Honeysuckle’s Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate named best new chefs by Food & Wine

Honeysuckle chef-owners Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate have been named to Food & Wine’s annual Best New Chefs class, joining a prestigious list of Philadelphia talent who’ve shared the designation over the past 37 years.

Though the Food & Wine list recognizes “rising talent at a pivotal moment in their careers,” the Tates have been lauded in Philly’s food scene for years.

The couple have transformed Honeysuckle many times over the years; each iteration of the project has met significant acclaim. It started in New York City as a pop-up in 2017, then became a residency at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, followed by a brick-and-mortar provisions store and supper club in West Philly. In its current life, it’s a sprawling restaurant whose bar program and tasting menu Inquirer critic Craig LaBan has called “thought-provoking, original — and totally delicious.”

The Tates are artists and storytellers — identities that are integrated in their roles as chefs and restaurateurs. In every iteration of Honeysuckle, they have celebrated the culture and foods of the Black American diaspora.

Editorial director Melanie Hansche was particularly wowed by Honeysuckle’s McDonald’s Money Burger: “As dinner unfolds, the couple show that they are wizards of surprise and delight,” Hansche writes. “Nowhere is that more evident than the McDonald’s Money burger, a ridiculous sandwich layered on slices of toasted shokupan, oozing with Cooper Sharp cheese, malt vinegar onions, and caviar remoulade, showered in gold leaf and shaved black truffles. It’s tangy, salty, sweet, and earthy and possibly the very best burger you’ll ever eat.”

The Tates are among 14 chefs from 10 restaurants across the country to make this year’s list. They arrived in New York on Monday to participate in programming around Best New Chefs, including panel discussions, a luncheon with other alumni, and a mentorship workshop. The awards ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday night. They’ll be back in Philly on Wednesday, in time for dinner service at Honeysuckle.

They learned they had made the list back in March. “We’ve had to keep this secret for a long time,” said St.Aude-Tate. “And this win feels different. We’ve both been in the industry for a really long time but this puts us on a national stage in a different way.”

The Tates join a long roster of Philadelphia chefs named to Food & Wine Best New Chefs, including Susanna Foo (1989), Marc Vetri (1999), Jim Burke (2008), Eli Kulp (2014), Emily Riddell (2022), and Amanda Shulman (2023), to name a handful.

St.Aude-Tate grew up reading Food & Wine and looking up to other chefs who had been named Best New Chefs by the magazine. “I used them as barometers as who to look up to in the industry,” she said.

Honeysuckle has been racking up consistent awards since its ambitious opening on North Broad in April 2025. Last month, it was named to Bon Appétit’s Best New Restaurants list (along with Sao, which is owned and operated by fellow Food & Wine Best New Chef alum Phila Lorn). The Tates were also named as James Beard Awards finalists in the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category earlier this year (they were semifinalists in 2024). Honeysuckle also appeared on The Inquirer’s 2025 edition of The 76.

“After our first Beard nomination, we didn’t know what to expect and we got slammed at the restaurant. It was crazy. We fell on our faces. There was no coaching on what to expect,” said St.Aude-Tate, adding that the mentorship and coaching provided by Food & Wine even before the awards were officially announced are what set the Best New Chefs program apart from other awards-granting institutions. “We talked to other people who had been in this position to understand how to navigate this moment,” she said.

St.Aude-Tate hopes to apply those lessons to her own business. “But we are most excited about being able to scream from the rooftops about what we’re doing,” said St.Aude-Tate.