Best Restaurants for Groups in the US 2026

Red leather, Sinatra, and the spicy rigatoni vodka — the New York group dinner that everyone agrees on before the room is even booked.

Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi's West Village institution is, a decade in, still the group dinner that New Yorkers argue about getting into rather than whether to attend. The room — deep red banquettes, white tablecloths, a tuxedoed service team performing a specific kind of old-world Italian-American theatre — creates the atmosphere before the food arrives. Private dining rooms on the lower level can accommodate groups of 12–50, with a service team that treats the reserved space with the same attentiveness as the main floor.

The spicy rigatoni vodka is the dish that every first-timer orders and no regular ever stops ordering: a tube pasta in a tomato-cream-chilli sauce of addictive precision. The veal parmesan is tableside theater — enormous, golden, served with a practised flourish. The Carbone cocktail program, built around Negroni variations and Italian digestifs, keeps the evening moving long past the pasta course.

For a team dinner where the outcome is loosened ties and genuine conversation, Carbone provides the soundtrack, the stagecraft, and the food to make a large group feel like a private party. The waiting list for the main room is long; the private rooms are accessible with planning.

Sixty floors above the Financial District, with private dining that makes every guest feel the city was rearranged for their benefit.

On the 60th floor of 28 Liberty Street, Manhatta offers private dining with a view of the Manhattan skyline that does most of the work before the menu is even opened. The private dining room seats up to 50 people at formal banquet configuration, with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. For team dinners where the visual experience is part of the occasion — client entertainment, year-end celebrations, onboarding dinners for senior hires — the room is effectively impossible to top in New York.

The kitchen, anchored by a contemporary American format that emphasises seasonal domestic sourcing, produces a Montauk striped bass with citrus beurre blanc and spring pea purée, an aged prime ribeye served with a bone marrow butter that renders the steak essentially its own second course, and a Parker House roll that arrives warm and compulsively refillable. The wine list skews American, with strong Napa and Willamette Valley representation.

The Financial District location makes Manhatta the natural choice for Wall Street and financial sector dinners — close to the offices, staggering in its visual impact, and professional enough that the client does not feel they have been taken somewhere merely trendy.

Chicago's most reliable power room — serious beef, a serious wine list, and semi-private mezzanine tables that mean business.

RPM Steak's River North address has become the Chicago dining room where deal-making happens not because it is fashionable but because it is functional. The mezzanine semi-private tables — elevated above the main floor, screened with architectural partitions, with their own service team — accommodate groups of 8–24 in a space that feels exclusive without requiring a full private room buyout. Pricing starts at $95–$115 per person for a group menu, which for Chicago's tier of corporate dining represents genuine value.

The dry-aged prime 32oz tomahawk ribeye, shared between two, is the table-side event that RPM's reputation is built on: presented on a Himalayan salt block, carved at the table, with a bone marrow compound butter that reduces the conversation to silence for approximately three minutes. The creamed spinach and truffle fries are not afterthoughts. The wine list, with over 800 labels, has both the deep Napa Cabernets that American business clients expect and an Italian section serious enough to impress a client from Milan.

The proximity to Chicago's financial and legal districts — River North is walking distance from the Loop — means that RPM Steak is the default choice for a reason. It executes at scale without sacrificing quality.

Walter and Margarita Manzke's converted Charlie Chaplin building — six private spaces and the best pastry program in Los Angeles.

Republique occupies a landmark La Brea building originally constructed for Charlie Chaplin in the 1920s, and the architecture does what a $10 million renovation cannot buy: soaring arched ceilings, Moroccan tilework, skylights that flood the main dining room with California light. Chef Walter Manzke's French-Californian kitchen operates six distinct private and semi-private spaces, from an intimate 12-seat room to a full buyout of the main hall for 120.

