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Who won big at the Tasties, Philly’s homegrown culinary awards?

How does Philly celebrate Philly’s food scene? With an awards show that includes a special category for condiments, an honor for the best neighborhood restaurant, and an after-party with an Italian Market-themed speakeasy.

Those were some of the highlights from the Tasties, the second edition of the Philly-based culinary awards for hospitality professionals. The party is thrown by the hosts of the Delicious City podcast (James Beard award-winning chef Eli Kulp, food influencer Dave Wez, and 93.3 WMMR radio host Marisa Magnatta). Chefs, bartenders, and dishwashers were among the more than 600 attendees at Sunday night’s event at South Philly’s Live! Casino.

Here are the Tasties’ 2026 winners, from Philly’s best new restaurant to city’s best hospitality experience, frozen dessert, and breakfast. Read on for more background on this now-annual awards ceremony.

Best New Restaurant & Craft Cocktail Excellence: La Jefa

It was a big night for La Jefa, the “Guadaladelphian” all-day cafe and cocktail bar from the Suro family that functions as the trendier sibling to the more distinguished Tequilas next door. The restaurant, which opened in May, took home two honors — for Best New Restaurant and Craft Cocktail experience — making it one of two restaurants to do so. La Jefa beat out Little Water, Emmett, and Amá in the Best New Restaurant category, as well as Kampar, Messina Social Club, and Next of Kin for craft cocktails.

By day, La Jefa is a destination brunch and coffee spot, with a menu that spans omelette-style chilaquiles, huevos verdes, conchas, and experimental lattes with flavors like burnt corn tortilla and guava caramel. At night, the space transforms into a sleek cocktail bar with light bites and easy-drinking cocktails, like tepache highballs, agua frescas spiked with aged El Dorado rum, and cilantro gimlets. Its back bar, La Jefa Milpa, is a more serious drinking experience, with a cocktail list designed in consultation with James Beard award-winning mixologist Danny Childs.

The Lovers Bar at Friday Saturday Sunday, which won Excellence in Hospitality at the The Tasties in 2026.

Excellence in Hospitality: Friday Saturday Sunday

Friday Saturday Sunday won Excellence in Hospitality, an award that celebrates the front of the house, said Kulp. The Michelin-starred, James Beard award-winning restaurant helmed by Chad and Hanna Williams is notably unstuffy, with its downstairs walk-ins-only bar taking on a reputation of its own as the perfect place to fall in love or become a regular. Friday Saturday Sunday was up against Her Place Supper Club, Honeysuckle, and Kalaya.

Standout Bakery or Pastry Chef: Emily Riddell, Machine Shop

Machine Shop owner and pastry chef Emily Riddell took home the Tasties’ award for Standout Bakery or Pastry chef, adding to the South Philly bakery’s honors from Food & Wine magazine and the New York Times. Riddell, who honed her pastry skills at Le Bec-Fin, is known equally for her savory laminated pastries (think everything bagel croissants and shakshuka-esque danishes) as she is for her sweets, which include ginger-spiced cookies and lemon tarts topped with torched meringues. Riddell beat out Majdal Bakery’s Kenan Rabah, Baby Kusina’s McBryan Lesperance, and Provenance’s Abby Dahan.

Chef-partner at Emmett Evan Snyder grills a halibut over charcoal. Snyder won Breakout Chef at the 2026 Tasties awards.

Breakout Chef: Evan Snyder, Emmett

Chef-owner Evan Snyder took home the Tasties’ Breakout Chef award for his work at Emmett, the Levantine-inspired restaurant he opened on Girard Avenue last January. Named after his toddler, Emmett is a forum for Snyder to revamp flavors of his childhood: His grandmother’s stuffed cabbage become malfoufs stuffed with foie gras, and traditional boreks are reimagined with braised short rib and melted comté cheese. It’s a menu that landed Emmett on Esquire’s best new restaurant’s list, plus praise from Inquirer critic Craig LaBan. Snyder has a knack for “artfully layering multiple components into a dish that eats like a journey,” LaBan wrote in April.

Others in the Breakout Chef category were Dane DeMarco of Gass & Main, Jacob Trinh of Little Fish, and Sam Henzy of Fork.

