The Most Popular High-End Restaurants Nationwide
Reknowned for their elegant ambiance, the most popular high-end restaurants in the nation often specialize in steak or seafood and feature details like white tablecloths and polished glassware, making them popular choices for diners looking to elevate their meals.
Some of these chains are more highly regarded by patrons than others, however, for their food, service, and other attributes. To assemble a list of the upscale restaurant chains customers like the most, 24/7 Tempo reviewed "Which Fine-Dining Restaurant Brands Score Highest for Customer Satisfaction," a report published by the leading food service trade publication Nation's Restaurant News.
NRN drew on data compiled by Merchant Centric, a data collection and analysis company. Merchant Centric pulled data from millions of ratings, reviews, and comments on Google, TripAdvisor, and other sites relating specifically to food quality, staff demeanor, order of accuracy, and other factors pertinent to the dining experience, assigning a Theme Performance Score out of a possible 5 points to each chain. The score indicates the number of times a factor was mentioned positively compared to how often it was mentioned negatively.
Three categories of upscale chains are identified by NRN: Leaders (Nos. 1-8 on our list), Straddlers (Nos. 9-16), and Chasers (the balance of the list). The highest scorer of all is a small Arizona-based operation called Steak 48, with eight locations (and two more in the works). Featuring a raw bar and an in-house butcher, it comes with a pedigree: It was founded by the Mastro family, who sold off their Mastro's Restaurants (No. 12) in 2013 and have come back strong.
Here are the most popular high-end restaurants nationwide.
This post was updated June 16th, 2025, to reflect additional information.
