Best of Philly

Best New Restaurant

2024 Best New Restaurant, Suburbs

Rosemary

It takes a lot to get city folks to travel to Delco for dinner, but that’s just what Starr management alum Philip Breen did last year when he opened this sophisticated spot. Barbuzzo/Fork/Stateside vet George Sabatino does amazing things with handmade pastas and vegetables, which make up a good portion of the menu. And the baked oysters, scallops in a celery root puree with black truffles, and all things brunch are big hits. Read More »

25 East Hinckley Avenue, Ridley Park, PA Website

2024 Best New Restaurant, City

Illata

Illata is small, scrappy and weird. It is BYO, 20 seats, white walls, warm light and a DIY pass-through window hacked into an old doorway. It is a menu as short as a poem, dishes that come and go like the tides, citrus salad with homemade XO, ricotta gnudi with crushed hazelnut, and sourdough smeared with butter. It is absolutely delicious and completely indefinable except to say that it might be the most perfectly Philadelphian restaurant we’ve seen in some time — speaking to the way we eat right now, the way we’ve eaten forever, and the way we all hope to eat on our best nights out. Read More »

2241 Grays Ferry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA Website

2023 Best New Restaurant, City

Mawn

This self-described noodle house with “no rules” twists and merges Southeast Asian classics — banh chow chopped up and bathing in fish sauce, khao soi silky with Neighborhood Ramen’s homemade noodles, galangal-marinated rib-eye skewers marked by chef Phila Lorn’s own Cambodian roots. Mawn knows exactly who and what it is without anything to prove. The sour-sweet-savory dishes will zap you out of your bullshit day and into the moment, psychedelic Cambodian rock will make the small space come alive, and you won’t be able to remember what 9th Street was like without this BYOB. Read More »

764 South 9th Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2023 Best New (Old) Restaurant

Kalaya

With palm trees sprouting from the center of a perpetually busy dining room and a bar slinging lemongrass-infused cocktails, the new Kalaya — a partnership between Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon and Defined Hospitality — certainly looks different than it did in its Bella Vista days. But in the face of the inherent Philadelphia skepticism that greets any beloved space’s evolution, Kalaya’s southern Thai dishes still pack the same delightful punch. And Suntaranon still floats around the dining room, sometimes holding someone’s baby, always representing a menu that pays exquisite homage to her heritage. Read More »

4 West Palmer Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2023 Best Best New Restaurant, 'burbs

De La Terre BYOB

Downingtown may seem like a long way to go for dinner, but chef Andrew Hufnagel (ex of Zola, Dandelion and Jean-Georges) makes the trip worth it with this French BYOB that can do hyper-classic onion soup spiked with sherry, a charcoal-roasted squab with strawberry rhubarb and spring onion soubise, or kombu-poached shrimp with yuzu mayonnaise, all without breaking a sweat. The kitchen trades classical stuffiness for a bright, restrained experimentalism (and occasionally serves a really good cheeseburger, too), making De La Terre the best restaurant you’re going to find in the last place you’d ever look. Read More »

47 West Lancaster Avenue, Downingtown, PA Website

2022 Best New Restaurant, City

Her Place Supper Club

What began as a temporary deal in a shuttered pizza joint is now a full-blown, deeply personal restaurant. Amanda Shulman has transitioned Her Place Supper Club from a short-term project to a permanent operation while retaining its sublime French and Italian-ish food and a human touch so integral to the original concept. Coming here feels like having dinner at your cool new friend’s house — if your friend made the best steak tartare and fries in the city, always seemed to keep a truffle hidden somewhere in her kitchen, and had a wine and cocktail program crafted by Julianna Bursack. Her Place may have started as a pop-up, but lucky for us, it’s not going anywhere. Read More »

1740 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2022 Best New Restaurant, 'Burbs

Lark

The seventh-floor sunset views bring drama to Nick Elmi and Fia Berisha’s new spot, but the menu remains the real reason to seek out a meal here. Try uni deviled eggs topped with caviar, and roasted dorade scattered with golden raisins that go off in your mouth like tiny sweet firecrackers. Add a plate of Lark’s gnocco fritto, puffy beignets crowned with prosciutto and served with preserved lemon. Eating Lark’s food will make you feel like you stole a millionaire’s picnic basket. Read More »

611 Righters Ferry Road, Bala Cynwyd, PA Website

2021 Best New Restaurant

Sally

Every so often, a restaurant summons all its confidence, swings open its doors, and absolutely nails every single thing it sets out to do. In Sally’s case, Anna D’Isidoro, D’Onna Stubblefield and Rob Marzinsky set out to do pizza, wine and small plates — which, well, feels so very … common these days. But the menu here is deceivingly special, a treasure trove of perfect, deeply considered vegetables (the charred cabbage drenched in a spicy, tangy “who knew?” sauce is so confoundingly good, you’ll be wondering about it for weeks), sourdough pizzas that range from margherita to clam and leek to South Philly-style pizzazz, and a thoughtfully curated wine list the whole staff seems excited to chat about. The servers are having fun, the music’s always bumping, and every time we go, we leave feeling happy, full, even a little bit resentful that there aren’t a hundred more restaurants in Philly like Sally, bringing that same kind of youthful, future-thinking vibrancy to our dining scene. Read More »

2229 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2020 Best Restaurant We’ve Been Waiting For

Laser Wolf

Laser Wolf is the restaurant scene’s way of writing science fiction — our boldest vision of the future of dining out. Before the pandemic, it was a place that existed entirely outside the customary definitions of casual/fine dining, one to which crowds flocked to smear kale baba ganoush on the best pita anywhere and devour merguez sausage and chicken shishlik off the kitchen’s blazing grills. It tasted fancy but felt like a nonstop party — complete with shots of arak and ice-cream sundaes for dessert. And after everything changed? Laser Wolf shifted gears and became the go-to spot for procuring the best backyard grilling kits for the summer. Read More »

1301 North Howard Street, Philadelphia, PA | 267-499-4660 | Website

2019 Best Millennial Bait Restaurant

Blume

Pastels, plants, and a butterfly mural that was meant for selfies. If you were born in the ’90s, you’ve probably been here. If you haven’t, get your grandkids to set you up on Snapchat and come see what the fuss is about. Read More »

1500 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA | 267-761-5582 | Website