Chefs Mouth Off! Totally Anonymous, Deliciously Juicy

In addition to ranking the 50 best restaurants in the January issue of Philadelphia magazine, we also conducted an anonymous survey of local chefs and restaurateurs to get their take on the state of the dining scene and boy, did they ever tell us how they really feel!

The questions were wide-ranging, covering everything from who they think are the town’s most underrated chefs to which restaurants are the most overrated to what they really think about their customers. What did we learn? Well, the restaurants they think are the best are also the some of the ones they think are most overrated. They admire both Jose Garces and Stephen Starr, but they also think Benny Lai of Vietnam deserves major props. They, unsurprisingly, spewed some serious vitriol about Yelp. A lot of them know what Craig LaBan looks like (although we neglected to ask how many might throw him out of their restaurant if he showed up). They are confused about the suburbs and optimistic about Philly’s pizza situation. Basically, they’re all over the map.

Check out the PDFs from the issue below.

Chefs Mouth Off – Pages 1, 2 (PDF)
Chefs Mouth Off – Page 3, 4 (PDF)
View all Four Pages Together (PDF)