As exciting new restaurants have opened across the U.S. with fantastic wine lists to match diverse cuisines, wine lovers have a lot to explore this year. With all these options on the table, where does one begin? For an excellent starting point, try any one of the following 12 restaurants, each of which recently opened and is a first-time recipient of a Wine Spectator Restaurant Award in 2025; this year’s full list of winners was revealed this week!
Some of the winners are from rapidly growing hospitality groups and well-established names in dining, while others represent smaller teams. Some offer contemporary American cuisine, while others impress with Italian, Chinese and French menus. What unites these diverse restaurants is their dedication to quality dining and alluring wine programs that feature a range of styles, regions and producers.
Learn more about our Restaurant Awards here, and explore our full list of more than 3,800 Wine Spectator Restaurant Award–winning establishments, including three new Grand Award winners among the 97 restaurants that hold our highest honor.
Do you have a favorite you’d like to see on this list? Send your recommendations to restaurantawards@mshanken.com. We want to hear from you!
Augustine
377 Santana Row, Suite 1000, San Jose, Calif.
Telephone (408) 785-7700
Website augustinerestaurant.com
Best of Award of Excellence
Earning a Best of Award of Excellence in its first year of existence, Augustine is the latest addition from the decorated Bacchus Management Group and its corporate wine director Jaime Pinedo. Bacchus’ portfolio encompasses six Restaurant Award winners, including three Grand Awards thanks to the recent promotion of Selby’s earlier this year. Split into three categories of “Sea, Garden and Ranch,” chef Mark Sullivan’s menu marries Mediterranean tradition with coastal California cuisine. Seafood offerings include dishes like Monterey Bay calamari a la plancha, savory Dungeness crab donuts and pan-seared Hokkaido scallops served with cherry tomatoes, olives, crispy garlic and sauce vierge. The “Garden” section offers fresh salads as well as cooked veggie dishes like harissa-spiced carrots, while the “Ranch” category features spiced lamb sausage served with mint yogurt and olives, grilled flank steak and other hearty protein dishes, all inflected by Middle Eastern or Mediterranean freshness and spice. The wine list offers a solid and diverse 410 selections, with more than 25 options by the glass. Nearby Napa Valley plays a prominent role on the list with producers like Spottswoode, Massican and others, though plenty of Old World options are available, including the Rhône’s Domaine du Pegau, Piedmont’s Giacomo Conterno and Priorat’s Familia Torres. The restaurant team also operates Cafe Augustine next door, which serves house-made pastries, sandwiches, coffee and more.
Chez Fifi
140 E. 74th St., New York, New York
Telephone (917) 338-1792
Website chezfifinyc.com
Best of Award of Excellence
Quickly becoming one of the most difficult reservations to secure in New York after its launch last December, Chez Fifi brings a refined bistro atmosphere to the ground floor of a townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The restaurant’s red leather banquettes, wood panelled walls and floral curtains evoke an old-fashioned clubhouse vibe in the space, where chef Zack Zeidman serves a compact menu predominantly of French classics. To start, consider the foie gras terrine, salmon rillettes or Jamón Ibérico. Main options include escargot, steak frites, beef tartare and scallops served with Osetra caviar. Wine Director Tira John has curated a mammoth 1,200 bottle list with strong representation across France. Top producers featured include Vincent Dauvissat, Château Cos d’Estournel and Jean Louis Chave. Still, options from lesser known regions like Savoie, Jura and Coteaux Champenois are plentiful.
Carbone Vino Miami
2911 Grand Ave., Miami, Fla.
Website carbonevino.com/coconut-grove
Best of Award of Excellence
Major Food Group added to its impressive line up of 14 Restaurant Award winners this year with Carbone Vino Miami, an offshoot of the franchise that spans New York, Dallas, Las Vegas and beyond. Found in the historic Coconut Grove neighborhood—known for its arts festival, charming shops and occasional peacock sightings—Carbone Vino aims to capture the enoteca experience with chef Mario Carbone’s classic Italian menu. Small plates include Calabrian calamari, prosciutto with pear, radicchio with gorgonzola and fried zucchini. For larger options, consider jumbo shrimp diavolo, veal parmigiana or even the 60-day dry-aged porterhouse for two. Wine Director Andrew Schawel and Major Food Group’s corporate beverage director, John Slover, share responsibility for the 675-selection list. Verticals of Italian icons like Romano Dal Forno, Sassicaia and Gaja make up a large number of options, though Burgundy also shines with producers like Marquis d’Angerville, Domaine Leflaive and even Domaine de la Romanée Conti.
