Two Philly-area restaurants named in New York Times’ 2022 top restaurants
Spots in South Philly and suburban Philly ranked among 48 others in the paper's favorite 50 restaurants in 2022.
Philadelphians don’t need anyone’s approval, especially not New Yorkers. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care when we get recognition.
So two Philly-area restaurants — Gabriella’s Vietnam in East Passyunk and Andiario in West Chester — have something to celebrate: They were named among the New York Times’ top 50 restaurants of 2022.
The Times praised Andiario’s ability to showcase Pennsylvania ingredients in its Italian fare, and singled out the presentation of chef Thanh Nguyen’s contemporary Vietnamese cuisine, “as thrilling as the flavors.”
The accolades won’t come as a surprise to Inquirer readers. Andiario has been among restaurant critic Craig LaBan’s favorites since it opened in 2018, when he declared it “the suburbs’ best new restaurant,” and it’s only gotten better since.
Gabriella’s Vietnam also caught LaBan’s attention from the get-go. “No other Vietnamese restaurant I’ve encountered here has a chef cooking quite like Thanh is now at Gabriella’s. And it was thrilling,” he wrote in July 2021, a few months after it opened. It was featured on his list of best new restaurants in 2021.
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The Times’ restaurant list featured a plethora of New York-, L.A.-, and San Francisco-based spots, but it also highlighted restaurants in Oklahoma City; Gretna, La.; Juncos, Puerto Rico; and Bentonville, Ark. One additional Pennsylvania restaurant made the list, as well: Pittsburgh’s Apteka, which specializes in Central and Eastern European vegan fare.