50 Best Restaurants in Philadelphia

Last updated: March 17, 2018

50 Best Restaurants in Philadelphia by Rank

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18. Zeppoli

Collingswood | Italian
618 Collings Avenue, 856-854-2670

Considering this is a city with a million Italian restaurants, a place has to be pretty special to warrant us actually leaving its limits for a plate of pasta. Zeppoli is that special.

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19. Noord eetcafé

East Passyunk | Northern European
1046 Tasker Street, 267-909-9704

We didn’t even know we liked bitterballen, snert and pickled herring before Joncarl Lachman opened Noord. Now, we can’t imagine living without them.

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20. The Good King Tavern

Bella Vista | French
614 South 7th Street, 215-625-3700

In an ideal world, every neighborhood bar would have a kitchen that served a perfect steak frites, shareable socca, and burgers studded with cornichons. While we may not live in a perfect world, we do have the Good King, and some days, that almost feels like enough.

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21. Res Ipsa

Rittenhouse | Italian
2218 Walnut Street, 267-519-0329

By day, a funky little neighborhood coffee shop and lunch spot with excellent breakfast sandwiches. But five nights a week, Res Ipsa turns down the lights and becomes the city’s best modern Italian BYO, with perfect spaghetti and clams, amazing grilled octopus, and specials that are sometimes good enough to make you wish you had a time machine so you could come back and eat them all over again.

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22. Little Fish

Queen Village | Seafood
746 South 6th Street, 267-455-0172

Little Fish is so little. Being there feels like chef-owner Alex Yoon is cooking your food right at your table, like you’ve hired him for the night. And his cooking is as light as air — as it should be, seafood is often better left untouched. The restaurant itself? Darling, with hand-written menus and chummy, professional service. It’s all just so… adorable.

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23. Fond

East Passyunk | American
1537 South 11th Street, 215-551-5000

Where else but in Lee Styer’s kitchen could Korean beef tartare and Spanish octopus rub shoulders with pork belly over cheddar grits and grilled duck hearts — and none of it seem the least bit out of place?

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24. Will

East Passyunk | French
1911 East Passyunk Avenue, East Passyunk, 215-271-7683

What was once one of this city’s most daring modernist kitchens has mellowed over the years, finding a delicate middle ground between the cutting edge and the comforting.

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25. Cheu Fishtown

Fishtown| Asian
1416 Frankford Avenue, 267-758-2269

It was Cheu that brought back Asian fusion — that made it intellectual and cool and fun again. With its black garlic chicken wings, falafel buns, brisket ramen and smoked pork dumplings, Cheu gave a new vitality to a cuisine that had been a joke for too long. And with the new, larger Fishtown location, partners Ben Puchowitz and Shawn Darragh have brought to life their best version of the restaurant that changed it all.

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26. V Street

Vegetarian | Rittenhouse
126 South 19th Street, 215-278-7943

AIt’s one of the coolest bars in the entire city, and its kitchen is dedicated to making delicious, all-vegetable versions of classic global street eats. V Street’s whole thing is so impossibly right, impossibly good, that the fact that it’s all vegan feels like a prank. It’s not — it’s just the real deal.

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27. Hardena

Point Breeze | Indonesian
1754 South Hicks Street, 215-271-9442

Yeah, one of the best restaurants in the city, and you’ll walk out the door having spent only $20 or so for a filling, satisfying, delicious meal for two. Modeled after Indonesian workingman’s cafes, it’s where to go for beef rendang over rice, served cafeteria-style, with sambal over everything. It’s a place of startling authenticity and deliciousness.

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28. Helm

Kensington | New American
1305 North 5th Street, 215-309-2211

Helm is the ultimate example of that small, intimate, chef-driven place where everything on the ever-changing chalkboard menu is there because the kitchen wants it to be, and you’re friends with half the dining room before you even sit down.

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29. Saté Kampar

East Passyunk | Malaysian
1837 East Passyunk Avenue, 267-324-3860

There’s only one way to do Saté Kampar: Dive right in. Order as many sticks of saté as you can, get messy with a bowl of snow crabs, drink from a coconut.

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30. Royal Boucherie

Old City | French
52 South 2nd Street, (267) 606-6313

Come here for the raw bar, because the seafood tower here is one of the city’s best. Come here for the cured meats and patés and terrines, because they’re all made in-house (and again — some of the city’s best). The entrées are ambitious, the wine list is on point, the cocktails are classic, and the vibe — boisterous and unrestrained — gives new meaning to what upscale French dining means in Philly today.

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31. Perla

East Passyunk | Filipino
1535 South 11th Street, 267-273-0008

Turns out an upscale Filipino restaurant that occasionally becomes an eat-with-your-hands, banana-leaves-on-the-table family-style feast is just what we needed.

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32. Stock

Fishtown | Southeast Asian
308 East Girard Avenue, no phone

Tyler Akin has poured years of dedication, professional training and research trips to Southeast Asia into his 18-seat BYO. You can tell, because Stock puts out some of the best noodle soups, salads and banh mi in the entire city.

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33. Southwark

Queen Village | New American
701 South 4th Street, 267-930-8538

A comfortable American bistro complete with a charming backyard patio (for when it’s warm), a bar that cares (but never takes itself too seriously), and a kitchen that really invests in its surrounding community — sourcing locally, keeping the menu light and fun, and holding the doors open late for industry folk.

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34. El Compadre

Bella Vista | Mexican
1149 South 9th Street, 267-746-7658

Everything that could be said of Cristina Martinez’s lamb barbacoa has already been said, so let’s move the conversation over to those perfect weekday tortas (built on house-baked bread) and the most soulful guisados in all of Philly — two more reasons to obsess over this 9th Street restaurant.