Choy
121B 12th Ave. N., Nashville, Tenn.
Website choynashville.com
Best of Award of Excellence
Designed in the style of Art Deco Shanghai, 2025 Best of Award of Excellence winner Choy takes what we consider to be “Chinese American” cooking to the next level, paired alongside a stellar cellar with over 350 selections. Calling the Gulch neighborhood in downtown Nashville home—near the Tennessee state capitol and major shopping and dining centers—Choy opened in the summer of 2024 from restaurateurs Moni Advani and Nishaan Chavda, the former director of operations for the Mina Group. The menu plays on Chinese banquet foods, delivered with a Southern twang—think shrimp chips served with smoked trout and doused in malt vinegar, egg drop soup smothered in garlic and chive schmaltz and char siu baby back ribs. Large plates include the “sizzled fish” served with fermented black beans and peanuts or the whole fried chicken, dusted in mala-spiced salt and orange chili. Don’t miss the signature apple wood–smoked Peking-style duck served with scallion pancakes, peanut butter hoisin and duck liver mousse. Wine director Justin Mueller manages the wine program, which specializes in bottles from France, Italy and Spain to pair with the wide variety of flavors on the menu. Expect stellar bottles from the likes of Armand Rousseau in Burgundy, Biondi-Santi in Tuscany and R. López de Heredia Viña Todonia in Rioja.
La Tête d’Or by Daniel
318 Park Ave. S., New York, N.Y. 10010
Website latetedorbydaniel.com
Best of Award of Excellence
Chef Daniel Boulud still has a few tricks up his sleeve. This past winter, the famed French chef opened his first steak house, 2025 Best of Award of Excellence winner La Tête d’Or by Daniel, a temple to beautiful beef, stellar seafood and eye-catching wines. Located right off Madison Square Park in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood—a stone’s throw from other prestigious New York City wine destinations like Grand Award winner Eleven Madison Park and Best of Award of Excellence winner COQODAQ—the restaurant is named after an iconic park in Boulud’s hometown of Lyon. La Tête d’Or lives up to its glamorous name: The space is washed in golden light, with plush banquettes and velvet seating accented with warm, deep-toned woods. The wine list, winning its first Restaurant Award with 905 selections, focuses on wines from France’s grandest regions like Bordeaux and Burgundy, with vertical options from California and Italy as well. The quality of the list is made clear by what’s available by the glass, with offerings including Chartogne-Taillet in Champagne, Elena Walch in Alto Adige and Domaine Faiveley in Burgundy. The menu Boulud developed for La Tête d’Or embraces decadence on top of decadence, with starters like wood-fried bone marrow and sweetbread nuggets, an optional caviar interlude, sky-high seafood towers and a hefty selection of chops like prime black angus côte de boeuf and A5 Wagyu strip loin straight from Japan. The star of the show is the Wagyu rib eye cart, which brings back the mid-century classic with ruby-red slabs cut tableside.
Saison Wine Bar
234 Townsend St., San Francisco, Calif.
Telephone (628) 800-4010
Website saisonwinebar.com
Best of Award of Excellence
A stylish offshoot of the Grand Award–winning Saison in San Francisco’s SoMa district, Saison Wine Bar is another notch in the belt of the accomplished sommelier, restaurateur and vintner Mark Bright. Its design is elegant but casual, with plush couches, communal tables, bar seating and a few pieces of impressive taxidermy lining the walls. Chef Jimmy Ryan’s menu offers shareable French-inspired plates like charcuterie, cheese boards, croques (including a Dungeness crab version) and pommes dauphine with raclette and wildflower honey. The wine list, currently comprising around 600 selections and over 1,100 bottles, is anchored in France but stretches across California, Italy and beyond. Highlights include producers like Château Calon-Ségur, Domaine Faiveley and F.X. Pichler, plus pours from Bright’s own Saison Winery. Guests can enjoy 34 wines by the glass, 12 Coravin selections, and nine rotating themed flights. Whether visiting before a Giants game (Oracle Park is just minutes away by foot) or winding down after a dinner at Saison, this cozy spot balances polish with deep wine geek cred.
