The best restaurants in Philadelphia for 2026

Celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten takes to the sky at one of Philly’s most dramatic restaurant spaces. Floor-to-ceiling windows provide an unforgettable backdrop for celebratory cocktails or a special-occasion meal at the top of the Four Seasons Hotel in Center City. It’s a fitting atmosphere to splurge on Osetra caviar, or you could go for something more casual but equally good, such as black truffle and fontina pizza.

Wife-and-husband duo Hanna and Chad Williams purchased this beloved neighborhood spot in 2015, transforming it into one of the city’s top tasting-menu destinations—and a James Beard Award-winner and one of the city’s first-ever MICHELIN Stars. Ever-evolving seasonal dishes like sweetbreads with plantains and mushrooms are elegant but never fussy, as is service in the cozy and bright dining room. Swing by the restaurant’s downstairs bar, a James Beard finalist, for a post-dinner cocktail.

Travel to Belle Epoque Paris at this beloved Rittenhouse Square French bistro from famed restaurateur Stephen Starr. You’ll find all the regular charming markers: globe lights, cozy red-leather booths, and windows that look out on the street. The next-level bistro fare like onion soup gratinée and steak frites along with a glass from the comprehensive wine list will make you want to linger.

More than 20 years into its run, James Beard Award-winning restaurateur Ellen Yin’s pioneering restaurant is still a hotspot for elegant, farm-to-table fare. Dig into hyper-seasonal dishes that could include dry-aged, grass-fed steak with bone marrow butter, potatoes, and bibb lettuce in the inviting dining room dressed with colorful murals and lush greenery. Add in a pitch-perfect wine list and exceptional service, and this is a neighborhood destination you’ll want to return to again and again.

One of Philadelphia’s most unique dining experiences, Moshulu brings diners aboard the deck of a more-than-century-old ship that’s been docked on the Delaware for upscale seafood since 1996. The landmark restaurant, featured in movies like “Rocky” and “The Godfather Part II,” serves up standout dishes like an “Admiral’s Plateau” of oysters, crab mac and cheese, and lobster frites.

Fiorella is another Italian hit from acclaimed restauranteur and James Beard Award-winning chef Marc Vetri. Located in a historic butcher shop decked with a striking Venetian glass chandelier, the intimate restaurant serves up stellar seasonal pasta that could include cavatelli with ramps and shrimp. Linger with a glass of wine from the all-Italian list or an innovative cocktail like the dirty pasta water martini.

All the Jean-Georges Vongerichten signatures that made the global celebrity chef famous, from egg toast with caviar to yellowfin tuna noodles in ginger dressing, are present in the six-course tasting at this fine-dining Philly outpost in the Four Seasons. But there are also local takes on dishes using seasonal ingredients from the Rittenhouse Farmers Market nearby Lancaster Farms Company. It all makes for a high-end experience unique to the city.

A lively noodle house that prides itself on having “no rules,” Mawn is the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo and restaurant vets Phila and Rachel Lorn and was named one of the toughest reservations in town by the Philadelphia Inquirer. At the cozy, bustling restaurant, first-generation Cambodian American chef Phila puts his personal spin on traditional Southeast Asian dishes like khao soi and Thai crab fried rice—spins that have earned him a 2025 James Beard Award win for Emerging Chef.

Bastia is a stylish Mediterranean restaurant inside Fishtown’s Michelin Key Hotel Anna & Bel with executive chef Michael McDonough at the helm. Pull up a seat at the bar or settle into a cozy table by the fireplace to dig into seafood-forward dishes and handmade pastas inspired by the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia. Pair it with playful cocktails and riffs on classic aperitivi. This is an all-day cafe made for lingering.

This seafood institution in Center City dates back to 1947. Restaurateur Sam Mink is the third generation behind the beloved oyster bar, and locals and tourists alike keep coming back for super-fresh seafood towers, lobster rolls, and crab cakes. Belly up to the raw bar in the center of the space to watch the pros shuck oysters in seconds. Cocktails include a mini menu of oyster shooters and an impressively deep selection of gin.

The only Philadelphia restaurant on Esquire’s Best New Restaurants 2025 list, Emmett has emerged as one of the most exciting tables in the city since chef Evan Snyder and partner Julian van der Tak — a former chef born in Marseille to a French-Algerian family — opened it on West Girard Avenue in early 2025. The menu is Mediterranean in the broadest and most generous sense: Levantine spice blends, North African herbs, French technique, Italian pasta formats, all working together through Snyder’s own culinary imagination. Sesame-crusted madeleines with ras el hanout butter to start; dry-aged duck breast with pear, dates, and saffron-fennel purée; halibut wrapped in sea lettuce and served in green harissa. A rye tartlet with American wagyu tartare and a lamb fat-washed rye cocktail have both become signatures at this boundary-pushing modern restaurant.