If you’re from Pennsylvania, your home state made an extremely exclusive list.
Eater’s famed-list of restaurants across the country has been highly revered for years, and it has highlighted at least 160,000 restaurants on its radar over the past two decades.
If a restaurant made the “All Time Eater” list, you’d better believe that the place has been deemed worthy of a sit-down for a taste of the decadent food, a strong drink, or an out-of-this-world experience.
The Eater team set out to cultivate 38 of the most influential restaurants of the past 20 years and — great news for Pennsylvania — two establishments in the Keystone State have made the list.
First up is, South Philly Barbacoa. Located in Philadelphia, the restaurant was the brainchild of Capulhuac, Mexico-born chef Cristina Martinez, who launched South Philly Barbacoa in 2014 as a food cart.
The cart ended up attracting lines of customers down the block, waiting to try its slow-cooked lamb. The following year, Martinez and her husband, chef Ben Miller, moved to a brick-and-mortar location. Before they knew it, the awards came flooding in like running water.
South Philly Barbacoa is known for its pit-braised lamb, offal sausage, (a spicy grind of kidneys, hearts, herbs, and chiles), house-nixtamalized tortillas, and steaming bowls of consomé laced with barbacoa drippings over rice and garbanzos.
It’s also worth noting that Martinez is largely credited with catapulting the popularity of barbacoa in the U.S, according to Eater.
Another Philadelphia eatery that made the list is Zahav.
When the Israeli dining spot opened in 2008, Eater said it set a standard that catapulted the cuisine into the spotlight.
As Zahav’s popularity grew, it turned into a showcase for chef Mike Solomonov’s dishes that include silky hummus with laffa and pomegranate lamb shoulder.
The food site said that its success has helped shape Philadelphia’s modern restaurant scene.
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