9 restaurants primed for spring dining

Sometimes spring feels like a segue season. Like a rope bridge between the sharp intensity of winter and the breezy heat of summer. But spring has power in its own right. Eat eggs, eat pasta, eat green vegetables. Figure out who you were and who you want to be. These restaurants — Peruvian, Italian, diasporic African — might help. At minimum, you will experience a great meal. 

1. Figulina, Raleigh, North Carolina

Fresh pasta has a way of harnessing the brightest elements of springtime. This sparkling-new restaurant in downtown Raleigh is singularly focused on fresh pasta. Its chef, David Ellis, is merging Italy with the spirit and ingredients of North Carolina, and the restaurant will also function as a market, with, yes, pasta and tinned fish to purchase for cooking at home.

2. Maty's, Miami

Peruvian in Miami just feels right. The freshness. The connection to a broad swath of Latin America. The seafood access. Val Chang's food at Maty's highlights the country's beloved way with fish but also in homestyle, less familiar dishes like oxtail and picarones, donuts made with sweet potato, and squash.

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3. Mister Jiu's, San Francisco

Seven years on and Brandon Jew's uncompromising homage to grand Chinese cooking remains a singular addition to the American dining canon. The best way to experience Mister Jiu's is with a crew. The restaurant, after all, is modeled after banquet Cantonese cooking, eaten at a round table with dishes served family-style on big ole lazy Susans.

4. Little Fox, St. Louis

Beef tartare; onion soup with bone marrow; mussels in tomato-fennel broth: Little Fox has all the hits of a contemporary bistro. The restaurant relaunched brunch nearly a year ago, and St. Louis has gone a little mad for dishes like waffle and lox, pork and grits and ricotta pancakes with lemon curd and poached fruit.

5. Botanica, Los Angeles

Plenty of Southern California restaurants are justly intent on employing the region's exuberant produce in their cooking. Botanica takes that dedication to a new level, weaving influences from countries like Japan, Iraq and Italy. Expect loads of all those green vegetables you crave during spring months on the menu.

6. Comfort Kitchen, Boston

The wide reach of Comfort Kitchen is twofold: It aims to capture the influence of Africa across the global diaspora, and the venture, functioning as both a daytime café and dinner restaurant, has diverse operational hours. The café menu is sizable; the dinner menu is tight. Whether cooking chicken yassa from West Africa or jerk jackfruit sliders or a bowl with roasted lamb and couscous, chef-owner Kwasi Kwaa is reliably skilled.

7. Nostrana, Portland, Oregon

It is coming up on 20 years since Cathy Whims opened this Italian-inspired restaurant. There is a dish for every craving on the menu — quite a feat, considering it changes on the regular. The pizzas, with their house-made mozzarella, are sublime. Consider coming on a Thursday, Gnocchi Night, when a handful of Roman-style gnocchi with various toppings are served.

8. S&P Lunch, New York City

Located where a diner, lunch counter and delicatessen intersect, S&P has more than 20 sandwiches and a battery of breakfast dishes that include salami and eggs, matzo brei and corned beef and hash. It is delightfully New York in its manifold choices and wee, longstanding physical space. 

9. Fine Company, Las Vegas

The Strip would have you forget Las Vegas is located in the desert. But Fine Company will not do so, as the menu is loaded with dates. They are stuffed with the Moroccan lamb sausage merguez for a snack plate; they are whirred into a cake and served with miso-toffee sauce. The easygoingness of this all-day restaurant is a blessed respite from the offensive hedonism of Sin City.