Podcast: Behind the Scenes of the 50 Best Restaurants
This year’s 50 Best Restaurant contributors dish on the friendly feuds, lengthy research, and surprising picks that went into our annual dining guide.
Dishes from Pietramala’s menu / Photograph by Gab Bonghi; Philly Mag Today logo by Jamie Leary
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Since its inception in 2008, Philadelphia magazine’s 50 Best Restaurants has been the city’s most definitive dining guide. And to make it happen year after year — to capture Philly’s incredibly diverse and sizable dining scene and distill it down to just 50 exceptional restaurants — is a Herculean effort. It requires months of research dining at restaurants, trying a bewildering number of dishes (so many that we’ve shocked a few servers … and the accountants who see our expense reports), hours upon hours of deliberation and debating, and countless group texts with the Philly Mag staff and its contributors.
Food editor Kae Lani Palmisano led this year’s list, but she couldn’t do it alone. Longtime critic Jason Sheehan and prolific food and travel writer Adam Erace — each with decades’ worth of knowledge of the intricacies of our city’s restaurant industry — joined her on this annual odyssey through Philly’s vast dining world.
In the latest episode of our Philly Mag Today podcast, Palmisano sits down with Sheehan and Erace to talk about what went into this year’s list, including heated debates and unexpected twists that happened behind the scenes, and each contributor’s dark horse picks.
Listen to Philly Mag Today to hear more about our opinions on the impact the world’s most prestigious restaurant awards will have on Philadelphia. And be sure to subscribe to Philly Mag Today on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’ll be sharing stories that reveal some sliver of life in our city today, whether that’s insightful commentary on the latest news, fresh takes on what’s happening in the food scene, profiles of the people shaping the way we live, or just the best reads Philadelphia magazine has to offer.
