610 Magnolia
Edward Lee, a Brooklyn native of Korean ancestry, fell for Louisville during Derby Week. And who wouldn’t, when the city becomes a fog of bourbon fumes and ham vapors? In 2003, Lee bought 610 Magnolia, a quirky dowager of a restaurant in the Old Louisville neighborhood. The space had always had a rustic charm: glazed black floor tiles, exposed beams overhead. And now the kitchen has hit its stride. As in crisp-skinned pheasant from Different Drummer Farm. Ravioli of Capriole cheese with bacon jus. And house-made pickles that call to mind the palate of a kimchi-loving son of the New South. 610 W. Magnolia Ave., Louisville (502-636-0783)
Brigtsen’s
Eating locally in New Orleans isn’t simply about consuming products harvested nearby—it requires partaking in the customs they’ve inspired. Customs like covering roasted duck halves in pecan gravy, or fried soft-shell crabs with caramely meunière sauce. Customs like booking a table in a weatherworn cottage just to catch up with the owners and, while you’re at it, enjoy a plate of shrimp finished with deviled eggs and mirlitoncorn relish. It is for these reasons and more that people eat at Brigtsen’s, where for 21 years chef-owner Frank Brigtsen has blended Cajun and Creole cuisine inside a restaurant that feels more like home with every passing year. 723 Dante St., New Orleans (504-861-7610)
The Fearrington House Restaurant
Graham Fox, the young English-born chef at this sophisticated restaurant in a bucolic area outside Chapel Hill, tends to use too much vanilla and fruit in his savory dishes, but other than that, he gets almost everything on his seasonally changing menu exactly right. Fish is cooked flawlessly; local vegetables (from salsify to pointy head cabbage) are bright and flavorful. He also has a remarkable sense of textural contrast, and creations such as breast of Cornish hen with sweetbreads, artichokes, and bacon polenta and saddle of rabbit with pistachios, morels, and peas are three-star stuff. 2000 Fearrington Village, Pittsboro, NC (919-542-2121)
The General’s Daughter
Sonoma food with a southern twist in an old Victorian house? Improbable, but delicious. Chef Preston Dishman makes a point of using local seafood in dishes like classic shrimp and grits or oysters baked with shrimp, cheese, and bacon, and his fried green tomatoes are grown down the road in the Benziger winery’s sustainable garden. There are three prix fixe dinners to choose from. 400 W. Spain St., Sonoma, CA (707-938-4004)
Le Gourmand
An unlikely trendsetter, happy hippie Bruce Naftaly moved into funky digs in the Ballard neighborhood in 1985 and created this serene Seattle salon where French jazz and Floc de Gascogne flow side by side. More than 20 years later, his prix fixe menu still trumpets the names of farmers, foragers, and friends, thanking them for “wind-dried” salmon and for the Cabernet pressings that flavor his boeuf à la ficelle. As always, he grows poppies to garnish crackers for his rabbit liver pâté, gathers nettles for soup, and makes forays to eastern Washington to pick tomatoes and peppers. With his wife, Sara, who is also the restaurant’s pastry chef and chief kitchen gardener, he has annexed a diminutive cocktail lounge, Sambar, where elegant elixirs are poured and pretty nibbles procured. 425 N.W. Market St., Seattle (206-784-3463)
Hen of the Wood
That a small restaurant on a rural side road would dedicate a separate menu to cheeses tells you all you need to know about the aesthetic here. Among the dozen or so choices: a buttery, sweet, soft ripened offering made from raw Jersey’s milk; a rich, crumbly blue from raw Ayrshire milk; a smooth, earthy Brebis from raw sheep’s milk. Chefs Eric Warnstedt and Craig Tresser seek out premium ingredients, both foraged and farmed, then prepare them in ways that coax out maximum flavor. The brookside setting and the hand-hewn beams and fieldstone walls of this former grist mill seem to have been designed specifically to complement the food. 92 Stowe St., Waterbury, VT (802-244-7300)
Joseph’s Table
Chef Joseph Wrede defines the neighborhood around Joseph’s Table pretty loosely—Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, which stretch across about 1,500 miles of the atlas—but he makes such good use of all his ingredients that it feels petty to ask for a geographical deconstruction of the “warm local pastrami vinaigrette” on the mixed greens. The trout is wild-caught (a restaurant rarity) and the tender lamb is local, with morel mushrooms foraged just over the border in Colorado, and Wrede makes the most of them. 108A S. Taos Plaza, Taos, NM (505-751-4512)
Manresa
David Kinch has always been a fascinating chef whose Catalan- and French-inflected food continually pushes the boundaries. Today, the food at Manresa is as rewarding as ever, but when Kinch decided to have biodynamic vegetables grown especially for him at Love Apple Farm, his restaurant became more focused, his food more exciting. The restaurant now has an international reputation; this year, three-star chef Alain Passard came all the way from Paris to cook with Kinch. 320 Village Ln., Los Gatos, CA (408-354-4330)
The Painted Lady
At the northern end of the Willamette Valley’s lush wine country, The Painted Lady offers cooking as refined and satisfying as the renowned Pinot Noirs grown just down the road. In a renovated Victorian house, chef-owner Allen Routt’s frequently changing menu may include risotto with chanterelles, slow-roasted salmon with sweet corn purée, or a New York steak topped with Oregon’s Rogue Valley blue cheese, depending on which farmers and foragers show up at the back door. 201 S. College St., Newberg, OR (503-538-3850)
Paley’s Place
Paley’s Place, which has just 50 seats, offers diners a welcome dose of warmth—rare for a big-city restaurant. But it’s the inspired flavor creations of chef Vitaly Paley that make this spot a destination. Whether you choose smoked duck breast with Oregon cherry compote, bitter greens, and local farro; crisp sweetbreads with morels and crayfish; or an asparagus panna cotta with Dungeness crab, you’ll be tasting the best of the region transformed by an unusually imaginative and stylish chef. 1204 N.W. 21st Ave., Portland, OR (503-243-2403)