By one completely unscientific measure, Eater has put at least 160,000 restaurants on its maps in the past 20 years. All of them have been worthy of visiting for a bite, a drink, or a full-on experience. But which had a tangible impact on the national restaurant conversation?
When the Eater team set out to crown the most influential restaurants of the past two decades, we spent a lot of time debating how exactly to define the idea of influence, particularly from a national perspective. After all, restaurants that make shock waves locally don’t always move the needle when it comes to dining culture more broadly, and places that are breathlessly covered in glossy publications don’t necessarily resonate with those who live in and dine out frequently in that city.
To help us cull the list, we turned to a council of more than 20 experts — along with Eater’s highly opinionated staffers and contributing editor Hillary Dixler Canavan — to nominate the restaurants across the country that we felt had the biggest impact in the past two decades. We narrowed it, partially, by limiting ourselves only to restaurants that opened in 2005 or later; this excluded noteworthy Mexican food trucks in LA, the Bay Area’s farm-to-table pioneers, fast-casual standouts turned global juggernauts, and scores of classic restaurants. We wanted to highlight a snapshot in time, not the entire history of dining in this country. For that same reason, we included beloved restaurants from that period with an outsize influence, even if they have since closed.
The resulting list of 38 (a nod to Eater’s signature number, one that was arbitrarily chosen in the site’s early days) spans the country from Honolulu to Philadelphia. It includes fine dining temples and pie shops. Some of the restaurateurs featured on the list run one extremely wonderful place; others oversee entire empires. A few grandes dames share an opening year with Eater, while others are a mere three years old. But they all have one attribute in common: an indisputable impact on restaurant culture. — Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief
Alinea | Alta Adams | Animal | Atelier Crenn | Atomix | Baroo | Carbone | Chubby Fish | Compère Lapin | Crawfish & Noodles | Dakar NOLA | The Four Horsemen | Franklin Barbecue | Gjelina | The Grey | Husk | Kann | Kasama | Kogi BBQ | Mission Chinese Food | Mi Tocaya Antojería | Momofuku Ssäm Bar | Nong’s Khao Man Gai | Owamni | Pizzeria Mozza | Rasika | Red Rooster | Reem’s California | Sister Pie | South Philly Barbacoa | Superiority Burger | Sushi Nakazawa | Taco María | Toro | Town | Veracruz All Natural | Via Carota | Zahav
Alinea
Chicago
While molecular gastronomy may feel a little bit like a punchline in 2025, Alinea made major waves when it opened in Chicago 20 years ago, scoring three Michelin stars and putting theatrical, maximalist, surprise-packed dining on the national map. This was the highest form of culinary artistry — a magic show of a tasting menu packed with powders, vapors, edible puzzles, and trompe l’oeils. No process here is too tedious, no ingredient too obscure. Alinea is America’s answer to Catalonia’s El Bulli, an avant-garde restaurant that blurs the line between kitchen and laboratory, dinner table and stage. The novelty of chemistry as cooking and painterly plating may have subsided, but there’s still so much influence from molecular gastronomy that remains in modern restaurants and cocktail bars to this day. — Hilary Pollack
Alta Adams
Los Angeles
The string-light-lit patio at Los Angeles’s Alta Adams hosts the ultimate party for the city’s Black community. When Keith Corbin, who grew up in Watts, opened Alta in West Adams in 2018, the restaurant quickly became a California soul food sensation. With chef Daniel Patterson, his former mentor at Locol, as an operating partner, Corbin placed a bright spotlight on the Black foodways that crossed into California through the Great Migration, his menu steeped in Southern cooking traditions, African diasporic flavors, and his personal family history. Here, find gravy-drenched oxtails punched up by soy sauce, ginger, and miso and Alta’s signature fried chicken with Fresno chile hot sauce. Corbin’s advocacy to hire and create growth opportunities for fellow formerly incarcerated people further cements his status as a community leader. Alta isn’t the first “California soul” restaurant, but it boldly ensures the genre’s legacy. — Nicole Adlman
Animal
Los Angeles
Los Angeles’s culinary scene could look back at 2008 as the year the city finally landed in the national spotlight, when a pair of plucky bearded dudes opened a meaty nose-to-tail restaurant along Fairfax Avenue just steps from streetwear boutique Supreme. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo created a new moment for LA dining, sculpting chicken liver onto toast slivers, crowning crispy pig ears with eggs, and crafting dessert out of foie gras (then legal in California). Veal tongue, pig’s head, rabbit, and other unheralded ingredients — their usage inspired by Shook and Dotolo’s rabid eating across Southern California’s international cuisines — became the norm in LA and beyond. Animal may have closed in 2023, but its legacy reverberates through a generation of restaurants serving aggressively seasoned plates drawn from a global pantry. — Matthew Kang
Atelier Crenn
San Francisco
Dominique Crenn is a true trailblazer: In 2019, her restaurant, Atelier Crenn, became the first in the United States helmed by a female chef to earn...