Philly’s Most Instagram-Worthy Dishes That Are Actually Good

The tom yum at Kalaya / Photograph by Michael Persico

Picture this: You’re out to dinner with friends, and as soon as the food hits the table, the most social media-savvy one of the group declares, “The phone eats first,” as they snap photos for the ‘gram.

It’s a common occurrence, especially now in the age of social media. And as influencers and average diners alike continue to document their culinary escapades, more and more restaurants are leaning in, oftentimes creating dishes for the purpose of going viral. They may be photogenic fodder for your social media feeds, but the result is food that is all style and no substance.

But not always! There’s an art to pulling off an unforgettable dish that is both attention-grabbing and flavorful; it often comes down to a chef’s culinary philosophy. Here, Philly chefs reveal the secrets behind their most stunning, showstopping, and, yes, Instagrammable dishes.

Glamour is as glamour does.

In and outside of the kitchen, Nok Suntaranon knows a thing or two about style. The James Beard-winning chef has been known to cook in couture, so it’s no surprise that the flavorful southern Thai food at her Fishtown restaurant Kalaya is just as fabulous.

Suntaranon thinks of styling her food like getting dressed. She considers the colors in a dish and pairs vibrant plates with certain foods to jazz them up. For example, the moo yaang prik, a grilled mangalitsa pork chop, is served on a colorful plate with an animal print and rests on a bed of cilantro leaves for a pop of green. “I love colors,” Suntaranon says. “It’s just like how I dress myself. I do the same thing with my food.”

Of course, appearance is just one piece of the puzzle, and when composing any dish, the process begins with the ingredients. “We think about how to make the presentation a showstopper,” she says. When she’s working on the presentation of a menu item, Suntaranon says she’s looking “to create the wow factor. I want jaw-dropping gorgeous when each dish walks through the dining room.”

Tom yum from Kalaya / Photograph by Michael Persico

Nothing on the menu says “jaw-dropping gorgeous” more than the tom yum. The spicy-sour soup is served in a hot pot and assembled like a seafood tower with giant river prawns perched over the rim, as though it’s dripping in jewels. The dish is just as rich in flavor, with barramundi, mushroom, and shallot in a lemongrass-tinged broth made with chili jam and evaporated milk. Served with jasmine rice on the side, the soup is designed for sharing and stands out as a centerpiece for the table.

Suntaranon says the tom yum has always sold well, and naturally, the restaurant has seen an uptick in orders for the soup following its appearance on the latest season of Netflix’s Chef’s Table.

It also often pops up on Instagram, where diners share their photos of the dish. The chef is well aware that looks matter: “All the dishes have to be super eye-catching because this is the world of social media,” she says. “Every dish has to be super photogenic.”

In the case of the tom yum, the soup’s good looks are intentional. In Suntaranon’s cookbook, Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen, there’s a recipe for a humbler version, but at the restaurant, it’s dressed to the nines. When I ask the chef why she wanted to give the soup a makeover, her answer is simple: “Glamorous is a lifestyle,” she says. “That’s the life I choose, and food is my life. And that’s me.”

The nam kaeng sai (shaved ice) at Kalaya / Photograph by Mike Prince

Suntaranon takes a similar approach to Kalaya’s nam kaeng sai, or Thai shaved ice. The dessert always makes an impression, attracting the attention of anyone in its path to the table. The dish is a tribute to the simple treat that Suntaranon would get at the market in her hometown. The one place to get shaved ice was at the stall next to the bathroom, she remembers, and the man selling it had no say over his booth’s location. Still, people would show up for the shaved ice, sweet relief from the humidity and heat.

At Kalaya, the shaved ice gets its moment to shine. The flavors change with the seasons — right now, there’s coconut pineapple (with strawberry compote, coconut jelly, and pandan tapioca pudding) and coffee caramel (with Thai iced coffee, banana panna cotta, and chocolate crumble) — but the dessert is presented beautifully every time. While the presentation of the shaved ice is modified according to its flavor, it’s always piled high in a bowl and typically decorated with fruit compote or caramel, a dollop of cream, sometimes a dusting of chocolate, and a garnish of Thai basil leaves. As you eat, the ice falls away to reveal a creamy pudding in the center. It’s refreshing and delicious, like water ice with a glow-up.

Build an experience with the best ingredients.

Barclay Prime’s $140 cheesesteak isn’t a mere sandwich — it’s an experience.

First, a demi-bottle of Champagne comes to the table. Then, the cheesesteak arrives: a beautiful behemoth that takes up most of the plate and begs to be photographed.

