These are Philly’s 10 best restaurants of 2024

I devoured an exceptional number of special meals over the past five months as I circled the Philadelphia region, fork in perpetual motion, to help assemble The 76, our most comprehensive dining guide ever. From food carts to chef’s counter splurges, more than 120 scouting trips went into my research.

So how could I narrow that all down to just 10 picks?

With such a limited number, the criteria are heightened: I’m talking about the places that capture an elusive feeling of revelation, where the flavors are so resonant and the hospitality so genuine, that eating there is a singular experience. That sensation often struck me at specific moments, like when Ian Graye transformed a head of broccoli into the most extraordinary “risotto” at Pietramala. Or when I took a bite of seafood in “red curry mole” at Mawn, then learned how this beguiling fusion creation came to be: a spontaneous exchange of inspiration at lunch between two neighboring restaurants — one Mexican, one Cambodian — that could only happen in South Philadelphia’s Italian Market.

Pietramala and Mawn are among the first-timers on this list. The more familiar restaurants here continue to display craft at its highest level, as well as a fearless desire to keep evolving. The broad range of styles and price points reflect why Philly is such a dynamic place to eat. And since I covet a steamy pastrami sandwich just as much as a wood-roasted lamb chop or a sublimely rich slice of dry-aged toro, this Top 10 remains unranked.

Mawn is a freewheeling “noodle shop with no rules,” and its independent streak has made this spirited 28-seat Bella Vista BYOB one of the toughest reservations in town.

You can’t pigeonhole it: Is it modern Cambodian, with its rib eye updates to the lemongrass-scented beef skewers of the Southeast Asian Market in FDR Park? Is it more pan-Asian, with its Burmese ginger salad and Thai-style “all-star seafood rice” jeweled with uni, crab, and roe? Or is it Jewish fusion, channeling the bicultural marriage of owners Phila and Rachel Lorn into a soulful chicken soup mash-up of schmaltzy matzo ball broth and pho?

Lorn, named Phila as a tribute to the city where his Cambodian parents settled as refugees, defines Mawn’s cuisine as the sum of his own experiences as a first-generation South Philadelphian, weaving his Khmer roots with training in Japanese kitchens and nostalgia for his childhood at Seventh and Jackson. “I’m not an ‘authenticity’ chaser because authenticity to me is an Italian hoagie and water ice and four or five ‘How you doin’s?’ in the morning,” he says. “And I may not have a 200-year-old curry recipe, but it’s my mom’s curry recipe. So we’re authentic in the way we cook the food I ate growing up — and what I want to eat now.”

That’s how Mawn ended up serving a hot dog topped with prohok, the Khmer ground pork dip typically served with crudité, made here with wild boar for a knockout Southeast Asian chili dog on the lunch menu. (Lunch, unlike dinner, is for walk-ins only.) That’s also how a meal at Cristina Martinez’s Casa Mexico a few blocks south on Ninth Street inspired that red curry “mole,” which blends a Thai coconut milk curry with shrimp paste, lime leaves, and Japanese chocolate for a luxuriously complex sauce I savored with lobster (now being served with grilled scallops for the mahope samut).

Of course, you must also make room for favorites that show his affinity for special ingredients, like the crispy head-on shrimp in fish sauce caramel, or his finesse in recasting a classic, like the crispy banh chow crepe with “Sunday fish sauce,” without losing its homey soul — or any number of Mawn’s distinctive noodle bowls (the khao soi is special). A tug of sweet nostalgia also makes the desserts essential: The coconut rice pudding with caramelized bananas came topped with fluffy mango chantilly cream dusted with graham crackers and sesame, and disappeared from my dish like a tropical South Philly dream.

If you ever crave matzo ball soup, you know Russ Cowan’s name. He’s been Philly’s Jewish deli king for the past 35 years, operating nearly 20 restaurants across the region — most recently the Famous 4th Street Delicatessen, which he sold after 18 years to open Radin’s Delicatessen. Cowan has said Radin’s is his salami swan song. It also happens to be his best yet.

The vast orange and mint green dining hall in this South Jersey strip mall may not yet have the well-worn patina and politico pull of Famous 4th Street, but this sandwich paradise is now the Philly area’s destination deli. Wherever Cowan goes, a cloud of corned beef steam follows, luring crowds of deli faithful like the Pied Piper of Pastrami. Radin’s is already humming with a diverse slice of locals (with plenty of Cherry Hill East High School swag in the room) who dig into mountains of corned beef hash and eggs, massive slices of checkerboard cake, and tureens of chicken soup bobbing with kreplach dumplings, kasha, and softball-size matzo balls enriched with schmaltz.

