Ask locals for the best place to celebrate an anniversary, and Crawford & Son will likely be the most common response. Long heralded for its hospitality, the North Person Street restaurant is a standard-bearer for the city’s upper crust dining. Expect familiar entrees like grilled Denver steak, seared duck breast, and roasted sea trout, all executed at the highest level.

A night at Ajja feels like walking into a backyard neighborhood party hosted by a crew of best friends. Well-lit and brightly colored, it’s unstuffy in an Austin-meets-Palm Springs kind of way, with a vegetable-driven menu that reaches from the Mediterranean to the Middle East. It’s impossible to go wrong, from the mezze platter to the lemon chicken tagine or harissa-grilled Carolina shrimp, so the best way to experience Ajja’s mastery is to split as many dishes as possible.

Arguably no restaurant has done more to transform Raleigh’s dining scene than Poole’s, a historic diner that reopened in 2007. It catapulted an often overlooked city into a premier destination with an unpretentious-yet-refined take on Southern food, with help from its accompanying cookbook and menu staple macaroni au gratin.

There’s nothing predictable or rote about Figulina’s menu, which is loaded with memorable, creative pasta dishes like the campanelle with ramp pesto, oyster mushrooms, chevre, and lentils. The young restaurant already feels like a Raleigh staple, aided by its mini market slinging fresh pasta and other provisions to take home. Bring a group of friends for dinner and sit at the community table in the back—it’s where you’ll have the best view of the staff hand-making that pasta.

Imagine a jazz quartet performing a basement punk show—fast and raw, but improvisational and imbued with technical brilliance. That’s the energy at the Stanbury, which simultaneously seems to be many locals’ favorite restaurant and yet somewhat under the radar. There’s no predictable setlist (or in this case, menu on the website) but the ever-experimental kitchen reliably delivers playful bites. There are no reservations, so arrive early.

Practically all of Raleigh rejoiced when St. Roch reopened in the heart of the city after a kitchen fire gutted much of their small space. The spirit of the New Orleans-inspired restaurant is unchanged, but now it has custom wallpaper featuring Louis Armstrong, plus flavorful crab and corn fettuccine and massive fluffy beignets on the menu. Come here with a big group for a happy hour filled with painkillers, hurricanes, and a bunch of North Carolina oysters.

A hulking wooden door at this sister restaurant to Crawford & Son gives way to a dining room filled with earth tones and a quartzite slab behind the bar that’s so thin, light shines through it. The Adriatic Sea defines Brodeto. Dishes draw from Croatia and eastern and southern Italy, many of them featuring seafood from sea urchin butter to monkfish, not to mention a crudo section leading the menu. Brodeto is ideal for lovers splurging on a special occasion dinner in the intimate back room.

After years of planning and delays, the newly opened Mala Pata was one of Raleigh’s most anticipated restaurants—and it quickly delivered. This pan-Latin American spot with heavy influences from southern Mexico is the brainchild of a supergroup of local restaurant owners and vets from Centro, Ex Voto, and Locals Seafood. Bring a small group of friends and hit the adjoining Peyote minibar beforehand. Mala Pata’s cheesy Colombian buñuelos are a must-order, as are the lechoncito de oro.

Peregrine intentionally refuses definition, and its lawlessness is a gift. The menu careens from dishes like bengali wedding chicken to a nutty vegan mushroom suya to an aged ribeye served with gochujang butter and banchan-style pickled vegetables. Dishes like the raw tuna and trout roe tiradito and the saffron-tinged “Celebration of Eid” dessert soar as high as the falcon the restaurant is named for. Peregrine is perfect for a double date.

Part of the prolific Giorgios restaurant group, East End Bistrot is a glitzy, white-tableclothed destination for high rollers, the soon-to-be-betrothed, and local Francophiles. This is a special occasion spot where dishes like roasted pheasant with black truffles compete with grilled ora king salmon for your attention. The best seat in the house is the circular corner booth overlooking the space, though the back room attracts its fair share of paramours.

The best way to experience MOFU is through a party: You can rent out the second-floor loft overlooking the restaurant. But it’s still a great fun dinner spot even if you’re not booking the upstairs space—the energy is high, and the cocktails are as killer as the kimchi BBQ dumplings and vegan lao khao soi. If you come with a crew, order the family-style twice-fried chicken bucket, a bunch of small plates like the nước mắm lime-glazed wings and buttermilk flounder bao.

There’s nothing else quite like Tamasha. The city’s top-tier Indian fine dining spot celebrates a range of regionally-inspired dishes, like dahi ke kebab yogurt croquettes with jaggery dip, the show-stopping yellowtail snapper coastal curry with green mango, and thandai lemon grass gelato. Sitting in a booth beneath gleaming gold arches and a black ceiling, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a world of your own with your date, especially at night when the floor-to-ceiling windows fall dark.