Penny
90 E. 10th St. First Floor, New York, N.Y. 10003
Website penny-nyc.com
Best of Award of Excellence
A stripped-back seafood counter and wine bar, 2025 Best of Award of Excellence winner Penny is the follow-up to the acclaimed "downtown bistro" and Best of Award of Excellence winner Claud. (Claud is tucked right beneath Penny, below street level.) Owned by sommelier Chase Sinzer and chef Joshua Pinsky, who met while working at the acclaimed wine haven Momofuku Ko, the two restaurants call New York City’s East Village home and prove the neighborhood’s reputation for turning fine dining right on its head. The dishes chef Forrest Florsheim prepares at Penny are straightforward but expertly executed. Take raw bar classics like shrimp cocktail, raw oysters and clams, artfully placed in Penny’s signature “ice box”; seared scallops bathed in cultured butter; squid stuffed with Swiss chard; and tuna carpaccio studded with olives and cippoline onions. Must-tries on the menu include the confit oysters broiled in chicken fat and sesame-encrusted brioche (which is also the vessel for Penny’s ice cream sandwiches). The wine program features around 1,800 labels chosen by wine director Ellis Srubas-Giammanco to complement the seafood-centric menu, with ample verticals of vintage Champagne, white Burgundy, Loire Chenin Blanc and white Rhône bottlings. But don’t overlook the red wine selections, which include major producers in Bordeaux, Burgundy and the United States as well as an eclectic mix from the likes of Savoie, Croatia and Japan.
The Occidental
1475 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.
Telephone (202) 241-8000
Website https://theoccidentaldc.com/
Best of Award of Excellence
Prolific restaurateur Stephen Starr reopened The Occidental, a Washington, D.C., landmark since 1906, earlier this year in the historic Willard Hotel. The vibe of the restaurant reflects its long history as a favored destination for the city’s elite: Portraits of former presidents and other D.C. power players line the walls, waiters don white tuxedos, and crystal chandeliers and green velvet banquettes evoke a glamorous past. Executive chef Neil O’Connell, formerly of Pastis Miami, offers a menu of updated American classics, including shrimp cocktail, Dover sole meunière, pheasant under glass and a 21-day dry-aged prime rib. Signature dishes like the Barnsley lamb chop and the “Pork Chop That Saved the World” nod to the restaurant’s historical legacy, while desserts such as baked Alaska and flambéed bananas Foster add a theatrical finish. Wine director Samantha McCrimmon manages the 750-selection list focused on California, France and Italy. Domestic highlights include verticals of Dalla Valle, Dunn and Staglin, while bottles from producers like Paul Jaboulet Aîné, Château Montrose and Paolo Scavino round out a solid selection of Old World wines. With 280 seats across two floors, a cocktail lounge and a 3,200-square-foot courtyard overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, The Occidental reclaims its role as a grand and historic destination in the capital and joins 23 other Starr restaurants with Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards.
The Marigold Club
2531 Kuester St., Houston, Texas 77006
Website themarigoldclub.com
Best of Award of Excellence
In the past decade, Houston has solidified itself as one of the United States’ culinary capitals and attracted some of the industry’s top talents. That includes the team at Goodnight Hospitality Group, from Master Sommelier June Rodil and chef Felipe Riccio, which is known for immersive restaurants like Best of Award of Excellence winner March and Award of Excellence winner Rosie Cannonball. Their newest outpost, 2025 Best of Award of Excellence winner the Marigold Club, takes diners from Texas to Piccadilly London, in a dining room animated by bright, sumptuous wallpapers and fabrics, trompe l’oeil murals, Eurocentric dishes and—of course—Champagne. The cellar of 2,000 bottles is rooted in Old World bottlings, with sparkling wine the star of the show. A self-proclaimed Champagne fanatic, Rodil has stacked the list with offerings from the region’s great houses like Krug, Salon and Egly-Ouriet. The selection of still wines leans into the classics across France, Italy and the United States, with verticals and horizontals from across Burgundy, Bordeaux and Piedmont. Chef and partner Austin Waiter’s tongue-in-cheek menu plays on the great French restaurants of London in the 1960s—think Prime filet of beef slathered in café de Paris butter, duck Wellington, or Dover sole served with “blistered tomato puttanesca.”
