Which Philly Restaurants Will Make the Michelin Guide? Our Critic’s Bold Predictions

Getty Images / Illustration by Jamie Leary

As anyone who has been paying any attention these past few days already knows, the Michelin Guide just announced that Philadelphia is being added to its Northeast Cities guide, which is scheduled to be published online later this year. This is huge news. It represents an entirely new universe of expectations to which Philly’s restaurant scene will be held, and a global standard of excellence to which it will be held by those who care deeply about things like the fruit notes of wine and the threadcount of linen napkins.

At its most basic, the Guide ranks restaurants on a star system (which I have long-standing issues with in general). One star means “Worth a stop,” two stars means “Worth a detour” and three stars means “Worth a journey” — in other words, worth planning an entire vacation around. For context, there 10 Michelin three-star restaurants in Paris. In all of the United States, there are just 14: The French Laundry, Le Bernardin, Atelier Cren, places like that. And only 33 restaurants nationwide can currently lay claim to two Michelin stars.

For Philly, this has all been a long time coming. Inside the industry, the possibility of Philly being included as part of the Michelin Guide has been talked about for years — as both a potential blessing and a terrible curse. On the one hand, inclusion of our fair city into what is (arguably) the most respected and well-researched restaurant guide in the world would certainly mean more global attention being paid to our scene. That might translate to more tourism, more butts in seats, and more money for restaurant owners — all of which are good things — but might is the important word here.

The entry of the Guide into Philly’s restaurant ecosystem comes with no guarantees of success, or even notice. The breathless announcement that the anonymous, international Michelin inspectors were already on the ground in Philly considering restaurants means only and exclusively that: consideration. Philly is in the mix (along with Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, and Boston — another newcomer) for a new Northeast Cities guide, but nothing more than that is being promised.

What’s more, there has always been a very real concern that the Guide’s historic fixation on ultra-luxe, high-end fine dining, Eurocentric technique, and the lure of those elusive stars could cause a kind of flattening of style as chefs at a certain level cook toward what they believe the Guide’s methodology most commonly rewards — which is nothing but bad.

Plus, it just feels weird having our restaurants — our very, very Philly restaurants — judged by a group of inspectors with no connection at all to the city. Who likely don’t understand how or why we are the way we are. And who actually aren’t really supposed to because Michelin’s whole deal is that excellence is excellence whether it’s in Shanghai or on South Street. That location simply does not matter once you are at the table.

It’s complicated is what I’m saying. Maybe it’ll be great. Maybe it’ll be a disaster. Probably it’ll be a little bit of both. No one knows. But with all that in mind, let me also say that this is the most fun time in the process: that moment when we know our city is being included, know the inspectors are in the field, but nothing really more than that. This is the time when absolutely anything is possible, and nothing is guaranteed — when we can dream a little, wonder a little, and imagine what might be without having to grapple with the cold reality of what is.

So are there restaurants in town that I think are going to get attention simply because they cater to the kind of high-end traveling gourmand for which the Guide is written? Absolutely. Jean-Georges Philadelphia is FAR from my favorite restaurant in town, but between its big-name affiliation, views, wine list, attachment to a luxury hotel, caviar-heavy tasting menu and the rote internationalism and borderless anti-narrative quality of its menu, it’s gonna be like catnip for the Michelin crew. And places like Vetri, Parc, and Zahav are going to have inspectors crawling all over them simply because, in terms of our own modern, edible history, they are our venerated elders — restaurants with proven consistency, constancy and a commitment to excellence that has stood the test of time. And, seriously, who in their right mind could argue that Vetri isn’t one of this city’s greatest restaurants? No one, that’s who. It is warm and small and overwhelming and a meal there can change your life, so to ignore a place like that would be ridiculous.

But I’m not talking about calculation here. I’m not making a list of who will be on the short list, but who should be. It’s a daydream. A conglomeration of what-ifs. An answer to the question: If I were in charge of a literal army of professional eaters, working for the most respected, most well-funded, most rigorous dining guide in the history of the written word, and charged with creating a list of Philadelphia restaurants meant only for debaucherous, well-heeled, passport-carrying, Black Card-slinging gastronomic obsessives, where would I send them?

Here’s where I’d start …

Kalaya

Nok Suntaranon’s first restaurant was brilliant. Her second act, in Fishtown, is genius. Kalaya is everything a great restaurant should be: bold, gorgeous, endlessly inventive, deeply personal, and inextricably bound to a single creative mind. Kalaya is not just the best Thai restaurant in Philly, it might be one of the best in the world, and it owes everything to the incomparable life Nok led in the decades before she ever even thought about opening a restaurant of her own. She has lived her life with her mouth open. She has never forgotten a meal. And for Nok, cooking is a pure act of love and respect — which shows in every single dish.