And oh, the gravitational pull of those sandwiches! Cowan comes from the New York school of shock-and-awe portions (Radin’s is named in honor of his Brooklyn restaurant family). But his food — made from scratch with attention to details — is flat-out delicious, from the flaky pastry that wraps the knishes to the fat-marbled brisket deckles that are pickled, peppered, and smoked into 2,500 pounds of deli sandwich magic. When that meat emerges meltingly soft from the steamer, I’d put a slice of that pastrami (with a schmear of brown mustard) up against any fancy Wagyu.

A steady, hands-on presence has always been essential to Cowan’s success, along with a staff that’s willing to follow him. You’ll see longtime Famous server Michael Williams plying his patient kindness in the dining room. Behind the scenes, there’s also manager Jon Park, a Cowan accomplice for two decades, artfully hand-slicing the curated cuts of smoked sturgeon, nova, and sable, and deftly constructing the gravity-defying double-decker combos.

No one really knows how long Radin’s has before Cowan, 69, eventually retires. Not even Cowan, who lives nearby. He has created a rare and special deli with the kind of quality that’s built to last, and, as the seemingly tireless pastrami maestro says, “I’ll do it until I run out of energy.”

Broccoli is rarely more than an afterthought. At Pietramala, chef Ian Graye transforms the humble stalk into a culinary event. First, he snips the florets for garnish and grates the stems into rice-shaped bits. Next, he cooks them, risotto-style, in broccoli broth thickened with a vibrant green basil-boosted puree. He finishes with a touch of shaved dried tofu, salt-cured until it takes on the cheesy twang of Parmesan. The result is one of the most mind-blowing dishes of the year. I’ve come to expect such strokes of vegetable genius at Pietramala, the cutting-edge vegan BYOB where Graye turns carrots into Bolognese, crisps mushrooms into irresistible nuggets, and splashes smashed cucumbers and the silkiest tofu custard (set with Delaware Bay sea salt) with fresh coriander bud-infused shoyu.

Graye’s cooking has matured noticeably since he moved to this low-lit storefront in Northern Liberties two years ago from New York, paring back superfluous flourishes — cheffy, labor-intensive projects with minimal payoff — for dishes that are now focused sharply on his most exciting ideas, even while using all the tools at his disposal, including a live fire hearth that layers smoky notes throughout the meal.

Graye challenges preconceived notions, for instance, by reimagining “tahini” as a nutty brown butter of dark pumpkin seeds and porcini oil that provides an earthy anchor for a sublime roasted honeynut squash filled with the electric brightness of pureed ground cherries and chilies topped with a seedy crust of puffed quinoa and rice. Another dish, a lusciously soft chunk of fruit wood-smoked eggplant sparked with caraway-scented fresh harissa, showcases contrasting aromas and textures at play.

Do Pietramala’s big swings always pay off? No, and desserts have occasionally been its weakness, with creative-but-flawed efforts that sometimes include ill-advised savory accents (step away from the horseradish, please!). There were no such stumbles at my most recent meal, though, where a sundae built around the elusive local wonder fruit of custardy pawpaw offered a delicious snapshot of fleeting seasonal delight. And when chef Graye does land a dish — which is more often than not — it will make you see the entire vegetable kingdom in a beautiful new light.

There’s always a moment during my dinners at Andiario when I take a bite of a dish like an extraordinary pasta with foraged mushrooms, or lamb cooked over the embers three ways, and get wistful knowing I’ll never taste it again. It’s the bargain you make at a place where the $80 four-course supper changes weekly to roll with whatever bounty local farmers, including the married owners themselves, are harvesting.

Still, there’s solace in realizing that every meal I’ve had since chef Anthony Andiario and his partner, Maria van Schaijik, lit the wood-fired hearth at their elegant West Chester restaurant nearly seven years ago seems better than the last. The larder of pickled alliums, herbs, and hand-plucked saffron grows more epic with each season. Pastured cattle raised by relatives nearby will soon become part of these menus, too — perhaps braised into a soulful Neapolitan beef ragù like the one I ate there recently over toothsome, hand-rolled paccheri tubes.

No chef expresses the terroir of southeast Pennsylvania as lyrically as Andiario does through the lens of his Italian training, where a light touch is more when ingredients are so perfect, be it an oregano-dusted tomato glowing with summer sweetness beside a bowl of stracciatella, or golden persimmons shaved into an autumn tumble with bittersweet chicories from Campo Rosso and blue cheese from Birchrun Hill Farm.

