01 Eating Above My Pay Grade

There are cities that teach you how to work. Others teach you how to live. Philadelphia taught me how to eat.

I moved there right after university. It was my first apartment, my first real job, and the first time rent was entirely my problem. I worked to pay bills, yes, but mostly I worked to eat out. Nearly every extra dollar went to restaurants. While friends were buying furniture, I was booking reservations. Once, a boss told me, “You know you can’t afford to eat there, right?” She meant it as guidance. I treated it as a dare.

At the time, I thought I was just chasing good meals. Looking back, I was learning something else: how food shapes a city, how a meal can hold memory, and how the rituals around eating bring people together in ways very little else can.

That is part of why Philadelphia stays with me. The city is direct, layered, and serious about quality. Its food reflects that. For Florentine, that feels like the right place to begin. Because knives, like food, are never only about utility. They are also about preparation, anticipation, gathering, and the small repeated acts that turn cooking into something more meaningful than function alone.


02 What I Learned at the Table

Photo by Jordan Harris

Philadelphia was once the capital of the United States, but what stayed with me was not only its history. It was the way the city carried itself through food. Its culinary foundation is immigrant cooking: Italian, Jewish, Irish, later Vietnamese, Cambodian, Mexican, West African, and many more. Over time, the dining scene became more ambitious without losing its grounding. It grew in confidence, but kept its edge.

Chefs like Marc Vetri and Michael Solomonov helped put Philadelphia on the national culinary map, proving the city could operate at the highest level while still feeling intimate and unforced. No empty theatrics. No exaggerated ceremony. Just precision, generosity, and flavour.

I saved for certain dinners. I chose bar seats over tables. I stretched one glass of wine longer than intended. And over time I realised the best places were not memorable because they were expensive, but because they made you feel part of something. A room with energy. A table that slows you down. A dish that makes everyone stop speaking for a second.



03 From Dining Out to Making

The older I get, the more I think the most memorable part of food is not only where you eat, but everything that leads up to it. The choosing. The chopping. The preparation. The gestures that happen before anyone sits down.

A great restaurant can sharpen your attention. It can raise your standards. But it can also send you home wanting to make something yourself, with more care, more clarity, and more attention to the tools in your hand.

That is where this connects naturally to Florentine. What Florentine understands, and what the best food cities understand too, is that craft and pleasure are not opposites. Precision does not kill warmth. Some of the most generous experiences are also the most carefully made Good knives do not perform. They participate.


04 Where to Eat

Photo by Zahav

Zahav

If there is one restaurant that defines modern Philadelphia dining, it is Zahav. Opened in 2008 by chef Michael Solomonov and restaurateur Steve Cook, it introduced many American diners to Israeli cuisine long before it became widely familiar. The food is rooted in tradition but delivered with clarity and confidence: laffa from the wood-fired oven, silky hummus, and the pomegranate-glazed lamb shoulder that has become one of the city’s signature dishes. What makes Zahav matter is not only its acclaim, but the way the meal feels: generous, communal, bold, and deeply considered.

Double Knot

Double Knot showed Philadelphia could do something darker, sharper, and more contemporary without losing itself. Upstairs, a polished café and bar. Downstairs, a low-lit dining room serving Japanese-inspired dishes built for sharing. Sushi, robata, dumplings, grilled seafood, and a room that always seems to hold a low electrical hum. It is stylish, but not hollow — the kind of place Philadelphia does particularly well.

Photo by Jordan Harris

Alpen Rose

Alpen Rose is Philadelphia’s quiet answer to the American steakhouse. Small, intimate, and deliberately restrained, it feels more like a private supper club than a grand dining room. Carefully sourced beef, classic preparations, attentive service, and enough confidence not to overcomplicate the experience. Precision without spectacle.

Bastia

If you want to see where Philadelphia dining is heading, Bastia is a good place to look. From chef Tyler Akin and restaurateur Matt Breslin, the restaurant draws on the food of Sardinia and Corsica — a Mediterranean reference point still rare on many American menus. The cooking is coastal, bright, and ingredient-led, with seafood, handmade pastas, and a sense of ease that never slips into casualness. It stands out because it does not seem eager to prove itself. It simply knows what it is.


05 Beyond the Restaurants

What makes Philadelphia worth visiting is that the food is inseparable from the city around it. Old City gives you the political foundation. Fairmount brings the museums. South Philadelphia carries much of the city’s food memory in its streets and markets. Fishtown shows its newer energy without feeling overly manufactured.

Philadelphia is not trying to outshine New York, nor imitate Washington. That is part of its appeal. It feels lived in, walkable, and full of character.

The best cities teach you how to look more closely. Philadelphia taught me that good food is never only about what is on the plate. It is about people, place, memory, and the rituals that gather around a meal.
That is also why the tools we use matter. Not because they make cooking look better, but because they become part of the experience itself — part of the preparation, part of the rhythm, part of what turns eating from necessity into something shared.


Stay — Guild House Hotel
Coffee — La Colombe
Casual lunch — Reading Terminal Market
Pizza — Angelo’s Pizzeria

Bar with a view — SkyHigh

Casual dinner — Double Knot

Casual drink — Caletta

Special dinner — Zahav

Very special dinner — Her Place Supper Club

For something unforgettable — Mawn

Museum — Barnes Foundation

Music — Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center

Walk — Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk

Nature fix — Fairmount Park

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This piece is part of Upon Return, a travel guide by Jason Claire sharing handpicked recommendations from years of travel. 
Explore more at uponreturn.com