Lisa Ling on why Asian food in Los Angeles matters.
A black cod goes from the Pacific to Shibumi.
Keeping cool when the kitchen gets hot.
One restaurant’s many pandemic pivots.
Two different takes on Indian food.
Every day’s a hustle at Woon.
From Asian farms to Los Angeles restaurants.
Why in L.A. they’re not boring.
Three restaurants breaking boundaries.
Mastering values at Yang’s Kitchen.
Two chefs go behind the blade.
Omakase and ramen join the neighborhood.
The coronation of soju and makgeolli.
Three women open the bar they want to walk into.
Indonesian community through cuisine.
On working with Mom and Dad at Anajak Thai.
Los Angeles before sushi.
Inside the staff ritual of eating together.
Three Vietnamese restaurants expand the city’s palate.
One chef has some thoughts.
Waking up Los Angeles to Burmese cuisine.
The couple behind Shiku goes with the flow.
An ode to those who keep them going.
Michelle Bernstein embraces the competition.
One restaurant’s epic journey from debt to success.
The couple behind Boia De and Walrus Rodeo play by their own rules.
Vermouth gets a bar of its own.
On the business of BBQ in Miami.
Recipes for navigating an uncertain economy.
The secret to never getting old in a town obsessed with what’s new.
How two pioneers of omakase introduced Miami to a new way of dining out.
Chasing a childhood memory one arepa at a time.
Why Miami’s mainstays of Middle Eastern food aren’t phased by the influx of glossy newcomers.
David Foulquier on his shapeshifting ambitions.
The Black chefs behind a vegan movement in Miami.
Two Cuban sandwich masters talk shop.
A new generation’s take on the classic Jewish deli.
Miami’s mavericks of sustainable growing and dining.
An intimate glimpse inside restaurants after the last customer leaves.
Creating a culture where employees stick around.
A new kind of bottle service takes root in Miami.
The art of staying put in a changing city.
The city’s ventanitas created a culture all their own.
Philadelphia Magazine’s food critic on the irrepressible attitude that is the key ingredient of the city’s restaurants.
How one restaurant gave birth to many.
The cheesesteak may be the global mascot of Philly. But a contingent of pioneering chefs and restaurateurs have made the city a hub of vegetarian innovation.
The city’s Eritrean-Ethiopian restaurants serve up more—way more—than delicious food.
How Juan Carlos Aparicio baked his way to running a restaurant (that isn’t a bakery).
How Alex Tewfik went from being a food editor in Philly to owning one of the best restaurants in town.
Two restaurants that share a belief in how cooking can be force for change.
How Chutatip Suntaranon channeled her upbringing in Thailand—and life spent flying around the world—into one of Philly’s most singular restaurants.
Stopping by the warehouses in Kensington where artisan upstarts are breathing new life into the city’s food scene.
The Ongoing Evolution of Philly’s Classic Sandwiches.
Chloé Grigri, Amanda Shulman, and Ellen Yin on upending the rules of the game.
Mike Solomonov takes stock of his journey.
When a customer becomes a friend.
Ange Branca was forced to close her beloved restaurant in 2020. That was just the beginning.
How do you build a restaurant in a space that was never meant for a restaurant? In Philly, a city of Revolutionary Warera buildings and colonial row houses and ancient warehouses, it can be a bit like playing Tetris with Benjamin Franklin.
Three Philly couples get frank and intimate in sharing their recipes for romance.
Inside the world of homespun pop-ups and unexpected collaborations that have made Philly’s dining scene like nowhere else.
The classics are easy enough to master by anyone with fine liquor and a recipe.
The city has long been a vibrant hub of Vietnamese food. Today, a new generation is striking a balance all their own—between creativity and tradition, innovation and memory.
An ode to the unsung heroes of restaurant kitchens from a comedy writer who couldn’t take the heat.
A cell phone has been invented that allows you to send one text message to your younger self. What do you write?
