A member of Craig LaBan's Top 25 Philly restaurants, Chad and Hanna Williams’ three-bell modern revamp of this Restaurant Renaissance gem is one of the most complete fine-dining destinations in Philly. Chad leads a hyper diverse kitchen that channels its many cultures into a menu with both edge and polish, from sweetbread katsu to many ingredients from his West Philly childhood, like oxtails, cracklins’ and collards, that appear in creative and surprising ways.

Camden’s Queen of Soul Food, Corinne Bradley-Powers, has been going strong on Haddon Avenue for three decades. It could be the Cajun-spiced turkey wings, picnic-perfect black-eyed peas or sweet potato pie. But for food critic Craig LaBan, it’s a traditional fried chicken that’s still the region’s best.

Saba Tedla’s lively restaurant and bar brings a fresh breath of Southern flavors, live jazz, and weekend brunch energy to Cedar Park. Reviewed with two bells in February and open for takeout (plus outdoor dining soon) during the pandemic, its diverse clientele comes for the blackened catfish, chicken and waffles, seafood mac-’n-cheese, stewed oxtails, and vegan options, proving Booker’s to be a valuable anchor for a West Philly neighborhood grappling with gentrification.

Philly has a long tradition of fried seafood sandwiches, especially standbys like the Muslim fish hoagie at Sister Muhammad’s Kitchen in Germantown that rank among the city’s most popular. But when Joshua Coston decided to leave his career as an Amtrak conductor to open Gilben’s Bakery in East Mount Airy, the chef’s menu of seafood po’ boys on fresh garlic bread became a phenomenon on its own, in particular the fantastic fried salmon po’boy. Soul Food Sunday platters are also a draw.

Brothers Ben and Robert Bynum have been a prominent force on Philly’s dining and live music scenes since launching their first Zanzibar Blue in 1990. Two of their current restaurants have become important anchors for North Broad Street’s revival, the new Southern flavors and live jazz of upscale South and its more casual neighbor Green Soul, which aims for lighter, healthy takes on flavors of the African diaspora served in a multipurpose event space.

They don’t call Sid Booker Sr. the “Colonel of Shrimp” for nothing. The pink takeout window at Belfield and Broad serves nothing else, and has been a late-night destination for paper boats brimming with deep-fried jumbo shrimp since 1962. These greaseless crustaceans are so sweet and delicately crunchy, they’re best devoured right there, on the dashboard of your car.

Doug Henri’s road house on the Black Horse Pike is a must-stop on the way to the Jersey Shore. The barbecue is reliably among the region’s best (ribs and chicken, in particular), but I’ve come to consider his weekend soul food buffets the most worthy reason to visit, including some of the best fried chicken (and fried chicken wings) anywhere.

Philly’s Haitian community has a worthy standby in this unassuming Olney café and market. Food critic Craig LaBan visited last year for a lunch so flavorful he says he can still taste the crispy pork griot with riz collé (rice and peas), spicy pikliz slaw, and perfect fried acra and marinade fritters. The fried goat cabrit was also a treat, washed down with a ginseng-spiced energy drink to the beat of merengue videos on the TV.

One of the original pioneers of West Philly’s Ethiopian community remains a great bet for injera flatbread platters laden with spicy minced kitfo, doro wat chicken, and vegetarian stews like kir qey wot (yellow lentils) and ye gomen wat collards.

Fried fish and buttery grits are a North Philly morning tradition, and it’s a worthy favorite on the menu of Desiree and Robert Pollard’s fast-growing brunch empire. Food critic Craig LaBan visited their fourth Breakfast Boutique, opened in Mount Airy last year, and found the cornmeal-crusted whiting fillets fantastic. But don’t sleep on the crisp salmon cakes, either, with big chunks of fresh fish bound in a moist dressing that perked even more with vinaigrette on the side.