Ground Provisions

Maybe I’ve been paying too much attention to all the little details of Michelin’s Philadelphia adventure so far, but when the Guide’s international director, Gwendal Poullennec, said in his press conference this week that restaurants in Philly’s suburbs could possibly be included in the Guide, it sounded to me like the kind of thing you’d only bother mentioning if you already had your eye on a place in the suburbs that was being considered. And to me, that means Ground Provisions — Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby’s vegan retreat in West Chester. It is idyllic. It is peaceful. It exists as close to the land as any restaurant reasonably could. And in this dining room, I had one of the most stunning tasting menus I’ve had anywhere — a delicious meditation of seasonality and comfort that I still think about today.

Royal Sushi and Izakaya

In my mind, the odds of Philly notching a three-star restaurant in its first year under Michelin consideration is pretty much zero. Though there have been a couple of notable exceptions, consistency and longevity are just too important to the judging criteria to reasonably expect that any Philly restaurant would get three right out of the gate. Two? That’s still an incredible long shot, but if there is any restaurant in in this city that meets the standard of being worth an intercontinental flight just for the joy of a single meal, it’s 17 courses at Jesse Ito’s omakase. If Royal doesn’t get one star the system is completely broken. But if anyone in this town has a shot at two, it’s Jesse.

Provenance

Nich Bazik’s Provenance was built from the ground up to be a Michelin-starred restaurant in a city where inclusion in the Guide was just a fantasy. Now it’s real, and this is Provenance’s moment to shine.

Bastia

A beautiful dining room, a great wine list, a brilliant kitchen and an attached boutique hotel — Tyler Akin’s Bastia has nearly the same advantages going for it that Jean-Georges does across town, but with one important difference: Bastia has a Philly soul. You eat here, in this polished dining room with its excellent bar and exquisitely restrained kitchen, and you know exactly where you are. From the Perrystead cheese and Sunday-supper osso bucco on the menu to the neighbors filling tables in the dining room, Bastia may present itself like a love-letter to Corsican summers, but its heart is pure Philly.

But what about … ?

But what about the new Honeysuckle, you say! Oh, it’s fantastic. It is community-driven, highly personal, narratively powerful, and centers the lived experiences of chefs Omar and Cybille St. Aude-Tate, but it’s just too young. Same goes for Little Water, which I adore (and which served me the best single plate I’ve had in this city since eating at Bastia). Cantina La Martina is never going to draw a crowd of international travelers. That one’s just for us. And no matter how much I love Nick Elmi’s Lark or Andiario in West Chester, I understand that the Michelin inspectors are measuring restaurants against a level of international excellence that most of our fine dining restaurants aren’t even considering.

But then again, there’s always …

The Bib Gourmand Contenders

There are currently 3,372 restaurants globally upon which Michelin has conferred its “Bib Gourmand” status — everything from Phuc Yeah in Miami Beach and Masterpiece in Duluth, Georgia to La Table du Cinq in France and Dumpling & Drinks in Chengdu. This, to me, is actually an even more exciting list to consider in a city like Philly where BYOs make up so much of the edible landscape.

According to the Michelin Guide’s own description, the Bib Gourmand designation is given to restaurants with a “simpler style of cooking, which is recognizable and easy-to-eat. A Bib Gourmand restaurant will also leave you with a sense of satisfaction, at having eaten so well at such a reasonable price.” Cheaper, easier, more approachable — that’s Bib Gourmand’s thing. And I think a lot of smaller favorites are going to pop up on this list. Places like Mawn and Tabachoy are almost definitionally Bib Gourmand restaurants. Being a BYO — in addition to being an almost aggressively neighborhood spot — likely puts a place like Illata into this same category.

Angelo’s? I’m not sure the inspectors would survive the line, but if I had to make a pick for a sandwich and a pizza that was worthy of Le Guide, it would be Angelo’s cheesesteak and an Upside Down Jawn. Her Place Supper Club was already on the list of spots being visited by Poullennec during his tour of the city, and I think it’s a coin-flip whether it ends up here or with a star, and I would’ve said the same thing about Ange Branca’s Kampar if it hadn’t been for that fire. But who knows? Maybe if it gets open again soon enough?

Like I said, this list is all about dreaming.