In a city with a restaurant scene that runs from old-school red gravy joints to newly minted Michelin-starred spots, Philadelphia has no shortage of places worth seeking out. And in the last several years, Fishtown has emerged as one of the city’s most dynamic dining corridors.
That transformation didn’t happen overnight. Post-industrial spaces gradually filled in with music venues, cafes, and restaurants, turning a working-class River Wards neighborhood into a destination that now rivals any corner of Philly for sheer dining density.
Fishtown’s name nods to its earliest identity — a riverside community shaped by fishing and trades tied to the Delaware. Like so many industrial pockets in Northeastern cities, the neighborhood weathered deindustrialization before reemerging with new energy. A key inflection point came in the mid-2000s when neighborhood corner bar Johnny Brenda’s added a live music venue that started pulling crowds from well beyond the neighborhood. Not long after, big-footprint openings like coffee roaster La Colombe’s flagship cafe helped turn Frankford Avenue into a day-to-night destination.
Today, the neighborhood has the kind of pull that attracts local patrons and Philadelphia’s most influential chefs. Most recently, that counts James Beard Award-winning chef Greg Vernick, who cooked in Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s universe in New York and beyond before returning to Philadelphia to open Vernick Food & Drink and later Vernick Fish at the Four Seasons. He’s now heading north, opening Emilia on Frankford Avenue this winter with longtime chef de cuisine Meredith “Meri” Medoway, who Vernick credits with taking their pasta program “from very good to great.”
“When I lived in New York, one of my favorite neighborhoods was the East Village — it had youth, it had an edginess but also a community to it,” Vernick tells Food & Wine. “It’s where I went when I was off. And that’s a little bit of how Fishtown feels — it’s the place I want to go when I’m off.”
Related: The F&W Best New Chefs Guide to Philadelphia Restaurants
Emilia will draw inspiration from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, with housemade pastas, crudos, and a wood-fired grill that reflect the distinct sensibility that’s made Vernick a beloved Philly chef.
Spend a weekend getting a taste of the neighborhood (and just beyond its bounds, in Kensington and Port Richmond) — from morning pastries and whitefish scrapple to tender lamb neck birria and fiery Thai curries — and you’ll leave planning your return.
How to spend a weekend in Fishtown
Start your morning at Fiore, a bakery-cafe serving regional Italian pastries and gems like the “Saltie” — soft scrambled eggs and whipped ricotta on focaccia — just across from Emilia. Pro tip: Housemade pasta is offered at lunchtime, but you can and should order it for breakfast. Sulimay’s is a classic diner serving fluffy biscuits and whitefish scrapple — its own spin on the Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast standby. Go early to Middle Child Clubhouse for the Big Pancake, built for sharing (or not), and plan to come back for cocktails and dinner when the all-day spot shifts to lively evening mode.
For weekend lunch, make your way to Picnic, a sprawling space in a restored 1899 former brewery building with seafood towers and wood-fired rotisserie chicken, plus a bottle shop up front. Nearby, Pizzeria Beddia turns out excellent pies and shareable snacks alongside natural wine, plus a one-of-a-kind hoagie room where diners are served custom sandwiches omakase-style. (Book ahead.) Suraya is part market and café, part restaurant serving Levantine-inspired dishes, and, when the weather cooperates, one of the most magical gardens in Philadelphia.
Dinner comes with a glut of choices. Try Kalaya, a 2020 F&W Best New Restaurant from Defined Hospitality, the team behind several of the neighborhood’s biggest draws. Chef Nok Suntaranon’s Southern Thai powerhouse is now thriving in Fishtown after its start in South Philly — order abundantly from a menu of exquisite handmade dumplings and fiery curries. Mexico City–born chef Frankie Ramirez’s polished, modern Mexican restaurant Amá offers dishes like a seasonal tlayuda and a lamb neck birria, slow-braised until it falls apart in its own rich, chile-spiked broth.
Book Laser Wolf (just west of Fishtown) for charcoal-fired skewers that arrive with a full spread of salatim like hummus, pickles, bright salads, and dips. At nearby sister restaurant Jaffa Bar, go for oysters and clever, seafood-centric dishes like Yellowtail Pastrami, accompanied by some of the best cocktails in the neighborhood (including a robust NA lineup.)
Tulip Pasta & Wine Bar is a cozy pasta counter with a tasting room from Wayvine Winery & Vineyard, pairing housemade pasta and Italian small plates with Pennsylvania estate wines. Little Walter’s puts a modern spin on traditional Polish cooking, turning out a rotating selection of housemade pierogi and kiełbasa, and Elwood is an homage to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, where snapper soup and platters of roasted duck are served atop white tablecloths — typically after an amuse bouche of venison scrapple speared onto an antler horn.
Head to Meetinghouse, a neighborhood tavern with a concise menu that includes a perfect roast beef sandwich, best paired with one of the house beers brewed in collaboration with nearby Tonewood Brewing. And for a nightcap, try one of Philly’s shockingly good urban wineries. At Pray Tell, which started in Oregon’s Willamette Valley before planting roots in an Olde Kensington warehouse, order a glass of the skin-contact whites or lighter reds. Nearby, visit the tasting room at Mural City Cellars to sip excellent small-batch wines made on the premises in a one-time auto body shop.
Related: Where to Try Philly’s Other Iconic Sandwich
To fully immerse yourself in the neighborhood, book a stay at Anna & Bel, a design-forward boutique hotel set inside a restored former women’s asylum courtyard complex — an unexpectedly serene base camp in the middle of the action. It also puts you steps from Bastia, the hotel’s restaurant that channels the flavors of Corsica and Sardinia — ideal for a morning coffee or a final meal that makes you start plotting your return before you’ve even paid the check.
Before you hit the road, stop by Riverwards Produce, a well-curated neighborhood market, for a fresh-pressed juice and locally made snacks, and Perrystead Dairy, a 24-hour cheese dispensary for award-winning, original American cheeses made on site — perfect provisions for the trip home.
Read the original article on Food & Wine