24 Restaurant Openings We're Most Excited For In 2016

Restaurants come and go, but the opening of an exciting new restaurant can be a huge deal not just for the people involved, but for the entire city they're in. In 2016, these restaurant openings just might be the biggest ones of all. 

Chicago's famed Alinea will be closed for the next couple months while it undergoes an extensive renovation, which is bad news for Chicagoans but good news for those in Madrid and Miami. Owners Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas are taking the show on the road: After a stop in Spain, the restaurant will be popping up in at Miami Beach's Faena Hotel from February 7 through March 13 with an entirely unique menu. 

Chef Dominique Crenn, who runs one of the country's most unique restaurants with her upscale Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, will be opening a casual brasserie in the recently-renovated Claremont Club & Spa in Berkeley. The restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner; will be focused on locally-sourced ingredients, seafood, and vegetable dishes; and many dishes will be designed for sharing, Crenn told Eater.

Microbreweries are so 2015 — in-house cideries are the future, and ANXO, opening soon in DC, is proving it. The Basque-inspired restaurant and bar will forage local heirloom apples to make its own cider in-house, and will serve a menu of pintxos (small bites) and heartier dishes usually found in Spanish cider houses. 

Chef Jonathan Waxman has a restaurant in the works in Ghirardelli Square. Called Brezza Emporio and Pizzeria, it will be a casual restaurant serving pizza, pasta, and his legendary chicken with salsa verde. 

Wylie Dufresne's dad, Dewey, is opening a much-anticipated sandwich shop on New York's Lower East Side. Called BYGGYZ, it'll feature some crazy sandwiches, including one with tuna, anchovies, hard-boiled egg, roasted tomatoes, artichoke hearts, red onion, pickled vegetables, roasted red peppers, and olive spread on Chinese fry bread.

Rick Bayless is the king of Chicago's Mexican food scene with Frontera Grill, Topolobampo, sandwich shop Xoco, and more, but Cruz Blanca will incorporate one thing that none of his other restaurants have: a brewery. 

Dan Kluger rose to fame as the chef at ABC Kitchen, and for his first solo project he's heading to West 8^th Street. The unnamed restaurant will focus on mainly vegetables and seasonal fare. 

Chef Stephanie Izard runs Girl and the Goat and Little Goat, two of Chicago's most popular and exciting restaurants, so we have every reason to believe that the soon-to-open Duck Duck Goat, which will focus on noodles and pan-Asian fare, will live up to every expectation. 

Eataly, Mario Batali's massive Italian emporium of Italian products and restaurants, currently has two American locations, in New York and Chicago. But the citizens of Los Angeles and Boston should be rejoicing, because they'll be getting locations of their own soon. 

Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson have run Boulder's Frasca Food & Wine, which very well might be Colorado's best restaurant, for the past 10 years. This year they'll be venturing into Denver with a 125-seat restaurant adjacent to the Kimpton Hotel. Details are scarce, but you can bet this will be one of the toughest reservations around. 

Chef Curtis Stone opened Maude in Beverly Hills in 2014 and it proved to be one of the hottest tickets in town (and still is), so we have very high expectations for his follow-up, Gwen. Along with chef Chad Colby (Chi Spacca) and his brother Luke, the restaurant will have its own butcher shop and will utilize mainly fire-centric cooking techniques. 

The Michelin-starred chef Corey Lee (of San Francisco's Benu) will be opening a new, entirely à la carte restaurant called In Situ this spring, on the ground floor of the San Francisco Museum of Art. It will be his third restaurant.

Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich's first restaurant since Del Posto is slated to open this year inside the Maritime Hotel. It will feature a rustic menu of pasta, fish, and meat in a room dominated by a 40-foot marble bar. 

Former A Voce chef Missy Robbins has decamped to Williamsburg, where she'll be opening a restaurant featuring fresh pasta and dishes cooked in a wood-fired oven. 

Chefs Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonette are a Boston power duo, with hits there including Toro and the now-shuttered Clio. This spring, they'll be unveiling Little Donkey in Central Square, with charcuterie, a raw bar, and international small plates. 

Kogi's Roy Choi and Koi's Daniel Patterson are an unlikely duo, but they've teamed up to open the first location of what they're hoping will be an affordable nationwide chain, called LocoL, in Watts. We can't wait to see what they have in store.

Chef Michael Mina is slated to be opening a new restaurant at 350 Mission Street, adjacent to the under-construction Salesforce Tower, sometime this year. Details have been scant, but just about everything Mina touches turns to gold.

The Pubbelly team — Andreas Schreiner, Jose Mendin, and Sergio Navarro — have already conquered Miami's dining scene with Pubbelly and Pubbelly Sushi, but they're not finished yet: They'll soon be opening PB Station in Downtown Miami, with American fare, a raw bar, and charcuterie.

Parador La Huella is the most renowned in Uruguay, and its owners, Gustavo Barbero, Martin Pittaluga, and Guzman Artagaveytia, are bringing the concept to Miami. Quinto La Huella, a high-end seaside grill, will be opening in the East Miami Hotel at Brickell City Centre.

Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas (of Alinea and Next fame) are planning on throwing a party with their next outing, to be called Roister: It'll have loud music, communal tables, and plenty of local fare; it will be unlike anything they've ever done before. 

Jeff McInnis and Janine Booth were two of Miami's most popular chefs (McInnis rose to fame as the chef at Yardbird), so it was a sad day when they decamped to New York to open Root & Bone. But they're coming back to Miami, in a big way: In February, they'll be opening a restaurant called Sarsparilla Club at the Shelborne, specializing in American-inspired dim sum. 

New Yorkers officially have a reason to be envious of Los Angeles: It will soon be home to both In-N-Out and Shake Shack. It's certain to make waves when it opens in West Hollywood this year, and will mark a major milestone for Danny Meyer's super-successful chain. 

Chef Charles Pham's The Slanted Door, with its menu of modern Vietnamese fare, is one of the most popular and well-known restaurants in the Bay Area, so Angelinos have every reason to be excited about a second location, opening in Downtown's new City Market South development. 

Atlanta is finally getting in on the high-end ramen trend in February, when Guy Wong, who opened the popular Le Fat last year, opens Ton Ton in Ponce City Market. It'll feature ramen, yakitori, and sushi.