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 just for condiments, an honor for the best neighborhood restaurant, and an afterparty 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.

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 new restaurant, which opened in May, took home two honors last night — 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.

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.

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-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,” he wrote in April.

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

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.

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.

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 staffs 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 for awards 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.

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.”