WHAT: An airy cafe, market, and boutique with an intensely farm-to-table ethos. WHY: Because Northern California is where people go to experience the Good Life™, and Shed is here to sell it to you. And it’s not just the lovely cooking utensils or Instagram-ready shovels (it’s a thing!) for sale, it’s also the gorgeous plates that chef Perry Hoffman serves in the cafe. It’s a salad with trout and sea buckthorn, covered in edible flowers; it’s fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes with perfectly ripe blueberries; it’s a tartine topped with anchovies and kicky Meyer lemon aioli. Shed’s the place where all your “wouldn’t it be nice to live in Sonoma” fantasies come to life, better than you even imagined, if only for a couple hours. — Hillary Dixler Canavan

WHAT: The jewel of Sacramento’s homegrown “Farm to Fork” movement, where chef-owner Chris Barnum-Dann carves out a unique culinary perspective through small scale, hyperlocal sourcing. WHY: Sacramento has yet to fully shake its cow town reputation, nor the looming shadow of its neighbor 90 minutes to the west, San Francisco. Slowly but surely, however, the capital city is finding its own voice, and Localis is the microphone of the moment. Cooking with local ingredients at their freshest is no longer on its own a revolutionary act, but it carries extra significance in this part of the San Joaquin Valley — the agricultural heart of the state that feeds the nation. Barnum-Dann understands this, and mans the kitchen every night with the singular goal of creating innovative plates powered by just-picked produce and incendiary flavor. Coconut green curry ceviche blends the slow burn of Thai chiles with chard and parsnips, while harissa-smeared, fire-roasted octopus gets a sunny pairing with local peaches and delicate summer squash. — Stephanie Stiavetti

WHAT: Flat-out, leading-edge American luxury dining in Napa Valley — a standout among standouts in a region rife with worthy upscale binges. WHY: Consider chef Christopher Kostow and restaurant director Nathaniel Dorn’s collaboration as the star-pupil progeny of Chez Panisse and the French Laundry, blending the sense-of-place evangelism of the former and the refined Yankee wit of the latter. Kostow embodies the avant-garde of great American chefs. His sauces are bogglingly layered acts of chemistry, but his flavors always come across as clean and pure. Dinner might start with tiny potatoes or other vegetables yanked straight from the garden, but soon each forkful will contain multitudes. The kitchen is ceaselessly inventive and playful, whether combining earthy tepary beans and Sea Island rice peas with white sturgeon caviar, or sculpting a culinary portmanteau called “foievocado,” or subbing in eggplant for a savory take on bananas Foster. Dorn’s service team duly bring polish, personality, and humor to their jobs. The cost is steep — $285 for a dozen or so courses in the clubhouse of a dining room, or $500 for a worth-the-splurge thrill ride at the kitchen’s four-seat counter, which could include a wheel of cheese hidden in a candle. — Bill Addison

WHAT: A scenic oyster farm on the edge of bucolic Tomales Bay — a narrow inlet surrounded by wide-open farmland and accessible only by long and winding roads — that boasts picnic areas, barbecues, and a bar stocked with beer, wine, and the option to shuck ’em yourself. WHY: If there’s something better than an ice-cold oyster that’s been shucked and served in its place of origin, show me. Hog Island, uniquely positioned on a submerged portion of the San Andreas Fault, produces oysters that are sweet, salty, briny, and perfectly paired with a foggy summer afternoon — most likely what you’ll get during June or July. Make reservations ahead for the highly desirable picnic tables in a gravel lot overlooking the bay, each of which comes with a grill for putting a little smoke and heat on the oysters. Bring your own bottle of crisp white wine or grab something by the glass from the Boat, the farm’s oyster bar that also offers grilled and shucked oysters for those less interested in working for their mollusks. Bring both a jacket and sunscreen, as the weather on the coast tends to shift quickly between fitful and sublime. — Ellen Fort

WHAT: The casual upstairs dining room of Alice Waters’s legendary Berkeley restaurant, and the true keeper of the California cuisine flame. WHY: Every ingredient is cooked to its fullest potential in the relaxed cafe above Chez Panisse. Standouts from a recent trip included a supremely earthy roasted beet soup with horseradish cream, a shockingly light pizzetta topped with halibut brandade, and a plate of braised short ribs with mashed potatoes that was exactly what you want whenever you order braised short ribs with mashed potatoes. The handful of untouchable dishes, like the baked goat cheese and seasonal fruit galette, are always right on the money. And the servers — some of whom have been working with Waters for decades — will happily help you put together a set list that will showcase the range of the kitchen. The Restaurant at Chez Panisse still offers a great, seminal California cuisine experience, but the bustling Café is where you want to go to kick back and enjoy the style of eating that Alice Waters pioneered. — Greg Morabito