A return visit in November has me thinking harvest season is a particularly special time to go. There were bay scallops whose sugar-sweetness was accented simply by rolling them raw in crushed chile peppers and finger limes. Wood-roasted capon breasts came atop a leg meat terrine marbled with thyme-scented capon mousse — a rustic master class in whole animal cookery. And the evening’s pasta amazed me with its technique and economy of flavor: gargati, a supple Venetian macaroni made on a hand-cranked extruder, was tossed in a half-mashed puree of romanesco that formed its own buttery green brassica sauce, accented by its florets, crunchy breadcrumbs, and the unexpected ocean breeze of salted fresh cod flakes.

We raised a glass of Oregonian pét-nat to toast the dessert of roasted pears with custardy zuppa inglese, and wished we could eat this meal all over again. But I also left excited to taste whatever new homegrown wonders Andiario’s future holds.

Have you ever eaten a tempura-fried soft-shell crab taco with pickled ripe plum salsa over a cilantro green tortilla? How about a plump chile en nogada glazed in creamy white sauce made from fresh walnuts delivered days after being harvested in San Mateo Ozolco? What about a French toast made with fresh concha rolls dipped in chocolate tahini batter?

I hadn’t. At least not until dining at El Chingón, the cheerful all-day cafe and BYOB in Passyunk Square that is Philly’s most thrilling Mexican kitchen, where chef-owner Juan Carlos Aparicio effortlessly blends traditional ideas with seemingly boundless creativity.

Aparicio is one of the brightest stars to emerge from the generation of chefs that has energized the Philadelphia dining scene since the late 1990s. The various skills he learned early on working for others — baking French breads at Parc, mastering Italian flavors at Zavino and Tredici — have given El Chingón an advantage with his commitment to fresh baking.

That’s especially true of the swirl-topped sesame cemita rolls used for the signature sandwiches, which get stuffed with a variety of fillings, like a classic Milanesa cutlet, arrachera skirt steak, or the occasional menudo special, piled high with quesillo cheese, chipotles en adobo, and pápalo aioli. You’ll see other refined comforts, too, like braised rabbit tostadas, or perfect al pastor shaved off a turning trompo, while Árabes tacos come inside supple flour tortillas tanged with sourdough.

This sunny corner room blooming with greenery and art has a casual energy that effortlessly transitions throughout the day, from chilaquiles mornings with frothy marzapán cups of peanut candy-infused cappuccino to margarita mixers for BYO spirits at night, when the menu showcases more elaborate plates. Don’t miss aguachiles like the smoked bay scallops with hominy, or the hearts of palm with chayote in citrusy verde sauce, one of several vegan options. Aparicio’s endlessly inventive specials also keep me hooked. Most recently: a creamy crab cake flattened into tostada form, and a cochinita pibil of pork shank steamed inside a parchment bundle with sour oranges and charred peppers.

Desserts are also a major highlight, thanks to daily stuffed concha variations and the ever-changing ice creams. Try the burnt tortilla flavor (like Mexican cookies and cream!), caramelized pumpkin, or boozy mezcal with orange zest. Distinctive and beautifully crafted, like so many other wonders here, you can taste them only at El Chingón.

Since Chad and Hanna Williams bought this restaurant renaissance classic in 2015, I’ve repeatedly headed to the second-floor dining room for some of the most seductive special occasion meals ever. James Beard named it America’s Outstanding Restaurant in 2023, and the Williamses haven’t let up.

The ever-evolving eight-course menu ($165) sings with originality and grace, melding cutting-edge techniques — think cryoconcentrated produce gelées — with Caribbean, Asian, and soul food references for creations like tortellini stuffed with Benton’s country ham over collards in smoky pork dashi pot likker. Coconut milk and ají dulce peppers brighten rich lobster Américaine sauce for the halibut, while the honeyed duck breast comes with a side of rice boosted with XO umami and a tangy Filipino adobo. The diverse and collaborative kitchen here, anchored by chef de cuisine India Rodriguez, is one of Friday Saturday Sunday’s best assets.

A stellar team of bartenders, led by the brilliant Paul MacDonald, is another, and the reason why an à la carte dinner at the walk-ins only Lovers Bar downstairs was one of the most fun meals I’ve had all year. I relished the lively buzz of regulars and the opportunity to revisit some of the restaurant’s early hits, like octopus with menudo beans or chicken liver mousse, paired with drinks from MacDonald’s new Cocktail Carousel. Spin the wheel and its window will land on any five ingredients (out of 21) for a harmonious blend crafted to the proportions of the 13th-century Fibonacci sequence. Herbal Becherovka, for example, could play a supporting role in a bracing welcome drink powered by genever and rhubarb liqueur, or be the cocktail’s star backed by Madeira.