Icon Award: Tequilas Casa Mexicana

La Jefa didn’t steal all the thunder from its older sibling. Tequilas, the fine-dining Mexican restaurant from David Suro-Piñera, took home the night’s Icon Award. Suro-Piñera first opened Tequilas in 1986 to celebrate traditional Mexican cooking and agave spirits beyond its namesake alcohol. After a kitchen fire closed the Locust Street restaurant in 2023, Suro-Piñera and family spent two years rehabbing Tequilas (and creating La Jefa inside of its adjoining Latimer Street space). The original restaurant reopened last spring, with the same ornate decor and a menu that reaches far beyond Suro-Piñera’s native Guadalajara to other regions of Mexico. Tequilas “not only came back” Kulp said, “they came back bigger and better.”

Fork, Monk’s Cafe, and Oyster House were the other Philadelphia institutions vying for the Icon Award.

From left: The Banh Mi Xiu May, Bun Bo Hue Dac Biet, and the chicken curry at Cafe Nhan, which received the Best Neighborhood Gem award at the 2026 Tasties.

Neighborhood Gem: Cafe Nhan

Vietnamese restaurant Cafe Nhan won the Neighborhood Gem award. Run by mother-son duo Nhan Vo and Andrew Dinh Vo, Cafe Nhan is a West Passyunk go-to for hearty bowls of soup and crispy fried chicken wings. The restaurant’s signature bún bò hue dac biet — a spicy lemongrass soup from Central Vietnam loaded with brisket and pig’s feet — and gluten-free pho — rank among the best in the city.

Other contestants for Neighborhood Gem included Cafe Nhan neighbor Stina, as well as Baby’s Kusina in Brewerytown and the Breakfast Den on South Street.

Restaurant and Chef of the Year: Phila Lorn & Mawn

The Mawn team, including chef-owner Phila Lorn, added another feather to their caps at the Tasties, taking home top honors for both Restaurant and Chef of the Year. According to Kulp, Lorn brought the entire staff of both Mawn and its sister oyster bar, Sao, to the Tasties Sunday night.

Phila and his wife, Rachel, opened Mawn in 2023 as a 28-seat Cambodian BYOB with a menu inspired by Phila’s parents. After racking up honors from the James Beard Foundation, Food & Wine magazine, and the New York Times, Mawn has become one of the toughest tables to get in Philly.

Mawn co-owner and executive chef Phila Lorn accepts the award for Chef of the Year at the 2026 Tasties.

Blue Corn, Her Place Supper Club, and Royal Sushi were also nominated for Restaurant of the Year. Royal Sushi owner Jessie Ito rounded out the Chef of the Year category alongside Thanh Nguyen of Gabriella’s Vietnam and Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate of Honeysuckle.

People’s choice awards

Brain Freeze Bestie: Milk Jawn

Celebrating excellence in all matter of frozen desserts (ice cream, gelato, and water ice), the Brain Freeze Bestie people’s choice award went to Milk Jawn. Co-owned by Amy Wilson and Ryan Miller, the small-batch ice cream purveyor started as a hobby before spawning two storefronts in South Philly and Northern Liberties. Milk Jawn beat out Franklin Fountain, Coco’s Gelato, John’s Water Ice, Siddiq’s Water Ice, and Cuzzy’s Ice Cream.

The Migas breakfast taco from Taco Heart, which won the people’s choice Breakfast of Champions Award at the 2026 Tasties.

Breakfast of Champions: Taco Heart

The Breakfast of Champions pitted breakfast sandwiches against tacos against diner plates. Austin-style taqueria Taco Heart and its flour-tortilla wrapped breakfast tacos ultimately won, beating out Fishtown diner Sulimays, and breakfast sandwiches from Fiore, Gilda, Paffuto, and Homegrown215.

Sauce Boss: Hank Sauce

The Sauce Boss is the Tasties’ people’s choice award for best condiment. Sea Isle City hot sauce brand Hank Sauce took home the prize, likely pushed over the edge by an Instagram endorsement from their new investor Jason Kelce, who called it the perfect condiment for “eggs without any f— flavor.” Other nominees included boutique mayo brand Jawndiments, Willow Grove’s Mammoth Sauce Co., Sunny Chili Oil, Kensington Food Co., and Chili Peppah Water from Inquirer food writer Kiki Aranita’s sauce brand Poi Dog.

Pho with steak, flank, fatty brisket, tendon, and tripe from South Philadelphia’s Pho 75, which received the people’s choice Supreme Slurp Award at the 2026 Tasties.

