Where to Live in the Philadelphia Area if You Love Walking to Great Restaurants
Fabulous eateries abound in the Philadelphia region. They’re even more abundant in these communities.
Los Caballitos Cantina on East Passyunk Avenue, in one of Philly’s neighborhoods with the highest concentration of great restaurants. / Photograph by K. Kelly for Visit Philadelphia
From its public and farmers’ markets to its galaxy of great restaurants, the Philadelphia region has everything a gourmand would want.
And some city neighborhoods and suburban communities have it all within walking distance. Live in one of these places and you may never use your kitchen.
Philadelphia
East Passyunk
Find a slew of restaurants lining the main drag of East Passyunk Avenue, stretching from Ember & Ash on the north to Juana Tamale on the south. The 27 restaurants and bars between these two constitute the single greatest concentration of places to eat and drink in the city, and you’ll find another score of them on nearby streets.
The once heavily Italian neighborhood has become more polyglot, with Southeast Asian and Mexican immigrants adding pizzazz. Almost all of them live in two- and three-story rowhouses; a typical one will run you $340,763, according to the most recent (May 2024) Zillow Home Value Index, the source of all the house values in this article.
Wedged in between Frankford Avenue and the Frankford El, Front Street Cafe is one of several outdoor dining oases in Fishtown. / Photograph by A. Ricketts for Visit Philadelphia
Fishtown
Frankford Avenue in Fishtown has become a dining destination in its own right. From the James Beard Award-nominated Suraya to cheesesteak haven Joe’s, you will find restaurants for just about every taste and budget along this buzzy strip.
You will also find lots of rowhouses in the neighborhood, many of them larger, with condos and rentals sprinkled here and there. The residential streets are quieter than the main drags, and houses remain fairly affordable; the typical house value as of May 2024 is $360,966.
Stephen Starr’s Parc restaurant brings a touch of Paris to Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. / Photograph by Jumping Rocks/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Rittenhouse Square
You will find a.kitchen and a.bar in Rittenhouse Square, but in a neighborhood as dense and lively as this one, of course, you’d expect to find more than one of each, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Great kitchens and bars dot the neighborhood. But this pair, one of our 50 Best Restaurants for 2024 and another James Beard-nominated establishment, is a great place to start. Then proceed to Parc, another 50 Best establishment where you can dine and drink al fresco facing the square, or My Loup for a culinary world tour that feels like it was thrown together just for you.
The square itself is home to most of Philly’s urban cliff dwellers, who occupy swanky condos in the buildings that surround it. Away from the square, imposing mid-19th-century brownstones dominate the main streets, and smaller houses line the back ones — save for Delancey, still the address of choice for the smart set. You’ll also pay for the privilege of living here; the typical house will set you back more than $479,000.
Pennsylvania Suburbs
The landmark Ambler Theater on Butler Avenue, with neighborhood restaurant From the Boot to the left of the entrance / Photograph by Dylan Eddinger, Visit Valley Forge
Ambler
Looking for a great place for a date night? Look no further. The seven-block stretch of Butler Avenue extending east from Ambler Regional Rail station offers live theater, movies, concerts, art festivals, and a slew of globe-trotting restaurants. These include La Provence in the old train station and Geronimos, one of a handful of Peruvian restaurants in the ’burbs. Italian eatery From the Boot is in the Ambler Theater building, making dinner and a movie there super convenient.
Houses in Ambler Borough come in all types and sell in mere days right now. And the borough’s popularity comes with a price: $634,755 for the typical house, according to Zillow. Some developments in neighboring Upper Dublin Township are close enough to make walking into Ambler a possibility.
Rittenhouse Place in Ardmore / Photograph by Jeff Fusco
Ardmore
“The Main Street of the Main Line” packs a lot of fine food into a compact space. Suburban Square boasts a farmers’ market and 13 different eateries, while Lancaster Avenue and the streets that feed it are home to some 30 more. Highlights include the modern Italian steakhouse DePaul’s Table, Local Wine & Kitchen and Osushi Japanese restaruant. (And Maido! will both serve you Japanese street food and sell you the ingredients to make it at home.)
