The 8 Must-Visit New Restaurants to Try This Winter

A slate of exciting new restaurants is opening across the US this winter. In San Francisco, a beloved Bay Area chef will open her first stand-alone soul food restaurant with cult-favorite rosemary fried chicken and mac and cheese. And in Minneapolis, a chef known for her inventive baking is turning to cooking the Hmong-inspired dishes of her upbringing. From a contemporary Mexican spot in DC to a Thai American pop-up finally opening a permanent location in Brooklyn, these are Bon Appétit’s eight most anticipated restaurant openings of the season.

This list is organized alphabetically by city. The opening dates below are subject to change, so check restaurant websites and Instagram accounts for the latest updates.

A Thai American restaurant turns up the heat

Little Grenjai
Brooklyn, NY
Opening: January

Trevor Lombaer and Sutathip Aiemsaard are no strangers to a pivot. After meeting in Thailand, Lombaer convinced Aiemsaard to return with him to the States, and the couple started selling pad Thai out of a food truck throughout Brooklyn in 2017 under the name Warung Roadside. In September 2023, the two opened Little Grenjai, a Thai American all-day restaurant in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Critics and locals alike showed up to the take-out window in masses to sample krapow smash burgers and Chiang Mai chi dogs. It was a hit. The caveat? The restaurant opened without gas and the team ultimately decided to close until it was turned on. That reopening will finally come in late January. In addition to the early no-gas hits, diners can expect favorites from the pop-up days like duck laab, peek gai tod crispy wings, and khao soi, along with coffee, pastries, and congee in the morning.

Hmong cooking from a decorated pastry chef

Diane’s Place
Minneapolis, MN
Opening: February

Diane Moua has racked up James Beard Award nominations for her for exquisite, technique-focused desserts at some of Minneapolis's most celebrated restaurants. But in October 2022, Moua announced that she would be going a different route with her first solo project, Diane’s Place. An Asian bistro in Northeast Minneapolis, it will revolve around dishes inspired by her childhood as the oldest daughter of Hmong immigrants. There will be morning pastries with Southeast Asian flavors like taro, coconut, and pandan. Savory dishes will range from chicken noodle soup with fried Thai eggplant to mustard greens with pork, rice, and poached egg to sweet, chewy sesame balls. Moua’s menu will feature ingredients like bamboo from her family’s farm in Wisconsin.

A market-restaurant for Gulf Coast seafood comes ashore

Porgy’s Seafood Market
New Orleans, LA
Opening: December

Porgy’s Seafood Market wants to shine a spotlight on the diversity and abundance of seafood from the Gulf Coast. The market’s focus will be on connecting customers to lesser-known species and seasonal delicacies from family-run Louisiana fisheries. Local chef Wataru Saeki will helm the kitchen, serving po’boys, boiled seafood, and crudo, all made from the market’s selection. The New Orleans market and restaurant is the brainchild of four restaurant owners—the team from Seafood Sally’s (one of Bon Appétit’s 50 Best New Restaurants of 2022), which closed earlier this month, and the duo behind Café Cour and Carmo, where Porgy’s has been doing pop-up markets in anticipation of opening.

A creative Mexican pop-up sets up shop

Corima
New York, NY
Opening: January

Fidel Caballero has spent the past few years running pop-ups at wine bars around New York, turning out dishes like a tamal with huitlacoche and squid ink tonnato and highlighting ingredients native to Northern Mexico. In January, fans will be able to find Caballero and his wife and co-owner, Sofia Ostos, at their new restaurant, Corima, on the Lower East Side. Caballero has cooked in celebrated kitchens such as Contra in New York and the three-Michelin-starred Martín Berasategui in Spain. Corima will tap into this fine dining background, offering both à la carte dishes and a tasting menu inspired by Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. There will be dishes like a sourdough flour tortilla with recado negro butter, a tuna mille-feuille with chicharron furikake, and desserts like chocoflan with dulse seaweed tuile. The minimalist dining room will feature artwork from Oaxacan artists like Amador Montes and ceramists like Taller Ruíz López.