Supreme Slurp: Pho 75

The Supreme Slurp is exactly what it sounds like: A people’s choice award for soup. Washington Avenue pho shop Pho 75 took home the prize, beating out potato soup from dive bar Cherry Street Tavern; French onion soup from Forsythia; matzo ball soup from Hershel’s East Side Deli; ramen from Terakawa; and the Souper Bowl from Sang Kee Peking Duck House.

Background on the Tasties and ‘Delicious City’

Now in its second year, the Tasties has morphed into a foil for the Michelin Guide and James Beard Awards, where outsiders are made to judge the best of Philly’s food scene, often with varying degrees of depth.

Deliberations started in October, when a 14-member nomination committee of local food writers, content creators, and past winners whittled down a list of hundreds of restaurants. From there, a smaller panel of judges (including Inquirer food desk editors Margaret Eby and Jenn Ladd) rate the finalists. People’s choice voting occurs for sillier categories; more than 1,200 people cast ballots for the people’s choice awards this year, Kulp said.

From left: “Delicious City” podcast cohosts Dave Wez, Eli Kulp, and Marisa Magnatta post onstage at the Tasties culinary awards at Live! Hotel & Casino on Feb. 2, 2026.

The Tasties includes all the standard award show categories, as well as more bespoke accolades. At Sunday’s ceremony, Miriam Bautista of Vernick Fish won the Dish Wizard award, an honor bestowed upon the city’s best dishwasher. Sous chefs at La Croix, Little Water, and Pesto all took home Future Tastemaskers awards, which come with $1,000 grants for professional development.

At the Tasties, “there are no losers,” Kulp said. “It’s so cliche, but it’s really an award [show] where you can throw a dart to pick a winner and no one would argue.”

February 2, 2026
Reservation scalpers are headed for Philly. Can restaurants clap back?

Flip a reservation and find out — or at least that’s how the warning goes at South Philly’s acclaimed Cambodian restaurant Mawn.

Last week, the restaurant’s owners, Phila and Rachel Lorn, took to Mawn’s Instagram to lambaste a woman attempting to sell coveted dinner reservations on the “Buy, Sell, Trade” section of Philaqueens, a private Facebook group with 75,000 members.

“Selling a Mawn dinner reservation for this month and February if anyone is interested,” read the since-deleted post, which did not specify a price. Commenters were split on the unorthodox offering. Three people immediately replied to say they were interested, while another didn’t mince words.

“Selling a free reservation?” she wrote. “Horrible.”

The Lorns agree.

“Eww. Gross … Don’t play with us,” they wrote, sharing a screenshot of the Facebook post that included the seller’s name. “All 11 of this person’s reservations are canceled.”

The “all star seafood rice” at Mawn, an acclaimed South Philly restaurant targeted by reservation scalpers.

The interaction was a glimpse into the burgeoning underbelly of restaurant reservation scalping, in which enterprising individuals can make a lucrative side hustle using bots and other means to snap up free reservations at in-demand restaurants, then selling them at a premium.

The reservation black market is more established in New York City, Chicago, and Miami, where tables at celebrity-favorite Italian restaurant Carbone or Ralph Lauren’s notoriously exclusive Polo Bar can fetch between $350 and $1,700 on the third-party website Appointment Trader. One Brown University student told the New Yorker in 2024 that he made $70,000 just by using fake phone numbers and aliases to book reservations to flip on Appointment Trader. The website itself claims that sellers average $172 per reservation.

The practice has spread to smaller cities, too: During Super Bowl LIX weekend in New Orleans, a once-free reservation for a table at the French Quarter restaurant Antoine’s went for $2,138.

As reservation scalping becomes more widespread, so has legislation attempting to guard against it. Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed a law in December that would prohibit third-party websites from selling reservations without a restaurant’s consent, fining platforms such as Appointment Trader $1,000 per violation. The bill was signed last week by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, who joined leaders in New York, Louisiana, and Illinois in banning the practice.

Philly expands outdoor dining and cracks down on ‘reservation scalpers’ ahead of expected 2026 tourism

Still, these bills do not prevent savvy foodies from making under-the-table reservation deals in, say, a Facebook group.

‘Nobody should be making money off a free reservation’

Rachel Lorn said that she and husband Phila found out about the offending Facebook post from several back-to-back direct messages tipping her off.