The sandwich is built on a sesame roll, made to spec at the nearby Parc and cut neatly at the top so that the meat doesn’t spill out. Inside, there are six varieties of hand-cut Wagyu — three Japanese (olive, omi, and kobe) and three American (from Snake River Farms, Lone Mountain, and Mishima Reserve) — that’s seared and tossed in a Périgourdine sauce made with foie gras, truffle, and a house-made jus, combined with Cooper Sharp, then topped with grated truffle.

There are a lot of fancy ingredients in the sandwich, but they’re not frivolous. It’s simply a fantastic, unapologetically luxurious cheesesteak.

It’s not just the cheesesteak that makes an impression; the accompaniments are just as well thought-out. The garnish of pickled peppers served on the side brings color to the plate and a jolt of acidity to cut the richness of the cheesesteak. And, as my friendly server tells me when he pours me a glass of Champagne, the notes of almond and brioche complement the main dish, while the bubbles clear the palate between bites.

Barclay Prime’s $140 cheesesteak is topped with shaved truffle. / Photograph by Gab Bonghi

Matt Smith, executive chef at Barclay Prime, says the cheesesteak isn’t trying to do too much. “If you have that great a product, you don’t need to overdo it,” he says. “The cheesesteak is great because we’re not faffing around — we’re not doing all these bells and whistles to make it look good. We’re essentially making a cheesesteak. And that’s it.” He adds that it’s the integrity of the ingredients, sourced from high-quality farms, that make the sandwich a star.

The cheesesteak on the menu today differs from earlier iterations that have been offered since Barclay Prime opened in 2004. Originally, it was $100, but over the years, inflation and the rising cost of ingredients have increased the price. In 2023, Smith and his predecessor, Mark Twersky, now a corporate chef at Stephen Starr, revamped the dish. The two tried virtually every cheesesteak in the city in an effort to make their own “next level,” Smith says. He estimates that they spent six months on the cheesesteak, tinkering with the various components of the dish. They tried several kinds of cheese before deciding on Cooper Sharp, which could hold its own in the company of strong flavors, and experimented with the truffle application until they landed on the winning method: grated on top so that “it subtly melts at a touch” and with “every single bite, you get that truffle.”

At the end of the day, Smith says, the goal was to create a memorable cheesesteak. “Everybody’s had a cheesesteak, but we want ours to be the cheesesteak,” Smith says. “We want it to be the one that people remember the most.” I know I won’t forget it anytime soon.

Create variety, bite after bite.

After mezze at Suraya, you might feel inclined to skip dessert — but that would be a mistake. You’ll want to save room for the Fishtown restaurant’s kanafeh, an elegant Middle Eastern dessert that’s a joy to eat.

The crispy, round pastry comes to the table on a glass plate adorned with candied rose petals and chopped pistachios. Made with semolina on the bottom and kataifi on top, the dessert has a fine, crackly finish (a product of the phyllo shreds in the kataifi). Inside, there’s a gooey, cheese-curd core made with mozzarella for the cheese pull of your dreams. A carafe of rose-blossom syrup and two mini sesame pitas are served on the side. As the server pours some syrup over the kanafeh — a moment some might capture for Instagram — they recommend stuffing the pitas with the dessert to make a sandwich (kanafeh is sometimes eaten this way for breakfast). And the syrup stays at the table, so you can add more if you’d like.

The kanafeh at Suraya / Photograph by Mike Prince

When creating Suraya’s version of the dessert, pastry chef James Matty wanted it to be somewhat customizable, giving diners control over how they eat it. He also didn’t want to saturate the pastry with syrup. “As soon as you put that on there, it can start to make the crispy top and the bottom a little bit more soggy,” he says. The pastry gets its crunch from flaky kataifi, while the semolina has been cooked with ghee, milk, sugar, and salt to give the dessert a rich, toasty flavor.

Building the kanafeh this way is “a little more work,” Matty says, “but in the end I feel like it’s a much more special product.” To further maintain the quality, each kanafeh is made to order; “if you try to pre-bake them and warm them up, it’s just not the same,” the chef says.

As Matty points out, kanafeh is prepared and eaten in a variety of ways across the Middle East. The pastry chef visited Dearborn, Michigan — the first Arab-majority city in the United States — to try different renditions of the dessert before experimenting in the kitchen and combining elements of the kanafeh he liked best. The result is delicious: a melange of crunchy, chewy textures and nutty, slightly floral flavors. “It hits a lot of different sensory receptors,” Matty says. “There’s sweet, there’s salty, there’s fatty, there’s crispy.” The key to the kanafeh was balancing those components, the pastry chef says, to create a dish that’s “multi-dimensional and not just something that tastes the same all the way through.”

It’s no wonder the dessert is one of the restaurant’s top sellers and that Matty hasn’t felt the need to change it over the years. Between the rose syrup-laden pastry, melty cheese, pistachio, and pillowy sesame pita, every bite is a gift.