The One Must-Visit Restaurant in Every State

Not to be confused with the California chain of the same name, this Cattlemen’s was born in 1910 in Oklahoma City’s Stockyards City area, home to major meat-processing plants. Cowboys, ranchers, and cattle haulers were among its first customers. There are drawings of some celebrated later ones on the walls, including John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. It’s not hard to guess what the focus of the menu is: prime or choice corn-fed Midwestern beef.

Though it’s now part of the McCormick & Schmick’s chain, Jake’s, a downtown Portland landmark for more than 125 years, still captures the spirit of the Pacific Northwest. It also serves an ample selection of seafood (plus some other dishes) — oysters on the half shell, Dungeness crab and bay shrimp cakes, horseradish-crusted steelhead, cedar plank salmon with lemon butter sauce, and much more.

Okay, this historic 130-year-old covered market isn’t a restaurant, but it’s an essential stop for any food-lover who comes through Philadelphia. And in addition to its array of appetite-stimulating produce, seafood, meats and poultry, baked goods, and more, it happens to be a great place to eat, with more than 30 food stalls preparing everything from Philly’s famous cheesesteaks (available from at least three purveyors), Italian hoagies, pizza, hot dogs, and burgers to Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Caribbean, Cajun, Thai, Middle Eastern, and Pennsylvania Dutch fare (and more).

The Rhode Island coast yields some of the seafood in the Northeast, and this waterfront restaurant sources and prepares it superbly. The restaurant has its own oyster beds (and also brings in other excellent oysters from the area), as well as its own organic vegetable farm. Fried calamari from nearby Point Judith, oysters Rockefeller, lobster roll, sesame seared tuna salad, grilled Atlantic salmon…The place is a seafood lover’s paradise.

The signature dish at this genteel 26-year-old Charleston restaurant is a 12-layer “ultimate coconut cake.” There’s a lot more than that, though, served in the handsome dining room with its seagrass flooring and farmland wall murals and in the courtyard lit with carriage lanterns. The she-crab soup, pan-seared diver scallops, and rack of lamb with port-poached pear and pecans are examples of the upscale fare.