WHAT: Chef Tanya Holland’s soul food oasis in West Oakland. WHY: When Holland, who has starred on Top Chef, brought her classically trained take on Southern cooking to a then-industrial neighborhood 10 years ago, she became one of the pioneers of modern Oakland. Her brunch classics like biscuits, cheese grits, and fried chicken with cornmeal waffles have made the unassuming restaurant a beloved destination for locals as well as visitors from across the Bay Bridge. (Unlike most waffles playing second fiddle to the fried chicken, these stand alone and are often ordered that way, accompanied by melted butter, syrup, and fresh fruit.) Lunchtime brings more of the Southern-style dishes so often missed on the West Coast, including smoked chicken and shrimp gumbo, oyster po’ boys, and Creole barbecue shrimp. Since opening a decade ago, gentrification has made that area of West Oakland unrecognizable, but the vital spirit of this place remains unchanged. — E.F.

WHAT: A chic launching pad, with only eight black walnut dining tables, from which to travel the gardens and high seas of Dominique Crenn’s mind. WHY: In 2011, Crenn, a native of Brittany, France, opened her San Francisco tasting-menu restaurant and cracked an impossible code: bridging sci-fi modernist technique and a love of local ingredients in a way that the purist Bay Area crowds could embrace. She and her team grow more adept every year at tilling the middle ground between intellect and emotion. White chocolate orbs may explode with apple cider, and tableside presentations might occasionally billow with dramatic dry ice, but when the smoke clears her seafood- and vegetable-focused menu tastes richly of the time and place of her adopted home. — B.A.

WHAT: A reverie of a California-Italian trattoria, complete with an oven in which oak logs crackle, a dining room lined with brick and mixed woods, and a menu that includes some of the most exquisite pastas made in the country — if not the world. WHY: Michael Tusk is San Francisco’s pasta savant. He and wife Lindsay Tusk also spotlight his dough mastery at Quince, their hushed tasting-menu sanctuary next door. But Cotogna, with its humming, rustic atmosphere and its menu that reads like a “what’s in season” checklist on a Bay Area farmers market website, is the upstart sibling. Gild the meal with a crackery pizza and dishes like baby shrimp with avocado and little gems dressed with green goddess, sardines with green garlic salsa verde, and lemon verbena sherbet with peaches and green gage plums. But know that you’re really here for the superlative pastas, especially the ridged, rectangular agnolotti del plin (filled with rabbit, veal, vegetables, and Grana Padano), the silky ravioli with farm egg and brown butter, and fluttery tagliatelle ensnaring Dungeness crab. Dinnertime is wonderful; this is also easily my favorite place for lunch in SF. — B.A.

WHAT: San Francisco’s tasting-menu pinnacle, bridging spans of cultures and cuisines like nothing else in America. WHY: The Bay Area has a ridiculous number of laudable luxury-dining options; if I were ranking them, I’d place Benu at the very top. Chef-owner Corey Lee took his impeccable resume (which includes four years at the French Laundry) and reshaped the European-model prix fixe to his own blueprints. Looking chiefly to his native Korea and to the vast cuisines of China to spur his vision, Lee devises a panoply as riveting to the eyes as it is to the palate. Meals begin with tiny marvels: a pork-and-oyster dumpling that shatters like glass, or a mussel wrapped in noodles, cucumber, carrot, and egg that looks like the cocoon of some fantastical species. And they conclude with a spiky orb flavored with osmanthus, almond, and apricot that resembles a 1990s-era Jean Paul Gaultier bombshell. In between there will be courses that register as both spectacles and meditations, featuring ingredients like sea cucumber, bamboo shoots, and thousand-year eggs. A sedate room keeps eyes focused on the plate — or on the stemware filled with wines, sake, and beers selected by master sommelier Yoon Ha. — B.A.