Mawn co-owners Phila (left) and Rachel Lorn, who say reservation scalpers are unwelcome at their James Beard-award winning restaurant.

“It’s disrespectful. Nobody should be making money off a free reservation. … We felt like we had a responsibility to [say to] all the people who can’t get a reservation, ‘This is not OK,’” said Rachel Lorn, who oversees front-of-house operations for Mawn, including the restaurant’s packed guest book.

Nowadays, scoring a Mawn reservation is about as hard as getting off the wait list for Eagles season tickets. The Lorns, who met while working at Zama, opened the cozy, 28-seat restaurant at 764 S. Ninth St. in 2023 as an ode to Phila’s parents. It was an immediate hit and has only gathered steam, garnering accolades from the James Beard Foundation, Food & Wine magazine, and the New York Times in 2025 alone.

Customers wait in line for Mawn to open for lunch.

Mawn draws lines that wrap around the block for its first come, first served lunch service, but dinner reservations are the hotter commodity. Rachel Lorn uses OpenTable to drop reservations at noon on the first of every month, making roughly 650 total tables available at once. Customers are allowed to book multiple reservations, Lorn said, and many regulars manage to do so. It’s a pain point for would-be diners who miss out, whom Lorn said she hears from nonstop.

How a Cambodian noodle shop became one of Philly’s most impossible reservations

“I watch [the reservation drops] from our computer. They sell out in seconds,” she said. “We never imagined that this would be the response to our restaurant. … It’s amazing, but it’s also a really tough position to be in. There isn’t much I can do with our small restaurant and how many seats we have.”

Upon learning of the attempted black market deal, Rachel Lorn checked OpenTable and found that the Philaqueens poster had dined at Mawn six times prior and had 11 dinner reservations booked on different days throughout January and February. Lorn canceled them all immediately.

Mawn’s dining room, which has only 32 seats. The restaurant is first come, first served for lunch, but dinner reservations are snapped up in seconds.

She also reached out to the seller directly, who Rachel Lorn said didn’t respond but did manage to change the name and email associated with her OpenTable account. The Lorns said they would ban the seller, if only they could figure out a way to do so; OpenTable currently does not allow for restaurants to prevent specific users from making reservations.

“It felt like she was trying to trick us further,” Rachel Lorn said. “She shouldn’t be coming to our restaurant.”

The reservation seller declined to comment to The Inquirer, citing privacy concerns. She said only that she “meant no harm and there was no ill intent,” and declined to answer questions about why she was selling the reservations. The Inquirer is not releasing her name since the attempted sale happened in a private Facebook community.

From 2024: Why you suddenly need to look on OpenTable for reservations to the city’s hottest restaurants

$221 for a table at Barclay Prime?

For the most part, the Mawn incident is an anomaly in Philly. Reservation scalping has yet to take off here, according to Ben Fileccia, the senior vice president of strategy for the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, which worked with at-large Councilmember Isaiah Thomas to draft Philly’s anti-reservation scalping bill.

Fileccia said that this was the first time he had ever seen someone try to sell a reservation on Facebook, and that he had only seen a smattering of reservations for Philly restaurants on third-party platforms before working on the bill. Free trades are more common, he said, likely because cost is more top of mind for diners in Philly, a city with large wealth inequality.

“When you have an audience of folks to which prices are no object, [reservation scalping] becomes more of a problem,” Fileccia said. “Whereas when I discuss this issue and ask people [in Philly], ‘Would you pay $500 for reservation at 7:30 p.m. at X restaurant?’ … They usually laugh and roll their eyes.”

The gaeng pae, khao mun klone, and moo yaang prik at Kalaya, one Philly restaurant featured on reservation resale platform Appointment Trader.

That doesn’t mean scalping doesn’t happen here.

A recent search on Appointment Trader found prime-time Saturday night reservations at Kalaya averaging $113 and 9 p.m. reservations for any day at raw bar Tesiny for between $107 and $360. A 7 p.m. Saturday table for six at Stephen Starr’s Barclay Prime steakhouse, or a reservation for two for literally any day or time at Pine Street Grill, Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp’s new spot? That will cost at least $241 or $124, respectively, on Appointment Trader.

Until recently, Appointment Trader functioned similarly to StubHub, where buyers could purchase reservations that scalpers had already acquired. Now, founder Jonas Frey is shifting the model to a concierge system: Buyers request a certain reservation and an algorithm spits out an average price based on demand. Once a bid is placed, Appointment Trader matches you with a seller whose job it is to secure the reservation by any means possible. There’s a 100% refund guarantee if the request goes unfulfilled.

