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Kalaya and Honeysuckle chef Omar Tate are big winners of Esquire’s 2020 restaurant awards

The Thai BYOB tops the magazine's list, while the Germantown-born Tate was named as best chef and pop-up for Honeysuckle.

The dining room at Kalaya Authentic Thai Kitchen. The print on the wall is by Philadelphia artist Jeremy Hush, and was a gift from the husband of chef and co-owner Nok Suntaranon to her and co owner My-Le Vuong when they opened. He said it captured the spirt of them - two strong women.
The dining room at Kalaya Authentic Thai Kitchen. The print on the wall is by Philadelphia artist Jeremy Hush, and was a gift from the husband of chef and co-owner Nok Suntaranon to her and co owner My-Le Vuong when they opened. He said it captured the spirt of them - two strong women.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

Philadelphians figure prominently in Esquire’s list of the Best New Restaurants in America for 2020.

Germantown-born culinary activist Omar Tate not only was named chef of the year; his Honeysuckle pop-up series — which he says “explored the narrative of Black existence” — was named pop-up of the year.

Also, Kalaya, chef Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon’s Thai BYOB in South Philadelphia, topped the magazine’s list of new restaurants. (Kalaya and Suntaranon were Inquirer critic Craig LaBan’s best new restaurant and chef in 2019. Kalaya also was nominated for best new restaurant in the James Beard Awards earlier this year.)

Esquire’s Jeff Gordinier and Kevin Sintumuang acknowledged that the selection process was more challenging since they didn’t get on a plane, as in previous years. “If there’s a unifying theme, something that all of our picks have in common, it would be the stubborn survival of community in the face of what can only be called an existential threat,” Gordinier said in a statement.

“Kalaya delivers Thai dishes with such depth of soul and flavor that you’ll dream about them for days,” the editors wrote.

» JOIN US for Inquirer Live: LET’S EAT, PHILLY! at 2 p.m., Friday, Nov. 20: Food Editor Jamila Robinson chats with chefs Omar Tate and Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon about Honeysuckle and Kalaya.

They praised Tate, a poet, an essayist, and a historian, as “an artist at heart, who just happens to express himself through cooking. Itinerant and unsinkable, improvisatory and bold, Tate captured the radical shifts of 2020 with everything he undertook.” His latest undertaking is raising money for a community center.

The editors called Honeysuckle, which Tate launched from his previous home base of New York, an “ode to Blackness” expressed through “delicious, history-drenched dishes — from a glass of handmade Kool-Aid to a perfectly roasted and seasoned slab of sweet potato.”

There are a few other surprises on the lists, including drink of the year. Only in 2020, perhaps, could the year’s top drink — Ghia — be nonalcoholic.