That final Becherovka variation had such complexity it worked with a sublime smoked herring spaghetti as well a juicy N.Y. strip. Encrusted with shiitake-thyme dust over oxtail jus and potato mousseline, that prime cut was so deeply beefy, it got me thinking that Friday Saturday Sunday has yet another draw beyond its place as a tasting menu oasis and cherished neighborhood bar: It also serves arguably Philly’s best straight-ahead steak.

Zahav is a once-in-a-generation restaurant that changed Philly’s dining scene when it opened in 2008 with its energetic casual style, live fire grill, and lantern-lit Jerusalem limestone ambiance, becoming a national draw for its evocative takes on modern Israeli flavors. There’s a special joy to the celebratory wave of salatim that arrives with warm laffa bread and smooth-as-silk hummus to launch every meal. A legion of Philadelphians found their first root vegetable crush in those magnetic little dishes of tehina-glazed beets and cuminy Moroccan carrots.

Zahav has managed something remarkable, which many 16-year-old destination restaurants haven’t: It keeps evolving and improving. That’s no small task considering how co-owners Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook have built Zahav into an empire of other restaurant concepts and outposts, from Philadelphia to Brooklyn and South Beach. But a steady pruning and reworking of Zahav classics — you’ll never forget your first taste of tender pomegranate lamb shoulder in all its smoky, tangy, sweet, and earthy glory alongside a golden pedestal of crispy Persian rice — obliges this kitchen to continuously keep it fresh. And current chef Natasha Sabanina’s team deftly channels seasonality and innovative techniques into memorable dishes.

A recent matzo-fried okra with pickled corn and cherry tomatoes over garlic tehina was an homage to late summer’s fade into fall, as was the phyllo-wrapped haloumi with zucchini mostarda. There were fantastic coal-roasted shishlik, including a Syrian lamb kebab sparked with tart dried cherries, and a stunning skewer of flash-fried oyster mushrooms, whose precook allowed them to absorb the sweet and spicy harissa-date marinade without drying out or falling apart.

Return visitors who’ve already experienced the lamb shoulder should try another star option on the prix fixe: the dry-aged duck glazed in date molasses. It’s a Mediterranean vamp on Peking duck served with duck “dirty rice,” and kofta kebabs of duck and foie gras wrapped around cinnamon sticks. It’s a perfect match with the juicy Galia grenache noir from the Galilee that’s part of a house-labeled wine series, which adds value to the restaurant’s collection of drinks from the Levant. The whole four-course experience, in fact, is still a bargain for $85 compared to the current proliferation of more expensive tasting menus.

Zahav doesn’t really compete with those, though. This Philly icon competes with its own legacy.

Earthy goat and lamb curry, delicate dumplings shaped like tiny birds, and majestic seafood hot pots bubbling with lemongrass-tinged spice: These are just some of the spectacular dishes that have made Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon America’s most-celebrated ambassador for Southern Thai cooking.

The James Beard-winning chef, cookbook author, and Netflix Chef’s Table subject has a spectacular dining room to suit her culinary spirit with a soaring, palm-fringed space in a converted Fishtown warehouse opened with the partners behind Suraya and Pizzeria Beddia. It pulses with tropical energy as guests sip cocktails kissed with galangal and servers weave through the room with giant snowballs of shaved ice desserts drizzled with Thai tea and guava syrup.

I always crave a taste of Kalaya’s classics: shaw muang flower dumplings, mustard chive gui chai cakes, and whole branzino basking in fish sauce and lime. Nok’s irrepressible drive to keep pushing to create new dishes continually amazes, though, incorporating ideas from visits to Thailand, her own staff, and the deep repertoire of her mother, Kalaya Suntaranon, for whom the restaurant is named. There’s a new satay of pork tenderloin, inspired by a renowned stall in Bangkok’s Or Tor Kor market. The squid is now fried, which I prefer to the earlier grilled version, because the crunch of that golden turmeric crust releases a fragrant cascade of curry and lime leaf flavors. Nok isn’t even afraid to change up her popular grilled river prawns — they’re now wok-fried in the Central Thai style, but with her own glamour touch of brown butter for a lush elixir tinged with shrimp paste.

The newly introduced $75 tasting menu options were created to showcase regional favorites from Trang and Phuket, but also model how to order a meal that balances heat, sweetness, sour, and fermented funk. The fiery crunch of laab ped duck salad, for example, is buffered by the comfort of Nok’s famous wok-fried cabbage with fish sauce and palm sugar. Another new menu favorite is the massive lamb shank, her tribute to Thailand’s large Muslim community, which is simmered in Massaman curry brightened with tangy pineapple and toasted coconut flakes. It’s so darn good, it’s already obvious: Yet another Kalaya classic has been born.

