Indienne, Alpana among Yelp’s 25 hottest new restaurants

Yelp has released its first list of the year’s best new restaurants.

By USA TODAY

Camille Fine, USA TODAY

The dining room of Indienne in River North. © Neil John Burger Photography — The dining room of Indienne in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. The eatery, along with Alpana in the Gold Coast, made Yelp’s list of the year’s best new restaurants in the country.

Many count on Yelp to find the best restaurant for any occasion and craving, so why not rely on Yelpers to sniff out the hottest newcomers on the American dining scene?

Yelp on Wednesday released its first list of the year’s best new restaurants to make it “easy to find the latest hot spots at home or on the road” and “celebrate the rising stars of the culinary world,” the company said.

From a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant and restaurateur/sommelier Alpana Sing’s wine-inspired eatery in Chicago to a Korean BBQ spot in Charleston, South Carolina, to a tony Japanese-French gem in Los Angeles, Yelp users rated and reviewed 25 “must-try” newbies across the country.

Indienne was honored with its first Michelin star earlier this month, “awarded to restaurants using top-quality ingredients, where dishes with distinct flavors are prepared to a consistently high standard.”

Florida leads the list with five entries, followed by California with four. One major culinary hot spot, New Orleans, didn’t make the cut.

Yelp identified full-service businesses in the restaurant category that opened after Jan. 1, 2022, then ranked those spots using a number of factors, including the total volume and ratings of reviews posted between January and August 2023. Yelp trend expert Tara Lewis was consulted to locate what spots Yelpers were loving.

Here are the top 25 hottest new restaurants of 2023, according to Yelp users: