Nothing makes us more excited to get up and go than putting together our annual Hot List, now in its 27th year. This curated collection of the world’s best new hotels, cruises, restaurants, cultural destinations, and transportation projects is a labor of love for our global team, which spends the year researching, visiting, and vetting the entries to bring you a definitive directory of places whose style, ethos, and service set new standards for hospitality. This year's dining destinations include a Cape Town establishment serving up contemporary Zulu and Nguni cuisine, a Northern California cafe honoring Ohlone recipes, and a community-driven Quito restaurant igniting Ecuador’s Indigenous dining scene. Here are the 21 best new restaurants in the world.
Click here to see the entire Hot List for 2023.
La Semilla — Atlanta
This little tropical enclave in the Reynoldstown neighborhood serves up some of the tastiest plant-based dishes in the city. Married duo Sophia Marchese and chef Reid Trapani filled the space with whimsical personal touches, such as vintage decor and hand-painted banana leaves on the bar’s soffit. Marchese oversees the beverage program with drinks befitting the locale, like the agricole fashioned with rum, mole bitters, and Angostura. Trapani’s dishes pay homage to Marchese’s Cuban heritage and his travels to Latin America. There’s a vegan Cubano with house-made seitan and jackfruit lechón, but the star of the menu may be the bistec de palomilla made with local lion’s-mane mushrooms. —Lia Picard
Mak-'amham/Cafe Ohlone — Berkeley, California
The latest iteration of Cafe Ohlone, a restaurant dedicated to Indigenous foods from Vincent Medina (East Bay Chochenyo) and Louis Trevino (Carmel Valley Rumsen), ‘ottoy serves diners in a space at the Hearst Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, a building formerly named after the anthropologist who falsely declared the Ohlone tribe extinct. In Chochenyo, the language of the Ohlone people, ‘oṭṭoy means to heal, and every aspect of the restaurant is dedicated to that goal, from shellmounds representative of the tribal gravesites raided by UC researchers, to a menu that marries traditional Ohlone dishes like tan oak acorn bisque or clams and mussels with contemporary-feeling offerings like a chia and hazelnut pudding. “This is part of our living culture,” Medina says of the restaurant’s mix of celebration and acknowledgement, of old and new. “We are fully embracing all our lived experiences.” —Eve Batey
The Koji Club — Boston
Nothing can stop a Bostonian with a plan. When lockdown first foiled Alyssa Mikiko DiPasquale’s endeavor to open the greatest sake bar the city had ever seen, she transitioned her business model to a subscription service paired with Zoom education sessions—which sold out consistently. And when supply chain woes across the hemisphere thwarted her ability to import Japan’s most interesting spirits, she used her distinguished reputation as longtime manager and marketer of iconic omakase spot O Ya to get the right people on the phone and the right sakes into her hands. Nevertheless, she persisted, opening an intimate 250 square-foot bar space last year that is as cozy and authentic as anything you would find in Japan. Koji Club's bartenders offer an encyclopedic knowledge of sake's multiverse, and the menu breaks down the spirit’s diversity from mild to wild, using cheeky descriptions such as, “Like walking through a temple in Kyoto wearing Le Labo’s Santal 33.” By the end of each night, you’re brushing elbows with strangers, making friends, and, whether you’re already a sake aficionado or just looking for something to do for date night, walking away with something you didn’t know before you went. “This city lost half of its Japanese restaurants during the pandemic,” said DiPasquale recently. “If I can just help people learn about and appreciate sake, that will be a job well done.” —Todd Plummer