This year's list of best new restaurants from Bon Appétit features two local eateries.
Rittenhouse's My Loup and Kensington's Meetinghouse were picked for the list of 20 dining spots from across the country. The outlet said it went through a six-month selection period, studying restaurants that opened between March 2023 and March 2024.
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This year, the publication praised restaurants for their collaboration and gave Meetinghouse a shoutout for bringing in guest chefs on Mondays. The gastropub with a fine dining flair opened in August 2023 at 2331 E. Cumberland St., replacing Memphis Taproom, with beer and on-draft cocktails alongside bites by chef Drew DiTomo.
"Twin turkey cutlets crowned with nothing but a fat lemon wedge, so moist that sauce would only distract," Bon Appétit's Amiel Stanek wrote of the restaurant. "A hot roast beef sandwich that squares up with even the best bar burger. This is the Platonic ideal of a neighborhood joint: clear-eyed, hospitable, doing so little to draw attention to itself that it is positively irresistible."
My Loup was opened by Alex Kemp (who was featured on the issue's cover) and Amanda Shulman in May of last year at 2005 Walnut St. Since then, Schulman was named as one of Food and Wine's best new chefs and My Loup appeared on the New York Times' best new restaurants list.
Bon Appétit's Stanek said the restaurant's Quebec-inspired cooking fits perfectly into Philadelphia's dining scene, describing it as maximalist, unpretentious and "fun as all hell."
"Only here could an elegant seafood platter feature fat, chilled mussels topped with a hoagie-inspired relish, or a textbook pâtè grand-mère be followed by a garlic knot smothered in plump, extravagantly green escargot," Stanek said. "This feels as much like a brawny bear hug between strangers celebrating a championship win as it does an elevated bistro."