Representatives for the restaurants The Inquirer recently found on Appointment Trader were initially unaware they were listed on the platform.

“We do not have experience with guests utilizing this platform,” said Kalaya chef and co-owner Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon. “All reservations for Kalaya run through Resy.”

Tesiny owner Lauren Biederman called the discovery “concerning.”

“There isn’t too much we can do in terms of figuring out if the reservation is scalped really, though,” she said, noting that Tesiny requires customers provide a credit card upon booking and charges $25 per person for late cancellations and no-shows.

Longtime server Matthew Penn prepares for dinner service at Barclay Prime, Stephen Starr’s steakhouse, where a table can go for upwards of $221 on Appointment Trader.

When Shulman and Kemp opened Pine Street Grill last month, they designated half the nightly seats for walk-ins, in part to keep it a neighborhood restaurant. “We were especially surprised to see Pine Street listed for such a hefty price since it’s by far our most casual restaurant,” the couple wrote in a statement. “Oftentimes a dinner for two at Pine Street is less than the reservation cost you shared.”

Rachel Lorn said she feels “powerless” against platforms like Appointment Trader. She often finds out after the fact when a reservation has been resold. She also tries to hide her suspicion when a guest shows up and struggles to recall the name a table is under.

“What am I going to do in that moment?” she asked, exasperated. “Accuse them?”

Google review scammers target some of Philly’s top restaurants

Why exactly is reservation scalping bad?

Chief among the concerns reservation scalping has raised in the restaurant industry: It overinflates the demand for a restaurant.

Often, scalpers will sit on hundreds of reservations that go unused, leading to no-shows that can hurt a restaurant’s bottom line and lead to less tips for servers. At COQODAQ, an upscale fried chicken joint in New York that’s popular on Appointment Trader, the no-show rate more than tripled after the website took off, Fox Business reported.

Fileccia said it’s hard for some establishments to make that business back.

Chefs Amanda Shulman and Alex Kemp at Pine Street Grill, another Philly restaurant that has appeared on Appointment Trader.

“The types of restaurants that have reservations being sold are not restaurants that are going to get walk-ins to refill those seats,” he said. “These are places that people know they need a reservation for.”

Frey, who founded Appointment Trader in 2021 after he struggled to get an appointment at the DMV, has pushed back against that narrative repeatedly in interviews. He argues that the site has gone to great lengths to tamp down on no-shows by penalizing reservation sellers for a low “sell-through rate.” If less than 50% of an account’s reservations go unsold, he has said, those accounts can no longer upload new reservations; if that rate dips below 25%, those accounts are banned altogether. (Between 2023 and 2024, Frey reported Appointment Trader did $6 million in reservation sales.)

It’s unclear if reservation scalping will find a foothold in Philly. But at Mawn, at least, it’s deeply unwelcome.

Rachel Lorn said the practice reminds her “of when everyone went and bought up all the toilet paper during COVID. There was nothing left for anyone else,” she said. “It boils down to a human decency thing.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated City Council’s unanimously passed bill banning reservation scalping had yet to be approved by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. Mayor Parker signed the bill into law on Friday, Jan. 9.

January 13, 2026
Sao brings Mawn’s ‘no rules’ energy to the oyster bar, with intriguing and delicious results

Philadelphians can’t get enough of Rachel and Phila Lorn. At Sao, their sultry new oyster bar on East Passyunk Avenue, diners pull up at the counter for warm corn cakes soaked in honey and bejeweled with roe, oysters splashed with Cambodian peppercorn fish sauce mignonette, and barrel-aged “Jabroni Negroni” cocktails tinged with Islay whiskey smoke to wash them down.

Owners Phila and Rachel Lorn at Sao in Philadelphia.

You’ll find the same high-voltage “no rules” pan-Asian cooking here that propelled this married couple’s first restaurant, Mawn, to an incredible string of local and national accolades (including a spot on The Inquirer’s Top 10 list, a new edition of The 76, a “Best New Chefs” award for Phila from Food & Wine, and a similar nod from the James Beard Foundation). Considering the constant reservation traffic jam of wannabe diners angling to nab one of Mawn’s 28 seats, why open a second restaurant with room for just 33? Surely, this couple could fill a much larger space.

