Behind the curtain: How we chose the restaurants that define our dining scene | Let’s Eat

By now, I hope you’ve seen The 76, our new annual list of restaurants that define the Philadelphia dining scene. Here, I’ll give you an exclusive look under the hood so you can get more out of what we hope is Philly’s most useful restaurant guide.

The usual Let’s Eat features follow. Today, I’ll share a piece of Philly restaurant history, fill you in on a new secret restaurant in Montgomery County, tell you about the new focus of a longtime Center City sports bar, and drop a slate of imminent restaurant openings, including the new Mike Solomonov-Steve Cook spot in Kensington. Also, one of Center City’s longtime Latin lounges is being advertised for sale. Read on!

— Mike Klein

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We all love best-of food lists. Months ago, our Food team set out to create a better best-of list for our annual dining guide. Our goal: Find the restaurants that define how we eat in the Philadelphia region. We set the list at 76 establishments, because 1776, I-76, and 76ers, you get it. After getting buy-in from everyone — the publisher, top editors, photographers, designers, data folks, artists, engineers, product managers — our Food team and friends (about a dozen of us) sampled hundreds of meals across eight counties because that’s where we all live and eat. Sometimes we didn’t even know exactly where we were eating — as in, “is this restaurant in Fishtown, Kensington, or Port Richmond?” Hence, “River Wards.”

We’re proud to share this guide with you, and hope that it helps to broaden your culinary horizons, as well as foster healthy debate. This is a pot that needs stirring.

The 76, in a nutshell:

Another debut: Let’s welcome Kiki Aranita to the Food team. Her name should be familiar to regulars. Prior to joining us from the Strategist, she was chef/partner of the food truck and Rittenhouse restaurant Poi Dog, and won national awards for her journalism. Raised in Honolulu and Hong Kong, she is a fiber artist and former scholar at Bryn Mawr College, where she majored in the classics. Look for her byline, and reach out to her here.

Dogs and restaurants don’t always mix. Restaurateurs must walk a fine line between complying with state and local regulations, which generally prohibit non-service animals around prepared food, and complying with the ADA, which prohibits them from asking for a service animal’s credentials. “They’re not just doing it to give you a hard time,” one expert told Erin McCarthy. “They’re doing it to protect themselves.”

By day, Miled Finianos manages financial accounts for Insomnia Cookies. On occasional nights, he oversees Habibi Supper Club, serving big Lebanese feasts. Food, as he told Hira Qureshi, is the “love language for Arabs.”

✏️ Habibi Supper Club just dropped word of a brunch pop-up for 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 11 at El Chingón in South Philadelphia. Details are forthcoming on Instagram.

If food has you thinking about seeing a show, consider Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production of La Egoísta, running through Oct. 20 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre. Playwright Erlina Ortiz’s comedy-slash-sibling drama has somewhat of a food connection: Puppets are characters, specifically a pastelillo and a hot dog, as Rosa Cartagena notes in her review.

🍽️ Where to eat near the theater, at Broad and Spruce? Hira Qureshi offers tasty options.

Mixto, the lively Latin bar-restaurant that has held the double-wide property at 1141-43 Pine St. for 35 years, is for sale, according to broker Billy Creagh of the Old City office of National Realty Commercial. Check his YouTube video. Owner Jorge Mosquera, who also owns Tierra Colombiana in Feltonville (a restaurant included in The 76), did not return my messages seeking comment. Mixto remains open, with no imminent plans to close, Creagh said.

Tabu, the longtime gay sports bar at 254 S. 12th St., has been sold. New owners are calling it 254 and are maintaining the programming for now. One thing is certain: It will become more of a restaurant in its next phase.

Umile Trattoria. The owners of South Jersey-based Crumb and Gouldsburger’s have branched out into the trattoria world. But first, they had to dispel red-sauce expectations, since there’s very little to be found at this newcomer in Haddonfield. Umile — Italian for “humble” (“OOO-mee-lay”) — does have a steam-injected, three-deck Moretti Forni, but it’s also used to cook other dishes besides 12-inch pies. Read on for more photos and the back story, including an explanation of why this project was $40,000 over budget.

The next several weeks will see a bumper crop of new restaurants. Here’s a sample, in a loose order of expected opening dates:

Fond (21 N. Providence Rd., Wallingford): Chefs Lee Styer and Jessie Prawlucki Styer have relocated their East Passyunk gem to Delco, where — effective today — they’re open as a BYOB.

Hiramasa (3554 West Chester Pike, Newtown Square): Sam Li, who owns the three Osushi restaurants in the burbs, is going the fine-dining Japanese route in the former Panera in Newtown Square Shopping Center. Opens Friday.

Noble Goat (200 River Station Blvd, Downingtown): Bryan and Andrea Sikora, whose restaurants on the Pennsylvania and Delaware sides of the Brandywine Valley include Hearth Kitchen, Merchant Bar, La Fia, and Crow Bar, are opening their eclectic bar-restaurant Friday in the River Station development.