Going on four years now, Amanda Shulman’s onetime Sansom Street pop-up is deeply ensconced in its jewel box restaurant phase, and its ever-changing menus are reliably fantastic. The duck fat madeleines were still warm when they arrived with foie gras and summer cherries to start a dreamy meal in July. In October, a bone-in skate wing glazed in hot Caesar butter was a spellbindingly zesty main event. There’s always a pasta stunner, too — a butternut squash goat cheese francobolli, say, or tortelloni stuffed with robiola bobbing alongside blistered tomatoes in Parmigiano rind-steeped “chicken Parm jus.” At $95 for five courses, this is a value for a meal where seasonal spontaneity and a chef’s distinctive style — sophisticated but never fussy — are always in harmony. “Nobody likes our food any more than we do,” Shulman says.

The essential energy radiates off the collaborative, all-woman chef crew in this open kitchen, bopping to Cyndi Lauper — between interludes of Bruce and AC/DC — while they dress plates and take turns entertaining the adoring crowds of 24 diners with introductions to their favorite courses.

Shulman’s skill in assembling and empowering this group, led by chef de cuisine Ana Caballero and sous-chef Santina Renzi, has been crucial as Shulman expanded her universe last year with a bustling second restaurant, My Loup, with husband and chef Alex Kemp.

With My Loup humming along, Her Place hasn’t skipped a beat, from its witty pop culture winks (house Cheez-It crackers sandwiching whipped Stilton and blueberry jam) to a deft modern touch with classic French techniques, like the silky velouté that glazed grilled swordfish and summer beans. The optional wine pairings ($85) have stepped up a level under Nicole Sullivan, who slipped in a geeky Alsatian gruenspiel (all honeycomb and marmalade) for the sweetbreads in mustard-gin sauce, and a riesling kabinett to echo the autumnal sweetness of a sublime scallop crudo with Asian pears, hazelnuts, and brown butter.

Order all the indulgent add-on specials, like the roasted bone marrow with favas and smoked almond bagna cauda, then savor the pretty dessert: our night, a Paris-Brest with apple butter and salted caramel crémeux. Don’t forget to sign the guest book. This is one dinner party you’ll want to memorialize.

Jesse Ito was already riding high atop Philly’s sushi world when he made a bold decision. He changed his successful menu format — a 15-course omakase that is the city’s loftiest splurge, at $300 (including gratuity) — to embrace dramatic new composed dishes and techniques. A new dry-aging machine, for instance, has helped intensify the flavors of Japanese bluefin, whose pink belly slices are so richly marbled, they practically melted beneath a soy-garlic glaze, creamy uni, and heady white truffle shavings that rained down for a gold-plated celebration of fall.

This was among the new dishes Ito has introduced to bring more complexity and heft to a tasting previously built around single nigiri. Those one-bite wonders, over warm bundles of pearlescent Hitomebore rice, are still there. Recently they included fatty pink fall mackerel, alabaster smooth shima aji, and torch-crisped blackthroat sea perch. But the more intricate compositions offer fresh glimpses of an evolving culinary vision — one that has made Ito’s counter, cloistered at the back of bustling Royal Izakaya, even better.

Ito is virtuosic in combining luxury ingredients so each one feels essential, not gratuitous, but he’s equally at ease in transforming humble Japanese whitebait into the ethereal cloud of a fried “dumpling” of tiny fish to be dunked in gingery tentsuyu broth. He has also revealed a more personal side with tributes to his Korean mother: a rarefied take on bibimbap with dry-aged toro, and a slice of Wagyu rib eye steeped in her galbi marinade, then torched moments before serving. One friend aptly described the morsel as “like a marshmallow, but beef.”

Of course, scoring a seat for the omakase remains annoyingly difficult, if not virtually impossible, unless you know a regular willing to gift their reservation, or get supremely lucky on Resy. A consolation is that the izakaya, whose inventive cocktails, à la carte menu, and 60 seats reserved for walk-ins only, remains a destination in its own right. There are superb sushi rolls and the stunning Royal chirashi box, while izakaya chef Justin Bacharach’s kitchen also makes Philly’s best cooked Japanese food, from irresistible clams in miso broth to a comforting Jidori egg and chicken omelet over dashi-splashed rice. Specials, from griddled onigiri rice cakes glazed with gochujang to pasta with uni cream, always delight.

Even the desserts are singular — and available to both the izakaya and omakase. No matter which side you’re seated on, grab a snifter of Japanese whisky and dive into a black sesame panna cotta or a mazu box layered with moist matcha tiramisu, and begin plotting your return.