RESTAURANTS NEAR YOU

Eating in a country of such size and regional variation, you could spend a lifetime eating your way across America and barely scratch the surface. Owing to such scope, dining American-style could mean many things: from munching on pulled-pork sandwiches at an old roadhouse to feasting on sustainably sourced seafood in a waterfront dining room.

Not until the 1960s did food and wine become serious topics for American newspapers, magazines and TV, led by a Californian named Julia Child who taught Americans how to cook French food through black-and-white programs broadcast from Boston's public TV station. By the 1970s, everyday folks (and not just hippies) had started turning their attention to issues of organic, natural foods and sustainable agriculture. In the 1980s and '90s, the 'foodie revolution' encouraged entrepreneurs to open restaurants featuring regional American cuisine, from the South to the Pacific Northwest, that would rank with Europe's best.

The Slow Food movement, along with renewed enthusiasm for eating local organically grown fare, is a leading trend in American restaurants. The movement, which was arguably started in 1971 by chef Alice Waters at Berkeley's Chez Panisse, continued with First Lady Michelle Obama – the First Lady of food if there ever was one – and her daughters, who even planted an organic garden on the White House lawn. All across the country you can find farmers markets, which are great places to meet locals and take a big bite out of America's cornucopia of foods, from heritage fruit and vegetables to fresh savory and sweet regional delicacies.

Waves of immigrants have added great variety to American gastronomy by adapting foreign ideas to home soil, from Italian pizza and German hamburgers to Eastern European borscht, Mexican huevos rancheros and Japanese sushi.