuts from the same fish, and possibly a seared version. Taste the metaphorical rainbow, if it were made of sustainably caught tuna from the northern Atlantic.
Pig Tails at Petra & The Beast (Dallas)
Food & Wine / Raphael Brion
2019 F&W Best New Chef Misti Norris relocated her Dallas restaurant Petra & The Beast to a big, new space in late 2023, which granted her access to new yet wholly novel basics like a walk-in refrigerator. The move allowed for a more ambitious and expanded menu, including even more charcuterie and an adventurous brunch. Meanwhile, the tea-braised pig tails, a foundational (yet ever-changing) dish remains on the menu. A recent setup combined a variety of mushrooms like ham dashi-braised king trumpets and pickled beach mushrooms, providing continued evidence that Norris is just so punishingly good at deftly layering multiple ingredients and flavors together into what amounts to seismic shocks.
Longsilog at Kamayan (Atlanta)
Courtesy of Kamayan.
I made the mistake of showing up for Sunday brunch at the standout Filipino spot Kamayan on Buford Highway in Atlanta on a Sunday at 11:15 a.m. The place opens at 11 a.m., and I had missed the memo that crowds line up before it opens because brunch here is, in fact, the most important meal of the day. They managed to squeeze us in. On Sundays, the full menu is available, but you can also get brunch-only items like the longsilog, a breakfast dish served with garlic fried rice, eggs, and Filipino-style sweet chorizo that is absolutely bursting with flavor. It’s all I want for breakfast now.
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