100+ Restaurants in 2026: My Favorites (So Far)

My favorite restaurant ranking app, Beli, allows you to set a goal for how many restaurants you’d like to try in the new year. I tried a little over 100 in 2025 with a goal of 50. I decided to raise the stakes this past year with a goal of 100.

Well it’s almost August, and I’ve ranked 108 new restaurants. Several travels early in the year (including a multi-week visit to Japan), a move to a new neighborhood, and a very supportive boyfriend who happens to share my love for food helped make this yummy accomplishment possible.

Here are the best restaurants I’ve tried so far in 2026 (to be expanded each week):

Casa Susanna (Leeds, NY)

Accessibility: Reach out ahead of time for information on the accessible entrance. They were extremely accommodating while I was there and gave a very detailed explanation on how to get into the restaurant in a wheelchair.

Space: Located in the tucked away Camptown Hotel of the Catskills, Casa Susanna offers a cozy escape from the freezing outdoors of a January evening upstate. Chef Efrén Hernández, who originally discovered a love for cooking working the kitchen at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, has certainly since reached success in opening what Esquire has listed as one of the Best New Restaurants in America. He has been nominated the past three years in a row for the James Beard Award for Best Chef: New York. Like many other spaces in the Catskills, Casa Susanna’s architecture has a cabin feel that connects you with the surrounding nature. A crackling fireplace in the back room where we sat helped turn the dinner into more of an experience than a simple meal.

Food: It should be noted that Casa Susanna regularly changes their menu items according to the season. They claim to use only the freshest ingredients from local farmers, ranchers and fishermen, and as soon as you take your first bite, you can confirm it to be true. They make all of their tortillas in house and serve dishes meant to be shared with the table. While I was there in January, we ordered the Asian pear to start, along with the tetela and sope. For our mains, we had the smoked lamb barbacoa and duck breast with a side of the tortillas. We then ended with a sweet treat: the cotijia ice cream. Over half a year later, I still dream of the sope and smoked lamb barbacoa. You can taste the love and care that they put into these dishes. Every ingredient is carefully combined to create a pure piece of culinary art.