2 Philadelphia Eateries Make New York Times Best Restaurant List For 2025

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia's food scene is more than just cheesesteaks, and the outside world is seemingly coming to that realization after about a decade of increased attention on the standout chefs, restaurants, and bars the city has to offer.

The city's booming bar and restaurant industry has been racking up accolades, namely with numerous of James Beard Award nominations, which has led to handfuls of local winners.

One metric of the scene's success is inclusion on national "best" lists.

And two Philadelphia restaurants with their own laurels were recently featured on the 2025 Restaurant List by the New York Times.

The list, published Monday, features 50 restaurants from across the nation. Philly's Mawn and Meetinghouse are the only Pennsylvania spots to make the cut.

To develop The Restaurant List, 14 New York Times and editors took 76 flights to 33 states, where they ate more than 200 meals, the publication said. The sleuths showed up unannounced and made reservations through a smartphone app..

Here's what writer Brett Anderson said about Mawn:

The pinnacles of the menu at this modestly self-described “noodle house,” like the wild boar prahak and banh chow crepe salad, tend to lean into the Cambodian cooking the chef Phila Lorn grew up eating at home. But a tour through the whole roster of bright, salty-sour salads, curries and hot and cold noodles is to experience Southeast Asian cuisine as fenceless terrain. There isn’t a dish you won’t ache to eat again, one of the reasons reservations at Mawn are in such high demand. Another is that the restaurant embodies so much of what’s appealing about Philadelphia’s B.Y.O. restaurant scene; walking in with a bottle or two under your arm underscores how much the dining room — overseen by Rachel Lorn, Mr. Lorn’s business partner and wife — feels like a domestic space. Love that raw shrimp and chile oil special? Look out for Sao, the Lorns’ brand-new oyster and crudo bar, about a mile away.

Chef Phila Lorn of Mawn earlier this year won the "Emerging Chef" award at the 2025 James Beard Foundation Awards. Chefs who display "exceptional talent, character, and leadership ability, and who [are] likely to make a significant impact in years to come" are given the award.

Mawn is located at 764 S. Ninth St. in Philadelphia,

And here's what Nikita Richardson had to say about Meetinghouse:

One look at the Meetinghouse menu and you might wonder how such a basic menu could possibly warrant such high praise. But here, nothing is basic: An expertly dressed green salad is stacked high enough to become the stuff of restaurant legend, the hot roast beef sandwich tastes as if it were invented in the kitchen mere minutes ago, and humble pork-and-beans takes on new life. Meetinghouse is “just” a tavern, but it’s the tavern you might have fantasized about while reading historical fiction as a kid, where even the simplest dishes taste divine because of every arduous moment that led up to this meal. No need to fantasize any longer.

Esquire Magazine earlier this year named Meetinghouse among America's top 15 bars.

While the Meetinghouse menu is rather limited, the dishes are executed extremely well. From the otherworldly waffles on the brunch menu to the steak frites offered on special during Saturday dinner service, Meetinghouse's bites are spectacular.

Meetinghouse is located at 2331 E. Cumberland St. in Philadelphia.

See the full list from the New York Times online here.