WHAT: A San Francisco seafood pacesetter from one of Mexico City’s visionary chef-restaurateurs. WHY: At Cala, Gabriela Cámara — who runs Contramar, which for years now has been the place to be seen for lunch in CDMX — brings her two signatures to the Bay Area: rockfish, smoky from the grill and brushed with two sauces (red chile and a parsley-cumin number), and tostadas that double as jeweled canvases. Crisped tortillas provide the framework for trout overlaid with avocado, chipotle mayo, and fried leeks, or for lobes of local abalone with trout roe and bonito aioli. She also delves subtly into carne: A massive sweet potato, looking prehistoric and yanked straight out of ashy embers, comes with a stack of tortillas and a salsa negra glossy with beef bone marrow. Beyond the virtuosity of Cala’s food, Cámara has been praised for her hiring philosophy, which includes employing people who have been previously incarcerated. — B.A.

WHAT: The California template for the all-day, all-American neighborhood restaurant. WHY: “Perfect” is usually a forbidden word in food writing, but it’s apt for the roasted chicken with bread salad for two refined to faultless consistency by the late chef Judy Rodgers, the architect of Zuni’s success who introduced the dish in 1987. It’s only one of the cornerstones of Rodgers’s repertoire, casual in presentation but unerring in execution, that informed how our whole nation came to eat. The carefully dressed Caesar salad, the fussed-over burger, the platter of small, briny oysters to begin a rosé-fueled lunch: Decades ago, Rodgers took the lead on these now-ubiquitous dishes. (Her impeccable ways with composed salads should be more widely imitated.) Owner Gilbert Pilgram upholds her legacy — and also maintains the charm of the timeless dining room in all its angular, pastel 1980s glory. — B.A.

WHAT: The ever-popular community hub for savoring, surveying, and debating the Bay Area’s Mission-style burrito. WHY: Of course there’s no one absolute forever-best burrito in San Francisco. I learned that when I was a critic at the San Francisco Chronicle a dozen years ago and visited a punishing 85 taquerias to test that hypothesis. But the Mission stalwart, which Miguel Jara began in 1973, stays eternally packed with a crowd that comprises the breadth of humanity. The reason: His burritos lull customers into exceptionally happy trances. No rice bloats Jara’s tortilla wrappers, which you should ask for “Dorado style,” or griddled on the plancha. Meat choices include carnitas, chorizo, chicken, and beef tongue; at La Taqueria I gravitate first to carne asada, joined by pinto beans, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, guacamole, and a splash of homemade hot sauce. Every time I say to myself, “You don’t have to devour this whole beast.” Every time, I’m left holding nothing but the burrito’s crumpled tinfoil, wishing that I had the capacity to immediately down another one.  — B.A.

WHAT: Irresistible dim sum destination in a part of the country that does it exceedingly well. WHY: Just making it through the door at Koi Palace can feel like an achievement. The theatrics begin upon arrival as hordes of soon-to-be diners anxiously await the call of their number at the entrance. In the dining room, uniformed servers pirouette around koi ponds and tables so large that at any other restaurant in town, they would be a buyout. And of course, there is the wondrous frenetic energy of the dim sum service. Stacked bamboo baskets of xiaolongbao pile high while you’re still navigating the menu, comparing what’s arrived to what’s anticipated. It’s impossible to have it all, and the parade of buns, balls, rolls and rice noodles can be a lot to digest. Keep the black tea flowing throughout. Good options are endless, but skipping the sugar egg puff — a sugar-crusted fried dough ball with a steamy, custardy center — is not one of them. — S.S.

WHAT: A Central Coast restaurant that should top the food lover’s travel agenda, quintessentially Californian in its warmth and celebration of the state’s bounty. (That it’s secreted away in a sleepy coastal town is all part of the charm.) WHY: Like a first-rate syrah from one of the wineries in this cool-climate growing region, Ember is a model of big, bold balance. Locals (and in-the-know visitors) fill the dining room nightly for obvious reasons: The comforting, big-hearted cooking matches the restaurant’s woodsy coziness. Chef Brian Collins returned to his hometown Arroyo Grande after six years at Chez Panisse, which clearly influenced his generous style of cooking. Pizzas, pastas, salads, easy pleasures like grilled peaches and baked goat cheese, and hefty entrees (rib-eye grilled over local oak, chicken baked under a brick and served over polenta) hold broad, finessed appeal. The beverage list, no surprise, showcases star local wineries and craft brewers. — B.A.