Zurito
26 Charles St., Boston, Mass. 2114
Website zuritoboston.com
Best of Award of Excellence
Basque Country comes to Boston’s Beacon Hill with the 2025 Best of Award of Excellence winner Zurito. The latest restaurant from chef Jamie Bissonnette, who under BCB3 Hospitality also operates the Korean restaurant Somaek and Japanese listening bar Temple Records, Zurito is a love letter to Basque pintxo bars. It’s a spot to mix and match, with pintxos like a Spanish tortilla studded with chorizo and piquillo pepper, classic gildas and sea urchin toasts with garlic butter and mustard. Larger plates include squid ink risotto, tripe stewed in Basque cider, and razor clams, octopus and shrimp all served a la plancha. Nader Asgari Tari leads the wine program, with a list of 700 selections, mostly focused on the diversity of bottlings coming from Spain today, but supported with stellar options from Burgundy and Germany as well. Standout Spanish bottles include some of the country’s most exciting producers, including Emilio Moro,Quinta della Muradella and Álvaro Palacios
il Carciofo
1045 W. Fulton St., Chicago, Ill. 60607
Website ilcarciofochicago.com
Award of Excellence
Chef Joe Flamm has carved a niche for himself in Chicago’s prominent Italian dining scene, with his two previous Award of Excellence winners Rose Mary and BLVD Steakhouse. Now, he’s digging in deeper with 2025 Award of Excellence winner il Carciofo, inspired by the cuisine of Rome. Opened earlier this year inside of Downtown Chicago’s Fulton market, il Carciofo showcases classics from the Eternal City, like the restaurant’s namesake fried artichokes, cacio e pepe and rigatoni alla carbonara. Flamm also operates a wood-fired oven, slinging out bubbling pizzas and large chunks of meat like Italian-style steaks and a vitello saltimbocca. The entirely Italian wine list is managed by wine director Kyle Davidson and broken into wines from the northern, central and southern parts of the peninsula. That division allows Davidson to highlight little-seen indigenous grapes like Garganega from Veneto, Sciaglin from Friuli and Galioppo from Calabria. The majority of the 120 bottles on the list cost less than $100, with great deals from wineries such as Pio Cesare, Antinori and Alois Lageder.
Isidore
221 Newell Ave., San Antonio, Texas
Telephone (210) 756-7359
Website isidoresatx.com
Award of Excellence
Award of Excellence winner Isidore, which opened in the Pullman Market food hall late last summer, is the latest addition to San Antonio’s burgeoning food scene. Chef Ian Lanphear and wine director Ali Schmidt collaborate to provide guests a Texas-centric dining experience with local wines and ingredients featured heavily on the menu. Steaks are the star of the show, with cuts like flat iron, bavette, filet mignon and porterhouse appearing next to the names of the Texas ranches they come from on the menu. Lighter bites like popcorn chicken, roasted vegetables and even a few raw seafood dishes are also offered. Schmidt’s wine program is both creative and reliable, spanning well-established classics to up-and-coming, lesser-known wines on the 205-selection list. Of note are several offerings from Texas producers like William Chris, C.L. Butaud and Lewis Wines. Still, you’ll find plenty of hallmark Old World producers like Rioja’s La Rioja Alta, Sicily’s Pietradolce and Champagne’s Gosset, as well as a decent number of Napa Cabernets from producers like Heitz, Inglenook, Burgess and others. Isidore’s ownership group also has two Restaurant Award winners in Austin, Hestia and Emmer & Rye.
Edited by Julia Larson, Greg Warner and Kenny Martin
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