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35. Kensington Quarters

Fishtown | American
1310 Frankford Avenue, 267-314-5086

Last year, Kensington Quarters went through a small remodel that focused the space as more restaurant (which was always what it was best at), less custom butcher shop. They followed that up with a series of pop-up dinners, wine dinners, and oddities like aging and serving 100-day rib-eye steaks. The result is a restaurant experience that’s better now than it’s ever been (and it was always pretty good).

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36. High Street on Market

Old City | American
308 Market Street, 215-625-0988

During the day, High Street’s sandwiches (breakfast and otherwise) are among the greatest in the city. At night, the kitchen’s let loose to do its thing: novel homemade pastas, gorgeous vegetables, and pasture-raised meats cooked perfectly.

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37. Stargazy 

East Passyunk | British
1838 East Passyunk Avenue, 215-309-2761

When Stargazy opened, it was like a proof-of-concept that small, weird, chef-driven restaurants can not just survive in Philly, but thrive. Today, chef Sam Jacobson’s very British pie shop continues to exert an outsize influence on the neighborhood and serve some of the most comforting sausage rolls, meat pies and baked goods in the city.

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38. Bud & Marilyn’s

Midtown Village | American
1234 Locust Street, 215-546-2220

Apparently, Philly was craving a 1970s Midwestern-themed restaurant — which is exactly what Bud & Marilyn’s is — serving the meatloaf, fried chicken and cheese curds of your youth in a slick, deliberately tacky space.

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39. Le Virtù

East Passyunk | Italian
1927 East Passyunk Avenue, 215-271-5626

Today, the restaurant remains the rustic, traditional Abruzzese restaurant it’s always been. And you can rest easy knowing that Le Virtù’s kitchen is in good hands with Damon Menapace at the helm.

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40. Russet

Center City | American
1521 Spruce Street, 215-546-1521

Simple, honest-to-goodness cooking from a small, farm-focused kitchen in Rittenhouse. Rusticity here is timeless, not a played-out trend.

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41. Talula’s Garden

Washington Square West | New American
210 West Washington Square, 215-592-7787

Sure, the idyllic garden itself is all the reason you need to go to Aimee Olexy’s Washington Square restaurant. But it’s really her dedication to a purer form of modern American cookery — so smart, fresh and real — that keeps Talula’s forever on our minds and at the tips of our tongues.

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42. Poi Dog

Rittenhouse | Hawaiian
102 South 21st Street, 215-279-7015

Simply put, Poi Dog is the happiest restaurant in Philadelphia, thanks to the brightly colored, delightfully low-rent space, the smiling staff and simple fast-casual ordering, and, mostly, the food — giant plate lunches of nori fried chicken, rice and macaroni salad and Spam musubi, with Okinawan doughnuts for dessert.

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43. Rangoon

Chinatown | Burmese
112 North 9th Street, 215-829-8939

Since the late ’80s, diners have armed themselves with homemade thousand-layer bread to rip and dip their way through the deeply spiced curries and sweet-and-sour heat of the Chinatown landmark’s traditional Burmese kitchen.

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44. Oyster House

Center City | Seafood
1516 Sansom Street, 215-567-7683

From the curated gin list and the expert shuckers who love to talk bivalves to tasting dinners, a killer happy hour, and a smart way of balancing nostalgia with modernity, Oyster House never stops trying to be better than it was yesterday.

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45. American Sardine Bar

Point Breeze | Gastropub
1800 Federal Street, 215-334-2337

If nothing else, Philly is really, really good at the gastropub — and there’s no better spot in the city to throw down on excellent sandwiches, grilled sardines (natch) and pints of Nodding Head than at American Sardine Bar — a gastropub for this new era in dining.

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46. Kim’s

Olney | Korean
5955 North 5th Street, 215-927-4550

The banchan are never boring, the staff is friendly and helpful to rookies, and the menu of things to put on the tabletop grills (fired with real hardwood charcoal) is big enough to be interesting but not so big that it’s overwhelming. Kim’s is family-friendly, down-and-dirty Korean BBQ done exactly right. Plus, free ice cream for dessert!

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47. Rooster Soup Co.

Rittenhouse | American
1526 Sansom Street, 215-454-6939

Between the bowls of smoked matzo ball soup, ham-and-biscuit sandwiches, life-altering banana cream pie, and weekends complete with boozy brunches and late-night breakfast karaoke, Michael Solomonov’s diner concept would have been good enough already. But the fact that it exists to generate donations to help the city’s most vulnerable, with 100 percent of profits going to the Broad Street Ministry? That makes it special.

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48. Kanella Grill

Washington Square West | Cypriot-Greek
1001 Spruce Street, 267-928-2085

There’s Kanella South, with its wood-fired ovens, charcoal spit, elaborate entrées and Greek wines, and then there’s Kanella Grill, its little sister — a BYOB armed with just a grill, some meats, fresh vegetables and a whole lot of herbs. Call it your once-a-week, no-frills street-food spot.

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49. Brigantessa

East Passyunk | Italian
1520 East Passyunk Avenue, 267-318-7341

In the summer, dinner at Brigantessa can easily become the best South Philly Italian lawn party you’ve ever been to. And in the winter, there’s no cozier place to hole up with some super-traditional Neapolitan pizza and a bountiful spread of rotating antipasti.

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50. Mr. Martino’s Trattoria

East Passyunk | Italian
1646 East Passyunk Avenue, 215-755-0663

Step inside this weekends-only BYOB on East Passyunk Avenue, and time will literally stop. The Earth won’t spin; the outside world will cease to exist. Mr. Martino’s is transportive — a restaurant where the simplest pleasures, like friendly service and pasta fagioli, strip away all but a perfect evening.

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50 Best Restaurants in Philadelphia, Mapped

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