You can find just about any type of house, condo or apartment you want in Ardmore, save for rowhouses. The most affordable ones are the twins that make up the majority of houses between the Regional Rail tracks and the Norristown High-Speed Line, but you can also find substantial single-family houses in this area. Those houses dominate the parts of Ardmore beyond either rail line. A typical house in Ardmore is worth $483,831.
Dining Under the Stars on State Street in Media celebrates neighborhood restaurants throughout the summer. / Photograph courtesy of Visit Media
Media
Every Wednesday night from May through September, more than two dozen restaurants turn State Street, Media’s main street, into a giant outdoor dining room. From fresh and local (Two Fourteen) to “refreshingly global” (Azie), Media’s restaurants offer something for just about every taste not only during Dining Under the Stars but also on the other 342 nights of the year.
Your chances of finding a place to live near Media’s restaurant row are higher if you rent; anywhere from 65 to 90 percent of the housing close to State Street is renter-occupied. And rowhouses are thick on the ground in Media’s southern third, which includes State Street. But you can find the occasional house for sale — even the occasional new construction house — in this area as well. If you want to buy, however, your pickings will be better north of the Delaware County Courthouse. Expect to drop about $596,000 on a typical house.
New Jersey Suburbs
Hearthside restaurant in New Jersey’s Collingswood neighborhood. / Photograph courtesy of Hearthside
Collingswood
This hip suburb went from faded to fabulous in about 20 years, aided by the 2000 launch of the farmers’ market beneath the PATCO Lindenwold Line viaduct. Every Saturday morning from May to Thanksgiving, local farmers and producers bring their best to the market that the American Farmland Trust named New Jersey’s best in 2023. Some of what they grow lands on the plates of diners at more than two dozen restaurants, like Hearthside, Sabrina’s Cafe and Philly Mag 50 Best June BYOB. All the restaurants are BYOBs, by the way, which means you avoid paying restaurant markups on the wine you have with your meal. (But that doesn’t mean you can’t get buzzed drinking in Collingswood.)
Bracketed by lakes on its north and south, Collingswood is a solidly middle-class community dominated by freestanding single-family houses, with new downtown condos and apartments complementing a small community of rowhouses near the PATCO station. Current listings show nothing under $150,000 and nothing over $700,000, with the typical house valued at $415,470.
Kings Highway East in Haddonfield. / Photograph by Lauren Makinson
Haddonfield
The business leaders in Haddonfield saw what was going on up Haddon Avenue and decided to replicate it on Kings Highway East. The Bistro at Haddonfield, once the only dining game in town, has been joined by a slew of small, intimate eateries featuring cuisines from around the world: The Little Hen, Gass & Main, El Nopalito and several more. Even though, like Collingswood, Haddonfield is dry, it has a wine tasting room (William Heritage Winery), a distillery and cocktail bar (Wildfether Distilling) and a lively craft brewery (Kings Road Brewing Company). Buy drinks to go with your dinner in town — or, in the case of the brewery, bring your meal in with you.
Haddonfield is South Jersey’s answer to the Main Line, and while one can find modestly priced apartments, condos and houses in the center of the borough, large, luxurious mansions and mansionettes make up the bulk of Haddonfield’s housing stock. Prices reflect this: the typical house value here is $744,616.
This Queen Anne twin in Merchantville was dubbed the “Centennial House” because it was allegedly built with materials salvaged from the 1876 Centennial Exposition. This story has since been disproven. / Photograph by Jerre and Roy Klotz, MD, via Wikimeida Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Merchantville
This off-the-beaten-path borough — you can’t get to it on PATCO, and Routes 38 and 130 both bypass it — sits just north of Collingswood and Haddonfield. Many consider it one of the most pleasant places in South Jersey you’ve never heard of, but its dining scene is putting the 150-year-old community on the map. In addition to a globe-spanning variety of eateries, this neighborhood also contains what may be the only restaurant in the area with a subscription program: Park Place Café and Restaurant, whose foraging chef takes seasonal variation (and hard-to-find ingredients) seriously.
Merchantville is the smallest of these three towns, and it has plenty of small-town character and charm. You won’t find much in the way of condos or apartments here, but you will find plenty of freestanding houses at reasonable prices; the typical house in Merchantville is worth $309,965.
