Where to Eat in South Philly
South Philly is full of neighborhood favorites and destination restaurants. Here are the best places to dine below Snyder Avenue.
Merguez pide / Photograph courtesy of Stina Pizzeria
While South Philly has historically been heavy on Italian-American classics, you can now find dozens of cuisines and traditions all crammed together amid the rowhouses. One meal in South Philly might mean lunch at an Indonesian cafe or a casual date over spaghetti and barbecue baby back ribs. The next could involve a visit to a Mexican coffee shop, a comforting Vietnamese dinner, or a romantic date night at a Mediterranean restaurant just off West Passyunk Avenue.
For our purposes, we’re calling South Philly anything south of Snyder Avenue. (You can send an email to foobooz@phillymag.com if you have thoughts and feelings about Philly’s neighborhood boundaries, by the way. We’ll gladly write back.)
If you want to check out nearby dining hot spots, we’ve got guides for East Passyunk and Washington Avenue, as well as other neighborhood guides on the way. For now, consider these the overall best places to eat in what’s arguably Philly’s best restaurant neighborhood.
Stina
After time spent wandering the wilds of Philly’s restaurant ecosystem, chef Bobby Saritsoglou is in his own place, doing pizza and Mediterranean food for the neighborhood. When there’s wood-fired pizza on the same menu as manti stuffed with lamb, we don’t always trust that they’ll be equally delicious. But in this case, you should order from both genres. Remember this spot for all kinds of occasions, from a casual date to a family dinner. 1705 Snyder Avenue.
I Heart Cambodia
This longtime Cambodian community staple serves everything from gargantuan, crispy-fried shrimp to Khmer salads made of beef that’s been cured with lime and prahok. Aside from living up to the promise of its name, another draw of this restaurant is the fact that it’s BYOB (we like to bring a bottle of white wine or some light beer to go with an order of whole tilapia in a tamarind ginger sauce). But you’ll also see a full bar available in the back of the dining room. 2207 South 7th Street.
Hardena Waroeng Surabaya
This family-owned, women-led Indonesian cafe — with its rotating buffet line of halal options like chili eggplant, tempeh goreng, and soft beef rendang stewed in coconut milk in steam tables — got a James Beard Award nomination back in 2018. It’s still a neighborhood staple. 1754 Hicks Street.
La Llorona Cantina Mexicana
La Llorona is the super-friendly, mezcal- and tequila-soaked Mexican cantina of our dreams, complete with excellent cocktails, a great spirits list, and a menu that includes lump crab tostadas, birria-topped nachos, scallop aguachile, and much, much more. Bring your friends. Bring your enemies. 1551 West Passyunk Avenue.
Cafe Nhan
In 2018, chef Nhan and her son opened this Vietnamese restaurant in a little storefront on West Passyunk Avenue. Now they’re making our favorite bún bò huế in the city, full of spicy lemongrass broth, egg noodles, and beef brisket. There are two versions of this dish on the menu, but be sure to order the dac biet version that comes with housemade bloodcubes. It adds an irony richness to the soup that’s well worth an extra dollar. 1606 West Passyunk Avenue.
Roast pork sandwich from John’s Roast Pork / Photograph by Jason Varney for VISIT PHILADELPHIA®
John’s Roast Pork
Sure, South Philly has Pat’s and Geno’s, appropriate almost exclusively for tourists, 5 a.m. cheesesteak needs, and political candidates’ embarrassing approval. But, if you actually live in Philadelphia, John’s is where you really want to be: In addition to having superior cheesesteaks, they also serve Philly’s definitive roast pork sandwich. 14 Snyder Avenue.
New Phnom Penh
Another anchor in South Philly’s thriving Cambodian food scene — which runs the gamut from street hawkers to mom-and-pop shops. This small spot serves a combination of Vietnamese and Cambodian soups and noodle dishes, including flat hu tieu rice noodles that are popular in southern Vietnam (you can order yours in soup form or dry). Whatever you do, get the crispy fried pork rolls to start. 2301 South 7th Street.
L’Angolo Ristorante
Davide and Kathryn Faenza have been running L’Angolo in this location for nearly 20 years, doing Italian cuisine from Puglia. The place is a neighborhood favorite, so reservations are a must — but it’s worth it. The space is comfortable, the service is excellent, and the menu is full of littleneck clams with spicy sausage, fresh rigatoni with shrimp, and radicchio and ravioli stuffed with broccoli rabe and ricotta. 1415 West Porter Street.
Scannicchio’s
Another classic, long-lived neighborhood BYO, serving everything from gnocchi and lobster ravioli to veal parm and steaks topped with scallops, shrimp, and mozzarella, plus prix fixe, family-style menus for big groups. 2500 South Broad Street.
Cafe y Chocolate
As the name suggests, this cafe serves up excellent coffee as well as Oaxacan hot chocolate made with rich chocolate and spices. The warm cups of caffeinated joy are truly what Cafe y Chocolate is known for. But first-time visitors will be surprised by their extensive menu of Mexican classics, whether it’s huevos rancheros drenched in salsa verde for breakfast, chicken flautas for lunch, or a sopa de mariscos seafood soup packed with shrimp, calamari, crab meat, and mussels for dinner.
Bomb Bomb Bar B Que Grill
There aren’t too many places out there where you can get classic Italian spaghetti and meatballs in red sauce (or gravy as they call), award-winning barbecue baby back ribs, and the South Philly neighborhood bar experience all in one spot. But at Bomb Bomb Bar B Que Grill, all of these worlds collide in the best possible way. This neighborhood institution is excellent all year round, but definitely stop by in the summer for their city-renowned crab gravy.