A Mediterranean-inspired all-day restaurant lands in Fishtown

Bastia
Philadelphia, PA
Opening: March

With Bastia, a Mediterranean-inspired café by day and full-service restaurant by night, Tyler Akin is returning to Philadelphia’s Fishtown. Akin is a chef-partner at modern brasserie Le Cavalier in Wilmington, Delaware’s Hotel du Pont, and he also owned the now closed café Res Ipsa and Southeast Asian BYOB Stock. At Bastia, Akin is cooking seafood- and vegetable-heavy dishes like amberjack crudo with whipped cannellini, finger lime, and clementine, veal tail with olives and vin de Corse, and ratatouille with Calabrian chile and grilled sourdough. To drink, there’s a focus on low-intervention wines from the Mediterranean coastal region, spritzes, and aperitifs. Bastia is opening in the newly converted boutique hotel Anna & Bel, a historic property which dates back to the late 18th century. There will be coffee and breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch service for hotel guests and Fishtown residents alike.

A soul food superstar opens her first brick-and-mortar

Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement
San Francisco, CA
Opening: February

Chef Fernay McPherson’s rosemary fried chicken and mac and cheese have cemented her in the Bay Area as a soul food legend. After five years of operating Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement in the East Bay food hall Public Market Emeryville, she will be opening her first restaurant in San Francisco’s Fillmore district this February. The location is significant for McPherson, a third-generation resident of the historic neighborhood. In addition to the classics, she’ll be cooking up roast chicken, fried oyster mushrooms, and a vegan take on her signature mac and cheese. For weekend brunch, diners can expect dishes like oxtail hash and shrimp etouffee over fried grit cake. The beverage menu will showcase Black- and female-owned wineries with an emphasis on sparkling wines—the perfect pairing for fried chicken.

A new project from the duo behind one of Sonoma’s buzziest spots

Golden Bear Station
Kenwood, CA
Opening: December

After less than two years of business, Joshua Smookler and Heidy He announced in November that they would close Animo, their celebrated Sonoma restaurant known for its inventive Basque-Korean fare, until mid-2024. In the meantime, the husband-wife duo is opening Golden Bear Station, an Asian-influenced brasserie located in a former filling station along California’s Highway 12. While Animo might be a special occasion restaurant, Smookler and He aim for Golden Bear Station to feel more like a weekly dining destination. The menu will include Neapolitan-style pizza and dishes like a panko-fried pork chop with dashi broth. While fans of their closed New York restaurant Mu Ramen won’t find ramen on Golden Bear’s menu, the couple plans to bring back the cult-favorite Harlan burger, a dry-aged short rib patty with caramelized onions, Taleggio cheese, shoestring potatoes, and kimchi mayo, named after their daughter.

Contemporary Mexican food takes to Capitol Hill

Pascual
Washington, DC
Opening: January

Chefs Matt Conroy and Isabel Coss are known for the modern French fare at their celebrated Georgetown neo-bistro Lutèce. Pascual, the husband-wife team’s new contemporary Mexican spot, will be different. The food reflects Coss’s roots as a Mexico City native and her experience cooking in iconic kitchens like Enrique Olvera’s Pujol in Mexico City and Cosme in New York. Conroy is also well-versed in Mexican cooking, having most recently run the kitchen at Oxomoco in Brooklyn. Their menu at Pascual will focus on wood-fire cooking: fideos secos (thin, short noodles cooked in tomato broth), al pastor Bangs Island mussels with charred pineapple, and Yucatan-style grilled branzino. Of course, Coss, a self-proclaimed “postre chef,” will be making a slate of must-order desserts like burnt vanilla soft-serve drizzled with cajeta sauce and roasted fruit with mezcal zabaglione and meringue. Shortly after Pascual opens, the team will debut a daytime to-go panadería and coffee shop called Volcán.