Char in Kensington is a spot where you could linger, but you’ll have to grab your own water when you do (there's no staff). For now, it’s strictly counter service, and you should 100% take everything to go. But when it comes to pizza, this massive Kensington shop already has the best in the neighborhood. It’s a one-man show—the owner tosses pepperoni and caramelized onion-loaded pies into the wood-fired oven, and adds the garlic bread crumb finishing touches on a kale caesar salad moments later.
The name says it all. This walk-in-only Chinatown spot serves the biggest hand rolls in the city. Located upstairs at Chubby Cattle, you’ll find a stylish, wooden sushi counter and a dining room full of booths where friends try to make the impossible choice between 24 hand rolls on the menu and which sake to pair them with (we suggest the sweet miso butter cod and the floral house sake). If you can, grab a seat at the chef’s counter.
There’s no other restaurant in Philly quite like Provenance, the new Society Hill spot serving a $225 tasting menu that shows off 25-ish pristine French-Korean dishes. This is food in HD—you can taste every element of the lineup, which includes velvety uni with buttercup squash, ruby red bluefin tuna topped with foie gras and black truffle, and duck confit and unforgettable fresh corn polenta with pops of trout roe mixed in.
It’s impossible to miss Black Dragon Takeout, and not just because of the hypnotizing scent of fried chicken wafting from the West Philly shop. There’s the colorful mural, an electric line with someone blasting Luther Vandross, and classic Chinese menu pictures that will make deciding your order near-impossible. But once you sit down on your couch or the few tables out front and taste the cheesesteak egg rolls and jumbo shrimp, you’ll know why the Black American Chinese spot is a must-try.
The scent of smoked kielbasa will lure you onto the velvet couch in this homey Kensington restaurant. Just go with it—you’re about to eat your weight in it. There’s a long wooden bar, pickled vegetables lining the ceiling, and colorful plates on the walls that you’ll swear came from your great aunt’s house. But you’re not here because it feels like family dinner—you’re here because if you like Polish food, you can’t do much better in Philly.
Thanks to it's rundown exterior and manga covering the walls, Uni Japanese feels like a 50-year-old speakeasy izakaya that never got its liquor delivery (luckily, it’s a BYOB). While the chipped paint doesn’t exactly scream “excellent chicken katsu,” that’s what you’ll find in this easygoing Rittenhouse restaurant. There’s a sushi bar up front ideal for a comforting bowl of omurice, while in the back couples and friends split decent gyoza and sushi rolls that look like mini gardens on the plate.
Before Jim’s closed due to a fire in 2022, the retro counter-service place on South Street usually had a line longer than the TLA’s. And now that it's back, the waiting game for hoagies and cheesesteaks continues. In the name of research, we stood in front of Jim's for 90 minutes to eat soft, buttery rolls packed with ribeye and cold cuts, respectively. While the standard hoagie doesn't warrant a wait, Jim's cheesesteak is one of the better options in town.
It's easy to underestimate Hi-Lo. The corporate-looking taco spot occupies a corner of Center City dominated by hospital staff, construction workers rebuilding half of Walnut, and people catching a Sunday matinee. But don't judge a book by its chain-y cover (FWIW, it's independently owned)—they make fantastic tacos. The space has a full bar, and plenty of seating for groups downing chewy handmade tortillas filled with Old Bay shrimp, grilled steak fajita, and tangy, chimichurri-topped mushrooms.
Pizzeria Shackamaxon, the takeout-only shop in Fishtown, makes slices so good that we’d happily line up for them during a rainstorm. Thankfully, we no longer have to. Their sister shop and BYOB in Port Richmond offers a major upgrade from scarfing tomato pies on the pavement, plus the ability to order online for pickup and delivery. Pizza Richmond has a large dining room packed with nostalgia, but the fun won’t distract you from the headliner here: the incredible, thin-sliced pizza.
When Saté Kampar was in East Passyunk, it was a coffee shop-restaurant hybrid that served well-seasoned meat and rice dishes. This iteration of the Malaysian restaurant still offers fragrant nasi lemak and tender beef rendang, now in a home just off South Street. They upgraded to a bi-level space (a kongsi upstairs with a bar and a la carte menu, and a kopitiam-style restaurant downstairs with a tasting menu from chefs in residency).