Guild

Seafood is the focus at Guild, a bright, spacious dining room on North Lamar that puts the raw bar front and center. If you're an oyster fan, the bivalves here are some of the best (albeit priciest) ones in the city, and sourced from both the West and East coasts. Chef Sterling Ridings has mastered a halibut dish that comes with the skin perfectly crisped, but the best entrée just might be the sunflower porridge, an unlikely winner featuring creamy braised sunchoke and pan roasted prawns. For dessert, the dense chess pie harkens back to a childhood dessert that's been given an upgrade and topped off with a heavenly buttermilk gelato.