The roast chicken with herbed jus and pommes Anna is the signature — a dish of such technical assurance that the simplicity reads as confidence rather than underreach. The charcuterie program, assembled in-house, rivals anything in France: duck rillettes, country pâté with cornichons and Dijon, house-cured salmon gravlax. Margarita Manzke's pastry menu closes the evening on a note that creates a specific kind of loyalty: the millefeuille is the reason half the room is already planning their return.

For Los Angeles team dinners where the conversation needs to be easy and the food needs to be extraordinary, Republique is the choice. The private spaces are managed with the flexibility of a venue that has done this well for a decade.

Michelin-starred in a 1890s print shop — private dining with Golden Kaluga caviar and a wine list that earns its wine spectator award annually.

Sepia's West Loop location occupies an 1890s print shop with exposed brick, warm lighting, and the kind of well-worn elegance that a purpose-built restaurant cannot replicate. The Michelin star it has held for over a decade reflects a kitchen under Chef Andrew Zimmerman that understands what the term "seasonal American" is meant to produce: dishes built around the finest domestic ingredients at their peak rather than a fixed year-round menu of crowd-pleasers.

The private dining program at Sepia begins with an hors d'oeuvres menu that includes Golden Kaluga caviar served on house-made blini and scallop ceviche with yuzu and micro herbs — the kind of opening that signals to a corporate guest that the evening has been considered carefully. The main menu rotates, but recent standouts include a dry-aged duck breast with sour cherry gastrique and roasted sunchokes, and a hand-rolled pasta with hen of the woods mushrooms and aged Pecorino.

Chicago's West Loop restaurant density makes competitive comparison inevitable, but Sepia's private dining infrastructure — dedicated event coordinator, customisable menus, and a team trained for corporate occasions — distinguishes it from neighbours with equal culinary ambition but less event experience.

Three glamorous locations, multiple private spaces, and a dry-aged USDA prime program that is among the best in Southern California.

BOA operates across three Los Angeles locations — Sunset Strip, Santa Monica, and Century City — each with its own distinct private dining infrastructure. The design language is consistent: dramatic lighting, dark leather booths, an open kitchen that makes the cooking part of the atmosphere rather than something that happens behind a closed door. The Santa Monica location, with its ocean-adjacent setting, is the most striking backdrop for a group dinner that needs the setting to do work beyond the food.

The dry-aged prime New York strip, aged 28 days in-house and served with a choice of compound butters including black truffle and herb, is the star of a beef program that sources exclusively from USDA prime suppliers. The king crab legs, presented whole and served with drawn butter, are the shared starter that generates the most conversation. The wine list offers significant depth in California Cabernet, with enough international coverage to accommodate diverse taste.

For Los Angeles corporate groups of 10–40, BOA's combination of private space flexibility, consistent quality, and three-location footprint makes it the default choice for entertainment directors and executive assistants who need reliability as much as distinction.

Midtown's best-kept private dining secret — rooms that seat up to 80 and a terrace that makes summer group dinners feel like a different city entirely.

Aretsky's Patroon has operated for three decades as the private dining address for Midtown Manhattan law firms, financial institutions, and publishing houses that need a room that performs professionally without requiring a Manhattan premium for the privilege. The townhouse format — three floors of private and semi-private dining rooms, each seatable from 12 to 80 — provides the flexibility that the main dining room of any single-floor competitor cannot match. The rooftop terrace, operable from late spring through early autumn, is among the most quietly impressive outdoor group dining settings in the city.

The kitchen operates a solid contemporary American bistro menu: a Caesar salad prepared tableside with theatrical efficiency, aged prime sirloin with béarnaise sauce and hand-cut fries, and a chocolate lava cake that is the confection equivalent of reliability made manifest. The wine list is honest rather than ambitious, with markups that reflect a restaurant that prioritises the event experience over cellar prestige.

For groups of 30+ in Midtown who need a private room, professional service, and a kitchen that handles scale without degrading quality, Aretsky's Patroon is the most consistently reliable option in the neighbourhood.