3 Philly-area restaurants make Esquire’s list of best new restaurants

Capping a solid awards season for Philadelphia-area food businesses and chefs, Her Place Supper Club, Sweet Amalia, and Roxanne have made Esquire’s list of 40 best new restaurants in America.

Chef Amanda Shulman, a former sous chef in Marc Vetri’s orbit, opened Her Place in June 2021 at 1740 Sansom St. as a pop-up. She later made it permanent and added a liquor license. The prix fixe menu and dinner-party vibe helped land it on Inquirer critic Craig LaBan’s list of top local restaurants for 2022.

Sweet Amalia, on Route 40 in rural Newfield, Gloucester County, is a roadside farm stand, market, and restaurant from Lisa Calvo, Ed Pappas, and chef Melissa McGrath — an outgrowth of Calvo’s Delaware Bay oyster farm. It opened in April 2021 with excellent shellfish, provisions, and sandwiches, making LaBan’s best-of lists in 2021 and 2022. It was ranked 38th.

» READ MORE: The best of the best: The Inquirer's 2022 Dining Guide

Roxanne, rounding out the list at No. 40, is chef Alexandra Holt’s BYOB in the former Sabrina’s Cafe at 912 Christian St. in the Italian Market. Holt, widely traveled, named the restaurant after her mom. Esquire loved the “funky purple-walled dining room” and described the menu as “late-night munchies manifested as culinary fever dreams”; it’s also a fixed-price experience.

Given that Roxanne opened Sept. 19, 2022, it truly is the “new” restaurant of the three — pushing publishing deadlines as well as culinary boundaries.

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Esquire previously lauded Irwin’s, chef Michael Ferreri’s Sicilian aerie on top of the Bok building in South Philadelphia, on its 2021 list. Honeysuckle Project chef Omar Tate and Kalaya Thai Kitchen were on it in 2020. (Kalaya is about to open in new quarters in Fishtown, while Honeysuckle recently opened as Honeysuckle Provisions in West Philadelphia.)

Philly restaurants have won many accolades this year. In June, Cristina Martinez of South Philly Barbacoa and Casa Mexico won the James Beard Award for Mid-Atlantic chef, one of three of the five finalists from South Philadelphia. (The others were Jesse Ito of Royal Izakaya and Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon of Kalaya Thai Kitchen).

In September, Food & Wine’s best-new-chef list included Emily Riddell of Machine Shop in South Philadelphia. Bon Appetit’s best-new-restaurant list included Her Place, Irwin’s, and Korshak’s Bagels.