Jaffa Bar (1625 N. Howard St.): Mike Solomonov and Steve Cook’s seafood-focused restaurant in Kensington is getting very close. As in “possibly next week” close. Here’s the backstory.

1906 at Longwood Gardens: The elegant restaurant at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square will reopen Oct. 25 after renovations.

Little Water (261 S. 20th St.): Oct. 25 is the opening of a second restaurant from River Twice’s Randy and Amanda Rucker, who have taken over Twenty Manning with coastal cuisine and a bar. Reservations are online now, and here is a preview.

The Stotesbury (812 E. Willow Grove Ave., Wyndmoor): Fatty’s, a corner tap, is being revamped into a family friendly bar that should be ready by the end of the month.

Gouldsburger’s Express, an offshoot of the Haddonfield burger shop, is going into the former Delco Steaks stand at Franklin’s Table food hall at Penn, 3401 Walnut St., perhaps in early November. Meanwhile, High Street Hoagies says it will bow out from the food hall after six years at the end of October.

Ambler’s been popping lately, what with chef Dionicio Jiménez’s La Baja and the relocated Cantina Feliz. Longtime townie Chad Rosenthal — who has Rosey’s Banh Mi in Ambler as his Lucky Well Incubator is on pause — is easing into his next restaurant, a tavern called Mary in the former Melody’s Vietnam. Until the liquor license arrives, Mary offers comp cocktails, wine, and NA beverages. Seating for now is by reservation only Wednesday-Saturday. The tight menu includes this luscious brisket Bourguignon over butternut squash grits ($32, below); steak tartare with soft-boiled egg and toasted sourdough ($19); fried shrimp and trout caviar over fresh horseradish and sour cream ($17); and an 8-ounce Angus cheeseburger with hand-cut potato wedges ($22).

Mary, 47 E. Butler Ave., Ambler. Reserve on Toast.

Fishtown Seafood’s expansion into Chestnut Hill (via KP’s Meats at the Market at the Fareway) is due to open in late October, while its wholesale/retail market is expected in mid-November at 114 Kings Highway East in Haddonfield.

The Buena Onda location in Radnor has closed after two years, as the Jose Garces-founded restaurants are undergoing corporate shuffling. ... Fiesta III in Chestnut Hill has ended its run of 41 years. Management posted the closing on the window and has been unreachable.

Mawn chef-owner Phila Lorn has collabed with Oyster House chefs Joe Campoli and James Waters through Friday on a Cambodian-inspired lobster roll, served at Oyster House (1516 Sansom St.), as a benefit for CAGE, which helps young Cambodians learn dance and other traditional art forms. The roll ($39 including fries) features crab-fat-butter-poached lobster with coconut cream, crispy fried shallots, and chives. The bun is also toasted in crab-fat butter. The somlaw macchu (sour soup) is made with house red curry, galangal, lemongrass, lime leaves, palm sugar, tamarind salt, and chicken stock to create the poaching liquid that the lobster gets tossed in.

Justin Coleman of Bake’n Bacon competes on a pork-centric episode of Guy’s Grocery Games on Food Network at 9 p.m. Oct. 23. He’s doing a watch party at the South Philadelphia restaurant.

Reading Terminal Market hosted a sculpting contest that featured a particular food. What was it?

A) scrapple

B) ice cream

C) mashed potatoes

D) butter

Find out if you know the answer.

I saw your story about the shutdown of Penn Maid Dairy. Whatever happened to Linton’s restaurants? — Gladys B.

That’s a name from the past. The short answer is that the once-ubiquitous, 24-hour diner chain — a longtime rival to Horn & Hardart, with dozens of locations all over the city — filed for bankruptcy protection in 1978 and closed the remaining restaurants soon after. The Linton’s name didn’t die, though. In 1981, John Vaughan, who ran Food Management Services, a company that specialized in food service to institutional clients, bought its contracts. In 1990, on Linton’s 100th anniversary, a nostalgic Vaughan renamed his company Linton’s. In 2022, Linton’s was acquired by Whitsons Culinary Group of Blue Bell.

Isaiah Linton’s first location opened in 1890 at 240 S. Front St. in what is now Society Hill, where the 31-story Ryland condo building now stands. Linton, a teetotaler (or coffee-totaler, as it were), catered to dockworkers, though his lunch counter was a wholesome alternative to the saloons. He was an innovator, running a fan over a block of ice for air-conditioning and installing a conveyor belt to tote food from the kitchen. Signatures included apple brown betty, fish fry, and breakfast platters. In 1963, Linton’s advertised the “Biggest Breakfast in North America” — a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, home fries, a pound of toast and two cups of jelly, and a bottomless cup of coffee for $1.99. At one point, Linton’s had locations at 8 N. 11th St., 10 N. 12th St., 26 N. 13th St., and 5 S. 13th St. — a density even Starbucks hasn’t matched in Center City.

Linton’s, like Horn & Hardart’s and its Automat, crumbled through the 1960s and 1970s under competition from the likes of McDonald’s.

Below is the Linton’s on Chelten Avenue near Germantown Avenue in 1964.

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