WHAT: An oasis of welcome and no-pretense cooking in California’s high desert. WHY: In its solitude and its paradoxical ability to attract a colorful clientele, there’s a cinematic quality to La Copine. In 2015, East Coast transplants Claire Wadsworth and her wife Nikki Hill renovated a dilapidated diner off Highway 247 in the Flamingo Heights area of Yucca Valley. With little but cacti and mountains for company, their sun-drenched haven has nonetheless found the loyal and steady patrons it merits: Food-obsessed locals and vacationers drive the 45 minutes from Palm Springs without hesitation. Wadsworth charms her way through the dining room while Hill runs the kitchen, composing generous salads and turning out Americana paragons like a gloriously unwieldy BLT and righteous fried chicken over grits with pickled green tomatoes. Be aware of La Copine’s idiosyncratic hours: 2 to 7 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, and the whole operation shuts down annually for the hot months of July and August. — B.A.

WHAT: A 225-square-foot embodiment of LA’s vast Armenian community, where grilled meat reigns supreme. WHY: Large platters of smoky, flame-kissed shish and lule kebabs constantly fill the three (yes, only three) tables at this aptly named restaurant tucked away on a residential street. The rice, the whipped garlic, the pear soda, the smiles, and the arguments are all part of the stunning show that owners Ovakim and Alvard Martirosyan put on every day, cooking for happy diners out of what amounts to a single grill and upright fridge. Dining in means rubbing elbows with the family, quite literally, and listening to stories of the old Armenia while modern America zips by outside. From a tiny seat in one small corner of the restaurant’s only room, it’s easy to pass an hour watching the majesty of big pots of Armenian ikra — eggplant caviar — cooking slowly over low flame, while Alvard flips fat skewers of beef over with a skilled flick of the wrist. Stay long enough, and you might even catch the happy couple dancing to whatever’s on the radio. It’s just that kind of family. — Farley Elliot

WHAT: The best pungent, tongue-numbing, face-burning southern Thai in Los Angeles, with a kitchen firing on all cylinders. WHY: Los Angeles’s Thai Town, located on the eastern side of Hollywood, is the densest collection of excellent Thai cooking in America. But the next wave of Los Angeles Thai is two miles away, in a restaurant opened by a pair of chefs, Noree Pla and Fern Kaewtathip, who hail from the beachy paradise of Phuket. Luv2Eat is both approachable and ambitious, where a warm welcome accompanies the chiles. What you’re here for are the pungent, spicy, utterly unique Southern Thai dishes like the crab curry, based on Pla’s mother’s recipe, or the “OMG!” papaya salad loaded with raw seafood and fermented fish sauce. Order dishes as hot as you can possibly stand — funk combined with blazing spice is what makes a meal here truly exceptional. — Meghan McCarron

WHAT: The counter-service cafe that revolutionized tradition-bound American breakfast and lunch. WHY: Sure, you could do it just for the ’gram. The thick brioche toast slathered in ricotta and painted with stripes of purple-hued jam, or the rice green with sorrel pesto and topped with pink watermelon radish, elegantly misshapen egg, and a curl of thick bacon, demand to be photographed as much as any other LA landmark. But visiting Sqirl just to photograph its famous dishes is like visiting Los Angeles to photograph the Hollywood sign. They symbolize the place, and they’re hardly the point. Jessica Koslow, Sqirl’s mastermind and owner, is one of the most creative chefs in the country, not just in how she cooks, but in her approach to restaurants as community hubs, vehicles for pleasure, and art. A tongue-in-cheek T-shirt for the restaurant reads, “The Center for Contemporary Breakfast and Lunch,” and there’s no better installation capturing where American food is headed in the 21st century. — M.M.

WHAT: A quirky, tiny, game-changing tasting-menu restaurant, created by three Los Angeles powerhouses and concealed in a nondescript strip mall. WHY: Chef Ludo Lefebvre pioneered a culinary style I once dubbed New Romanticism: dishes rendered as beautiful, wild, geometric landscapes, conjuring as much emotion and whimsy as they do desire. With partners Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (the chef-owners of Animal and several other LA sensations), Lefebrve keeps the ticketed prix fixe genre consistently fresh: Five courses (with plenty of extras) cross the table or dining counter at a smooth, well-paced clip. Flavor combinations can sound wholly bizarre — slices of eel over layers of white chocolate mashed potatoes and apples at a recent meal — and yet they make utter sense to the palate. The trio’s adjacent bistro, Petit Trois, arguably jump-started the resurgence of French cuisine currently gripping the country. But as both casualizing and mind-opening force in American upscale dining, Trois Mec remains Lefebvre’s most revolutionary act. — B.A.