Regulars at Royal Sushi & Izakaya in Queen Village, Will Yip, Christina Lyv, Asa Akira, and Sean Maroney tuck into dinner together. In 2019, Yip returned to Philly after spending time in Japan and went in search of a way to continue his Japanese diet at home. A friend recommended Royal, and he’s been going back ever since. Through the restaurant he became friends with Akira, another regular. “Will always brings a crew,” owner Jesse Ito says. “He’s a good friend of mine now, and a crazy busy music producer. I put together large nigiri platters for the bands he works with. He’s brought a lot of industry people through.”
Consider the regular. A stranger who enters the restaurant, sits down at the bar or in a booth, orders a meal, pays and leaves. And then returns. And keeps returning. Maybe it’s a single person, a long-married couple, or a tight group of friends. Maybe, over time, they share something of their life with a favorite server, gossip with the bartender, or maybe they share nothing at all. Either way the stranger has turned into something else. Something less like a customer and more like a friend.
These pages offer a snapshot of the unique role regulars play in the ecosystem of a restaurant. Taken over the course of one evening in three varying Philadelphia establishments, they capture the singular and reciprocal relationship between a regular and a restaurant. It is an exchange of more than money for food, but of small moments that add up to something larger: company, even companionship.
Yip, Lyv, Akira, and Maroney opted for Royal Izakaya, though all of them are regulars on the omakase side as well. “As an omakase chef, I’m feeding and directly interacting with my customers every night over the course of two hours,” Ito says. “I would say ninety percent of my omakase customers are regulars. I have a family that flies in from San Francisco for their reservation every three months.”
Yip, Lyv, Akira, and Maroney opted for Royal Izakaya, though all of them are regulars on the omakase side as well. “As an omakase chef, I’m feeding and directly interacting with my customers every night over the course of two hours,” Ito says. “I would say ninety percent of my omakase customers are regulars. I have a family that flies in from San Francisco for their reservation every three months.”
Nakhiya Blue seated at the downstairs bar at Tattooed Mom during happy hour. She first walked into the rollicking South Street institution three years ago, shortly after turning 21, and now stops by once or twice a week. “The bartenders quickly became more than people who work there, but real parts of my life,” she says. “I’ve grown so close to them that last year I went to their staff Christmas party. Any time I have a crappy day I can sit there and talk to them about movies and shows and feel better. And it goes both ways: I’ve also been there for them as well when they’re going through something.”
Adrian Mowry bringing Blue her usual order, the Beyond Mom’s Vegan Burger and a side of Cheesy Tots.
Mowry has bartended at Tattooed Mom for 26 years, since the day it opened, and relishes his relationships with regulars like Blue. “It’s like seeing a good friend when she comes in,” he says. “I don’t know much about her life, and she doesn’t know much about mine, but we have a common space for us to be ourselves.”
After he drops off her order, another bartender, Serena Quiñones, comes by to give Blue a hug.
Mary Pao enjoying a solo meal at High Street, a restaurant and bakery in the historic Franklin Building. In addition to regular dinners like this, Pao often takes baking classes at the restaurant and last year celebrated her 52nd birthday in a back room. “I come so much that sometimes I’ll secretly put my name up on the board of people who are working and see if they notice,” she says.
One person who has noticed is High Street’s owner Ellen Yin, winner of the 2023 James Beard Award for Best Restaurateur. “Before the new location of High Street opened, Mary came to our After-Hours Dinner Party—typically reserved for staff and industry colleagues—and began spreading the word of the new restaurant on the horizon,” says Yin. “One of our biggest cheerleaders, Mary is known to the whole team as a food lover, tastemaker, and an appreciator of all things High Street Hospitality Group.”
Christina McKeough, High Street’s executive chef, puts the finishing touches on a dish of crudité, labne, and green goddess before sending it out to Pao.
Pao cuts into a lemon curd cake topped with blood orange granita and basil and served alongside a burnt honey meringue. “What I like about the Philly food scene is there’s no wall between you and the staff,” says Pao. “At High Street you feel like you’re part of this gang of people.”
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