“Rachel and I have enough, we don’t need more,” says Phila, 39. “I still have that old-school mentality that we protect our family and we funnel our lives through this [little] store of ours. I never wanted to be a rock star or be recognized at Target. We just opened restaurants because that’s what we know how to do.”

The fact they do it so well is a blessing and a curse. At Sao, the monthly scrum for tables offers the same exercise in reservation-app frustration as Mawn, and the long line for the 30-or-so walk-ins that find their way into Sao over the course of an evening understandably vexes the gift shop next door, whose manager emerged to politely redirect us from blocking her storefront on this lively stretch of Passyunk Avenue.

The exterior of Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

Owner Rachel Lorn speaks with diners at Sao.

Once inside, however, the virtues of Sao’s intimate setting are clear, as diners lean into their crudos and cocktails at candlelit banquette tables along a whitewashed brick wall hung with mirrors and stained-glass panes. Another 10 guests — in my opinion, the lucky ones — perch in the red neon glow of the bar counter, where the action unfolds on multiple stages.

To my right, bartender Steph Liebetreu manages to simultaneously rattle a cocktail shaker in her left hand and stir a crystal decanter of martinis with her right, all while dancing in perfect syncopation to Sao’s soulful soundtrack mix of vintage R&B, Cambodian rap, and Frank Sinatra. To my left, shucker Davina Soondrum (also a talented pastry chef) festoons our icy oyster plateau clockwise from “lemon wedge o’clock” with plump Japanese Kumamotos, tiny-briny BeauSoleils from Canada, and Jersey’s finest, Sweet Amalias. Each one is oceanic perfection on their own, but they become electric when splashed with that Cambodian mignonette, or a spicy-tart jolt of Lao sauce sparked with lime and crushed cilantro stems. Amid Philly’s current boom in new oyster bars, those vivid sauces are part of what make Sao unique.

Chef Phila Lorn places a crudo at the pass at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

The dry-aged hamachi crudo at Sao.

Front and center, meanwhile, there’s chef Phila himself butchering a whole dry-aged hamachi mid-service to serve raw with fish sauce, coconut milk, and vinegared onions — a salute to the beloved nearby soup hall, Pho 75. He’s slicing thick pink tiles of bluefin tuna and stacking them like a deck of sashimi cards doused with soy sauce and lime beneath fistfuls of roasted green chilies and crushed marcona almonds.

As I waver on which crudo to order next (perhaps the spot prawns with brown butter and prawn-head oil?), he pours sweet and spicy orange chili jam over an ivory mound of raw scallops, apples, and pepita seeds and I have my answer: “That’s Phila’s favorite,” confides Rachel as she patrols the narrow dining room, ever-playing Tetris with seats to accommodate more walk-ins.

The Dayboat Scallop Crudo at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

That scallop-and-chili jam combo will be familiar to anyone who’s dined at Mawn, where Lorn workshopped many of these dishes for months. There are other overlaps here of Mawn’s greatest hits, like the crispy soft-shell shrimp in fish sauce caramel, or the awesome 20-ounce rib eye piled high with “Cambodian chimichurri,” boosted with lime juice and fermented prahok fish paste.

One standard you must order, though, is the intricate papaya salad, a colorful crunch-fest of long beans, peanuts, candied shrimp, and shredded green papaya lashed with blasts of sour tamarind, chile, and shrimp paste. It dials your taste buds up to a certain base level of funk and sour heat before moving the conversation to more contemporary flights of fusion fancy.

The Honey Butter Hoe Cake at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

Sao’s menu is more an extension of Mawn’s repertoire, rather than something entirely new, with a greater emphasis on raw seafood and an even more playful approach to cooked dishes rooted in tributes to favorite restaurants. Perhaps the most memorable dish at Sao, in fact, is a direct corn cake homage to Boston’s Neptune Oyster bar, whose signature johnnycake is remade here as a warm, honey butter-soaked hoe cake enriched with dashi then topped with cool smoked trout salad and beads of roe, which Phila tends to piles onto Sao’s plates by the spoonful. The lacy crunch of that warm sweet cake against the savory pop of roe, amped by the saline burst of a supplemental scoop of caviar, was one of my favorite bites of the year.

