2 Pennsylvania Restaurants Made The New York Times' List Of 50 Best In The US

With countless restaurants, cafes, diners, food trucks, barbecue shacks, and foodie venues scattered throughout America, it's a pretty big deal to land on a reputable "best of" list. That's especially true when compiled by acclaimed food critics at one of the country's most prominent newspapers. With only 50 available spots on The New York Times' annual collection, it's notable that two Pennsylvania restaurants in the same city earned their way onto "The Restaurant List 2025." 

Joining the ranks of what's deemed the 50 best places to eat in America are Mawn and Meetinghouse restaurants, both tucked within Philadelphia. More than half of the eateries on the list are newly opened venues, but the two Philly gems opened a bit earlier, in 2023. The City of Brotherly Love is well known for cheesesteaks and old-style Italian food, including restaurants on our own Tasting Table list of the 37 Best Philadelphia Restaurants — one of which serves up live opera with meals. But the two venues showcased by The New York Times have their own cultural vibes, well deserving of the new glow of notoriety.

Compilers of the list explain what it takes to make the cut: delicious food, a mastery of craft, generosity of spirit, and a singular point of view. Fourteen reporters and editors spread across the country experienced 200 meals in 33 states, showing up unannounced and accepting no freebies. When landing in Philadelphia, Mawn and Meetinghouse took the cake, as the saying goes.

Mawn describes itself as a noodle house, but as New York Times food reporter Brett Anderson declares, that's a modest take on this restaurant's cuisine. Noting the menu's wild boar prahak and banh chow crepe salad, Anderson ties them to chef Phila Lorn's family background in Cambodian cooking. Named after the Khmer word for chicken, the Mawn story reflects Morn's family history during Cambodia's brutal wars, during which the presence of chicken, to his parents, represented times of peace. Noting the loss of recipes and culture after the darkness of war, Lorn brings a "new authenticity" of Cambodian and Southeast Asian food to the thriving Philly restaurant. Anderson writes for the Restaurant List 2025 that you'll ache to eat every dish again, describing how the roster of food, including curries, salty-sour salads, and noodles, is like experiencing Southeast Asian cuisine as "fenceless terrain."  

Meetinghouse seems a curious usurper on the famous New York Times list. At first glance, the menu is as fundamentally "tavern grub" as it gets. But a deeper dive into the cuisine more than justifies its inclusion. NYT food editor Nikita Richardson notes how ordinary menu items shine in their simplicity, including a hot roast beef sandwich, the expertly dressed, sky-high green salad, and humble pork-and-beans, which "take on new life."  She calls Meetinghouse "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."