Critics' choice: Carrying the flag

Burnt Bean Co.

Seguin, Texas

Texas barbecue has a new flagbearer, and you'll be happy to hear that it's an all-day operation, said Daniel Vaughn in Texas Monthly. Burnt Bean Co. is just five years old, but it "feels like a museum of small-town Texas, with barbecue perfection the main exhibit," and you can stop in for three meals a day.

We visited 319 barbecue joints across the state before putting David Kirkland and Ernest Servantes' operation atop our magazine's quadrennial Top 50 list, and the champ's run to the crown began with a breakfast of brisket huevos rancheros, followed by a lunch featuring housemade sausage and slices of thick, moist turkey. We have only praise for the pork ribs and brisket, yet the weekend-only beef-rib dishes, including a pile of sticky-sweet Korean back ribs, "stole the show." If you're able to make the 40-minute drive from San Antonio, you should, because the deliciousness lasts all the way through dessert. "One million words have been written about the bourbon peach cobbler taco, and they all fail to capture how truly great it is." 108 S. Austin St.

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Danny & Coop's

New York City

"The important thing to know about Danny & Coop's is this: The cheesesteak is good. It's very good," said Helen Rosner in The New Yorker. The fact that actor Bradley Cooper co-owns the East Village storefront (and sometimes mans the grill) mostly just tells you how serious the man is about Philly cheesesteak optimization.

To give New York a taste of Philly's very best, Cooper teamed with chef and baker Danny DiGiampietro, who overthrew Philly's cheesesteak hierarchy in 2019 when he opened Angelo's Pizzeria and showed the landmark joints what higher aspirations can achieve. Danny & Coop's was a food truck before it went brick and mortar in December, and it's still drawing long lines for its only menu item: a 12-inch sesame-seed roll split lengthwise and filled with "a glorious gloop" of melted cheese plus thin- sliced ribeye steak woven with sweet ribbons of griddled onions. As good as this sandwich's insides are, "the real miracle" is the crisp-crusted salty, sour house-baked roll. The result is easily the best cheesesteak I've ever had in New York and, because it so closely resembles DiGiampietro's original standard-setter, "just as good as the best one I've had in Philadelphia." 151 Ave. A.

Alinea

Chicago

Though it remains "the most important fine dining establishment in Chicago," Grant Achatz's modernist tasting-menu restaurant is, after 20 years, "not at its best," said Louisa Kung Liu Chu in the Chicago Tribune. After two recent dinners, each costing nearly $500, "I was left wondering why so many dishes were so salty or so sweet or left the aftertaste of so much black truffle."

There were some delights. A course of shredded rabbit leg with socarrat, the well-done rice at the bottom of paella, was "exquisitely delicious," and the Wagyu beef short rib served with eggplant glazed in a puree of Okinawan sweet potato, though a touch sweet itself, offered "a stunning play on meat and potatoes." But does the menu really need a second truffle showpiece besides the Explosion, an "ethereal" single-bite soup dumpling? And is the helium-filled balloon made of green-apple sugar really more than a single-note dessert-time spectacle? Alinea made its reputation on "constant culinary world-building." It may be time for a rebuild. 1723 N. Halsted St.