4 Philly restaurant gems to catch at The Inquirer Food Festival

One of Philly’s great gastropubs, Bad Brother occupies an unassuming Fairmount rowhouse that fills up fast come dinner. Customers are drawn in by chef Justin Koenig’s always-approachable, cleverly executed pub fare, which has also landed Bad Brother on The Inquirer’s 76 best restaurants list twice.  “I always feel corny saying this,” Koenig said, “but I do think that Bad Brother is very much a New American restaurant in the sense that we do classic things like wings and burgers and Caesar salads, but we definitely put a unique spin on it.”  That spin might mean spiking Thousand Island dressing with miso for the cheeseburger hoagie, adding a tangy Meyer lemon-aioli accent to a turkey meatloaf sandwich, or infusing candied nuts with hibiscus to complement a summery, fennel-tinged ice cream sundae.  A Hockessin native and Delaware Tech grad who logged time at the Hotel Du Pont and the recently closed House of William and Merry, Koenig credits his culinary creativity to five years spent in San Francisco kitchens, where he absorbed “worldly influences” cooking beside fellow transplants who came from all over. “I grew up eating meatloaf and roast turkey and chicken and stuff like that, so it was kind of an eye-opening experience for me,” he said. He moved to Philly in 2016 and helmed kitchens for FCM Hospitality (Parks on Tap, Craft Hall) before joining Delco-raised brothers Nick and C.J. Pund to open Bad Brother in 2019.  At The Inquirer Food Fest, Koenig plans to serve an hors d’oeuvre-sized take on a Bad Brother special: Philly-style steak tartare. Chopped raw tenderloin is dressed in tomato vinaigrette and tucked into a Wild Flour Bakery mini-baguette along with pickled long hots, crispy shallots, and minced chives. To complete the cheesesteak homage, it all gets topped with provolone foam. If you miss it at the food festival, no worries: Koenig says the special usually turns up on Bad Brother’s menu around the holidays. — Jenn Ladd

At Honeysuckle, making custom spice blends is one way chefs Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate honor Black history. The tasting menu at the couple’s North Broad Street restaurant takes diners on a trip across the Black diaspora, with courses that might range from Mississippi tamales and Jamaican escovitch to Haitian griot and an extravagant burger doused in caviar.  It’s an award-winning approach: Just over a year after its April 2025 opening, Honeysuckle landed a spot on The Inquirer’s The 76 and Bon Appetit’s best new restaurants list. The Tates, meanwhile, were shortlisted as two of Food & Wine magazine’s 14 best new chefs of 2026. None of it, St.Aude-Tate told The Inquirer, would be possible without spice. “You don’t need to live in the world of just salt and pepper,” said St. Aude-Tate. “There’s so many ways to chase the nostalgia that you feel for a certain place or taste.” A good spice blend has a mix of warmth, depth, and brightness, she said, with a “wild card” thrown in the mix to challenge your senses. It’s a formula St. Aude-Tate learned from her mom, a brilliant home cook who immigrated from Haiti to Long Island in the 1980s and kept a spice cabinet that was “at least three rows deep.” To date, St. Aude-Tate still uses a version of her mother’s epis — a vibrant green Haitian seasoning — to coat Honeysuckle’s half-roasted chicken.  Inquirer Food Festival attendees will have a chance to play with spice, too. St. Aude-Tate will host a workshop in partnership with single-origin spice brand Burlap & Barrel that walks guests through the steps of creating their own all-purpose spice blends. To give attendees some inspiration, St. Aude-Tate will make a trio of bites based on Honeysuckle’s own Burlap & Barrel blends (which include Creole seasoning and a hibiscus-ginger sugar). “Those moments where you can taste or smell something that takes you back to a core memory where things might have been better or different,” St. Aude-Tate said, “that’s the best thing about making your own spice blend.”  — Beatrice Forman

Jezabel Careaga has been perfecting her empanada recipe since she was a child in Northwest Argentina, where she’d spend hours in the kitchen with her family kneading, stuffing, and crimping dough.  Now, Careaga has made it her mission to show Philadelphia exactly what it takes to make an empanada from scratch. Careaga opened what would become Jezabel’s — her namesake cafe — in Fitler Square in 2010 and eventually moved the business to its current location in West Philly in 2018. There, Careaga presides over an open-air kitchen that churns out hundreds of delightfully flaky, golden brown empanadas a day, ranging from traditional humita (spicy corn and cheese) to Careaga’s favorite, beef and raisins.  The best part of her job, Careaga said, has always been teaching. At night, Jezebel’s kitchen transforms into Careaga’s empanada classroom, a space where guests learn repulgue, or the art of closing empanadas with finesse. There’s Careaga’s signature twisty Z-shaped crimp, the classic pinch-and-pull, and the braid, which Careaga describes as the most intricate.  “I think empanadas should be delicious but also beautiful,” Careaga said. Repulgue “is our own little language.” At The Inquirer Food Festival, you’ll have the opportunity to learn them all and more. During the second tasting session, Careaga will be leading a hands-on repulgue masterclass, where attendees will shape and crimp their own batch of empanadas that they’ll be able to take and bake at home. Careaga is also going home, in a sense: She’s planning to return to Fitler Square with a second Jezabel’s location that will sell her signature empanadas, alfajores, and Argentinian pastries alongside a more robust lunch and dinner menu of pasta and small plates. And don’t fret, Careaga said: The empanada classes are still part of the deal. — Beatrice Forman

Chance Anies started telling his story through food with Tabachoy, which started as a small Filipino food cart and became a high-energy BYOB in Bella Vista in 2022, developing a reputation for its lumpia, Caesar salad — with dressing boosted by bagoong, a shrimp paste that Anies makes in-house from fresh krill — and South Philly laing, a spicy-creamy vegetable dish that is traditionally made with taro leaves, but Anies makes with broccoli rabe.  Fairmount’s Manong, Anies’ second restaurant, is a way for him to further his takes on Filipino and American flavors.  “I tend to be traditional when it comes to Filipino food,” said Chance Anies, whose Filipino chef father introduced his American-raised son to the island nation’s famous stews and braises. “I put things on my menu that I have personal connections to,” said Anies. You’ll likely taste one of Anies’ soul-warming, pork-based Filipino stews, like his Bicol Express, which combines funky, umami-rich bagoong with creamy coconut at The Inquirer Food Fest, as Anies anticipates chillier weather. “If people are going to be eating 10,000 bites at a festival, I want the one they have of mine to represent me well and be a warming dish,” he said. — Kiki Aranita