100 Very Best Restaurants 2013: Ripple

Ripple’s minimalist menu is enigmatic enough that it’s tempting to stick to simple stuff: excellent cheese and charcuterie, thick-cut fries and house-made ketchup, a green salad with a chèvre crouton. But even richer rewards lie among Logan Cox’s more ambitious dishes. A drab-sounding quinoa risotto turns out to be a hearty head-spinner, combining black truffle with earthy rutabaga, hazelnuts, and a slow-cooked egg. Tangy goat yogurt and cardamom perk up a seasonal vegetable salad.

At times Cox overshoots—pastas always seem to have one ingredient too many—but his refusal to play it safe keeps things interesting. Don’t miss: Black-eyed-pea hummus; bacon-roasted pecans; chicken-liver parfait; brownie rocky-road sundae; butterscotch pudding. Open: Daily for dinner. Expensive.