This Week's Best Restaurant Openings

New York City

Cozinha Latina: Shanna Pacifico shuttered her well-liked Brazillian restaurant, Pacifico's Fine Foods, this past winter, but now she's back in a kitchen cooking dishes from her home country, this time in Greenpoint. There's pao de queijo, shrimp and yucca stew, and clam and pork pozole, and since she's a longtime Back Forty alum, it's all made with lots of seasonal produce. Hopefully, the new neighborhood will be a better fit for Pacifico's cooking.

Pizza Moto: The team that made their name by toting around a mobile pizza oven to street fairs finally has its own brick-and-mortar location, complete with a turn-of-the-century oven. It's a bit tucked away under the BQE, but neighbors in the pizza-starved area are grateful for Pizza Moto's arrival.

Cassette: Henry Rich, who's behind Rucola, Fitzcarraldo and June Wine Bar, wants to take diners to the southwest border of France, where it kisses Spain. Visitors to his large new restaurant in Greenpoint should expect pumpkin crostini with hot honey, spaccatelli with San Marzano tomatoes and salted cod, and crème Catalan from chef Joe Pasqualetto, who also runs the kitchen at Rucola.

Los Angeles

Button Mash: This arcade-meets-bar is pretty much a teenage nerd's grown-up dream come true. There are vintage arcade games, booze and Starry Kitchen's crispy tofu balls.

Blue Star Donuts: Portland's beloved doughnut shop traveled down the coast for its latest expansion, landing on a palm-tree-lined strip in Venice. The brioche-based yeasted doughnuts are instant crowd-pleasers—try the raspberry pistachio and chocolate-salted almond.

Estrella: The Sunset Strip has a new kid on the block. Top Chef alum Dakota Weiss keeps things California cool in the bungalow-inspired, colorful space with dishes like hamachi crudo and brunch-only grilled porchetta. The cocktail menu nods to classic rock with listings like the vodka-based Dream On, spiced with ginger syrup and a topped with a meringue cloud.

Chicago

Maple & Ash: This is not your grandfather's steakhouse. There are crispy lamb ribs with sesame and spicy yogurt, a grilled seafood tower assembled tableside and a $165 "I Don't Give a F*@k" prix fixe option from Girl & the Goat alum David Ochs. Pull up a seat at one of the 40 bar spots on the first floor or settle in for an evening in the larger dining room upstairs.

Swift & Sons: Chris Panel's new Fulton Market steakhouse is an ode to quality cuts of meat and swanky 1900s-era style. Appropriately, the space used to be a cold-storage room for meat, though it now houses perfectly cooked Chilean Wagyu chops and 34-ounce porterhouses. Save room for classics-done-right sides like whipped potatoes and crispy Brussels sprouts.

Austin

The Rotten Bunch: Co-owners Alan Thomas and Arik Skot Williams just debuted their super-casual wine bar. It's so casual that their website proclaims, "For all of wine's highfalutin ways, it's really all just a bunch of rotten grapes." All of that rotten grape juice is paired with simple offerings like fresh mozzarella, charcuterie and risotto.

Houston

State of Grace: Native son Ford Fry is taking a short break from his numerous Atlanta projects to ride back into town and open State of Grace, his Gulf Coast-meets-Texas restaurant. There are Texas blue crab fingers on the menu alongside "queso" Oaxaca with hen-of-the-woods and warm bacon fat tortillas, and a few dishes that nod to local communities like a twice-fried Korean hot chicken.