Chinese Restaurant Awards Names Its First-Ever U.S. Elite 12

American Chinese dining just got its first national ranking that matters. At its 17th annual ceremony in Vancouver on September 23, the Chinese Restaurant Awards — the world’s longest-running awards body for Chinese cuisine — announced its inaugural Elite 12 United States, honoring twelve Chinese and Taiwanese restaurants across the country.

The list

The Elite 12 is deliberately non-ranked — twelve equals, no hierarchy. The named honorees span the country’s Chinese-dining capitals:

• Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s (San Francisco) — Premier Visionary
• Eric Sze of Wenwen (New York City) — Rising Star Chef of the Year

The restaurant list stretches from Birds of a Feather in Brooklyn to Kato in Los Angeles to Four Kings in San Francisco — a cross-section that takes in Sichuan, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and the new wave of Chinese-American fine dining in a single frame.

Why this ranking matters

National rankings of Chinese restaurants in America have always been fragmented — city lists, critic’s picks, social media consensus. What’s been missing is an institutional voice with two decades of credibility saying, definitively: these are the twelve defining rooms in the country right now.

The Chinese Restaurant Awards has that credibility. Seventeen years of judging Chinese cuisine — across regions, styles, and price points — gives the Elite 12 a weight that a magazine list or a viral thread can’t match. And the choice to make it non-ranked is smart: it sidesteps the pointless ordinal debate and focuses attention on the breadth of what’s happening.

The bigger picture

Look at the geography and the styles on this list and you see the story of Chinese food in America in 2026: the old-guard Cantonese rooms holding their ground, the Sichuan wave fully mainstreamed, Taiwanese cooking getting its due, and a generation of young chefs — Jew, Sze, and their peers — cooking Chinese food with total confidence and zero apology.

This is a list to eat through. Twelve restaurants, three coasts, one essential cuisine. Start planning.

The honorees (announced)

• Premier Visionary: Brandon Jew, Mister Jiu’s (San Francisco)
• Rising Star Chef of the Year: Eric Sze, Wenwen (New York City)
• Elite 12 restaurants include: Birds of a Feather (Brooklyn), Kato (Los Angeles), Four Kings (San Francisco), and nine more nationwide

The full Elite 12 roster was announced at the September 23 ceremony in Vancouver. We’ll update this page as the complete list is published.