WHAT: The casual vanguard of a culinary revolution that’s poised to transform the San Gabriel Valley — a suburban hub of Chinese culture just east of Los Angeles — from a repository of nostalgic regional cuisines into an American hotbed of creative Chinese cooking. WHY: The picture-book menu might give the impression of dumbed-down dishes for neophytes, but it is in actuality a serious study of traditional Sichuan favorites and new-school concepts, prepared with ingredients of quality. Classics like cold noodles and mapo tofu faithfully retrace the familiar flavors from the ancestral province, while tea-smoked ribs masterfully coalesce a Pandora’s box of tastes and textures into a balanced whole. This isn’t your garden-variety Sichuan joint where boldness is defined only by how much red oil the chefs drape on top of your food. Rather, with each dish the kitchen choreographs a nuanced, history-laden ballet of heat, flavor, and soul. — Carl Chu

WHAT: A genre-defining Cal-Med small plates restaurant whose California-heavy wine list, dreamy patio, and genuinely warm service will remind you why we all wanted to dine this way to begin with. WHY: There’s a restaurant you are looking for in Los Angeles: one serving a menu that speaks directly (and never self-consciously) to the city’s Mediterranean climate; a patio dotted with greenery and bedecked in Spanish tile; a wine list that will always surprise and satisfy with the best California has to offer; service refined enough for an anniversary and friendly enough to make you a regular; an originator of dining trends that always transcends them. A.O.C. is the real one. Business partners Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne have been redefining what a Los Angeles restaurant can do since opening California-French Lucques in 1998, and A.O.C. is where their vision and talents are, at the moment, most fully realized. Bring a date, bring your mom, bring out-of-towners or your best friend, and don’t skip the large-format “Ode to Zuni” roast chicken. — M.M.

WHAT: A world-class pastry destination that doubles as an ideal spot for a romantic dinner, family brunch, solo breakfast, or meeting. WHY: Margarita Manzke’s pastries alone, abundant and borderline obscene, sprawled along the long entrance counter, would merit a trip to République along LA’s historic Miracle Mile. But there are pleasures here beyond the petite and perfect cream-filled cornetti and rows of shining caneles and glazed bomboloni — like a luxurious burger-like breakfast sandwich, crisp, fresh salads, and, at night, local seafood, pastas, steaks, and cheese boards with bread fresh from the oven. République’s dinner satisfies, but the restaurant is best treated as the ultimate all-day neighborhood canteen. — Amanda Kludt

WHAT: The finest example of Korean-style barbecue in LA, period. WHY: Tabletop grilled meat has been, and always will be, one of the greatest celebration meals in Korean culture, but perhaps the ever-popular format has never had a better context than at Park’s BBQ in LA’s Koreatown. Boasting incredible, pristine beef in a variety of cuts in a sleek, though often smoke-filled, strip mall dining room, chef Jenee Kim elevates the format with some of the city’s best banchan and side dishes. Start with some thinly sliced kkotssal or prime-grade short rib, then splurge on even fattier American-grown wagyu beef. There’s a reason why this was the late Anthony Bourdain’s favorite place to eat in all of Los Angeles.  — Matthew Kang

WHAT: Chef Niki Nakayama’s singular kaiseki restaurant, where she forges a cuisine melding her Japanese heritage and Californian upbringing. WHY: Nakayama blurs the lines between craft and art in cooking more poetically than any other chef in America. She follows the fundamental tenets of kaiseki dining (13 courses of rigorously seasonal ingredients highlighting different culinary techniques) but doesn’t overly fetter herself to tradition: Among sushi, sashimi, and steamed seafood presentations, she’ll also roll out her signature spaghettini with abalone, pickled cod roe, and truffles. The exceptionally caring staff propels the meal, including the superb sake pairings, seamlessly. The fame following a Chef’s Table episode devoted to Nakayama made reservations a pitiless process: Check the restaurant’s website on Sundays at 10 a.m. (Pacific Time) for slots three months in advance. — B.A.