Sao’s menu is full of Easter eggs for the keen-eyed diner, including an irresistible tuna carpaccio topped with fried shallots, cured chile rings, and a sizzling finish of sesame oil that’s an ode to the “bronzizzle” roll at Zama, where Phila spent some formative years. There’s also a nod to the beloved late-night cutlet from Palizzi Social Club that’s transformed with Southeast Asian pickled cucumbers, Thai basil, and fish sauce caramel. The chef, who grew up just a few blocks from East Passyunk, also pays tribute to South Philly’s Italian “crab gravy” tradition with his own take, a blend of red and green coconut milk curries steeped with crab shells that comes topped with crisply fried scallops.

The Mawn Cutlet at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

A frequent chicken skewer special, whose meat is marinated in kreung spice paste, is grilled over binchotan coals as Phila’s nod to the weekend Khmer barbecues at the Southeast Asian Market. The mee caton is a straightforward stir-fry of velvety soft beef, Chinese broccoli, and fat rice noodles kissed with sesame oil that’s a throwback to one of the best home dishes made by his mother, Sim Khim. (I also loved the seafood rendition.)

Nostalgia for family and neighborhood pervades every corner of Sao, from the vintage bathroom door with textured glass and wavy panes that replicates the vestibules of many South Philly rowhouses (including the Lorns’ house), family pictures, and an antique cash register from the Atlantic City Boardwalk hotel once owned by Rachel’s grandparents.

Even the restaurant’s name channels a sense of place: It’s a phonetic representation of how Phila’s mother, a Cambodian refugee, pronounces the “South” in South Philly. Her son, famously, is also named for the family’s adopted city, although Khim and everyone else pronounce it “Pee-la.” The sign hanging out front — Sao Phila — has multiple meanings.

An old school cash register from Rachel Lorn’s family at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

With the added element of a liquor license at Sao, the Lorns’ business partner and close family friend, Jesse Levinson, designed an opening drink list that follows on theme. The chicory-scented, coconut-creamed Vietnamese coffee martini, Wing Phat Plaza, is named for the bustling Asian strip mall on Washington Avenue nearby. The Angkor Baby borrows a michelada from South Philly’s lively Mexican scene, then adds the Asian touches of ground Kampot peppercorns and a rice vinegar tang.

The Wing Phat Plaza and Angkor Baby cocktails at Sao.

Levinson says the drink menu will keep evolving as Liebetreu and her fellow bartender, Lillian Chang, begin to take creative control, supplementing the small but trendy selection of natural wines. I also expect Sao’s sake selection to take a big leap once general manager Kelly Brophy, formerly the lead omakase server at Royal Sushi, begins to share her expertise.

Indeed, so much is still evolving here, including the tasty but limited dessert selection of crème brûlée and whoopie pies from Soondrum (when she’s not shucking shellfish), that I’m certain we’ve only seen the beginning of what Sao can truly become.

“We’re locked and loaded for more because we have room to grow,” says Phila, referring mostly to desserts. If only they also had room to grow more seats! Philadelphia’s diners, no doubt, would quickly snap those up, too.

Diners fill the space at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

Sao

1710 E. Passyunk Ave., saophilly.com; no phone, but staff responds to messages on Instagram or OpenTable.

Open Wednesday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.

Reservations are highly suggested, but a handful of walk-in seats are available.

Not wheelchair-accessible. There is a step up into the restaurant, as well as at the bathroom.

About 90% of the menu is naturally gluten-free, while certain dishes that typically use the fryer (like the scallops in crab gravy) can be modified to avoid cross contamination.

Menu highlights: Crudos (aged hamachi; scallops with chili jam); bluefin tuna carpaccio; Cambodian papaya salad; honey butter hoe cake; Mawn cutlet; scallops in crab gravy; mee caton; grilled chicken skewers; crème brûlée.

Drinks: Cocktails are well-made with a South Philly twist (like the barrel-aged mellow Jabroni Negroni) and on-theme Asian accents, such as Cambodian Kampot peppercorns for the Angkor Baby riff on a michelada, or the chicory-flavored Viet coffee martini named after Washington Avenue’s Wing Phat Plaza.

A neon oyster sign at Sao on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 in Philadelphia.

December 5, 2025
We asked you to predict Philly’s first Michelin Star winners. Here’s how close you were
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How our readers’ votes Compare To the Michelin Guide

By

Charmaine Runes

Nov 20, 2025

The Michelin Guide provided some shocks on Tuesday night. Here’s how accurate our readers were.

Last week, we asked our readers which restaurants deserved Michelin recognition. On Tuesday the long wait for Michelin Stars in Philly ended when the winners were revealed at a ceremony at the Kimmel Center. Here’s how close Inquirer readers were to the Michelin Guide’s recommendations…

Yes

No

Royal Sushi & Izakaya

64%

35%

Friday Saturday Sunday

62%

37%

Kalaya

58%

41%

Zahav

50%

49%

Vetri Cucina

46%

53%

Provenance

38%

62%

Vernick Food & Drink

36%

63%

Her Place

35%

65%

Mawn

33%

66%

My Loup

27%

72%

Honeysuckle

22%

77%

Andiario

21%

78%

Pietramala

21%

78%

Parc

21%

79%

Yes

No

Royal Sushi & Izakaya

64%

35%

Friday Saturday Sunday

62%

37%

Kalaya

58%

41%

Zahav

50%

49%

Vetri Cucina

46%

53%

Provenance

38%

62%

Vernick Food & Drink

36%

63%

Her Place

35%

65%

Mawn

33%

66%

My Loup

27%

72%

Honeysuckle

22%

77%

Andiario

21%

78%

Pietramala

21%

78%

Parc

21%

79%

Yes

No

Royal Sushi & Izakaya

64%

35%

Friday Saturday Sunday

62%

37%

Kalaya

58%

41%

Zahav

50%

49%

Vetri Cucina

46%

53%

Provenance

38%

62%

Vernick Food & Drink

36%

63%

Her Place

35%

65%

Mawn

33%

66%

My Loup

27%

72%

Honeysuckle

22%

77%

Andiario

21%

78%

Pietramala

21%

78%

Parc

21%

79%

Yes

No

Royal Sushi & Izakaya

64%

35%

Friday Saturday Sunday

62%

37%

Kalaya

58%

41%

Zahav

50%

49%

Vetri Cucina

46%

53%

Provenance

38%

62%

Vernick Food & Drink

36%

63%

Her Place

35%

65%

Mawn

33%

66%

My Loup

27%

72%

Honeysuckle

22%

77%

Andiario

21%

78%

Pietramala

21%

78%

Parc

21%

79%

Yes

No

Royal Sushi & Izakaya

64%

35%

Friday Saturday Sunday

62%

37%

Kalaya

58%

41%

Zahav

50%

49%

Vetri Cucina

46%

53%

Provenance

38%

62%

Vernick Food & Drink

36%

63%

Her Place

35%

65%

Mawn

33%

66%

My Loup

27%

72%

Honeysuckle

22%

77%

Andiario

21%

78%

Pietramala

21%

78%

Parc

21%

79%

Readers

Michelin Guide

Only one restaurant – Friday Saturday Sunday – received both a star from the Michelin Guide and a yes from a majority (62%) of our readers.

Readers

Michelin Guide

Two other restaurants were given a Michelin star but received majority no votes from our readers – Her Place and Provenance, with only 35% and 38% of readers voting yes.

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Readers

Michelin Guide

Royal Sushi & Izakaya clinched a 64% yes from our readers. While it was snubbed for a Star, it still secured a Bib Gourmand – a category for establishments with excellent, albeit not star-worthy, food for the price.

More than half of our readers also voted yes for Kalaya and Zahav. Although they didn’t receive a star, they both earned a spot on the guide’s list of recommendations.

Readers

Michelin Guide

None of these restaurants received a Michelin star, which our readers agreed with.

But stars aren’t the only way the guide gives restaurants their flowers. Vetri Cucina, Vernick Food & Drink, My Loup, Honeysuckle, and Pietramala all landed spots on the guide’s recommendations list.

Pietramala also received a Green Star award for its commitment to sustainability.

Hungry for more Michelin coverage? Check out our recap of last night’s ceremony and the most vital 76 Philly-area restaurants of 2025.

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Staff Contributors

Design, development, and reporting: Charmaine Runes

Data: Charmaine Runes and Aileen Clarke

Editing: Sam Morris

Illustration: Steve Madden

Copy Editing: Brian Leighton

Topics mentioned in this story

Kalaya Friday Saturday Sunday Royal Sushi and Izakaya Zahav Vetri Cucina Provenance Vernick Food & Drink Her Place Mawn My Loup Honeysuckle Andiario Pietramala Parc
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November 20, 2025