The Best Restaurants in Ardmore
The ten we would actually send you to, ranked, plus the two big names we left off on purpose.
Downtown Ardmore has quietly become the most interesting few blocks of eating on the Main Line, and the ten below are the argument, ranked and no ties. Two absences are on purpose. White Dog Cafe is in Haverford, not here. Ripplewood is a whiskey bar first and lives on our drinks list, which is the only reason it is not sitting near the top of this one.
Eshkol Ethiopian Cuisine & Cafe
The first Ethiopian kitchen on the Main Line and the one room in town the Inquirer, Main Line Today and the Infatuation have all written up. Chaltu Merga makes her injera from pure teff instead of the usual teff and wheat cut, and the doro wat is what to order first.
DePaul's Table Steakhouse
The room you book when the night matters: the old Haverford Trust bank building on Lancaster, dry-aged LaFrieda beef, oysters Rockefeller, a bar worth eating at alone. It reaches for clever cocktails and appetizers it does not need, so order a martini, a wedge and a steak and let the kitchen do what it is genuinely good at.
Villa Artigiano Ristorante BYOB
Main Line Today put it among the best new restaurants in the western suburbs, and it beats the town's other Italian rooms because Nuri Kupa cooked at La Viola in Center City before he cooked here, with one son on the line and another running the floor. BYOB, so the wine is your problem and the pasta is theirs.
DanDan
Kevin and Catherina Huang worked at Han Dynasty before they opened this, and it tells in the dan dan noodles and the three cup chicken more than in anything on the drinks list. The Inquirer calls it Ardmore's Szechuan and Taiwanese standby, which is the right word: not a night out, just the most reliable thing you can order at nine on a Tuesday.
Carlino's Market
A market rather than a dining room, and it still puts more dinner on more Ardmore tables than most kitchens on this list. It took both Best Deli and Best Pastry Chef at the 2026 Best of the Main Line, with the Carlino family behind the counter since 1983, so buy the prepared dinner and the jarred sauce to go with it.
Osushi - Ardmore
Main Line Today's critics named Osushi the region's date-night spot for 2026, and the Greenfield Avenue room is on that ticket. Sit at the counter and take the omakase nigiri set, because the specials are where the otoro tartare and the A5 wagyu carpaccio turn up.
Bam Bam Kitchen
The Inquirer's Ardmore guide names one Korean kitchen and this is it, down to the mandoo and the kimchi jjigae. Get the double fried chicken, eat in so the bibimbap arrives in the stone bowl still crackling, and let the banchan settle any argument about whether Lancaster Avenue can do this properly.
Bikini Burger
A counter with a handful of seats does not usually outrank a dining room, and this one has the receipt: Main Line Today's critics called it the best burger, fries and a shake in the whole western suburbs for 2026. Mia Robertson grinds sirloin, brisket, rib eye and chuck together and puts it on a seeded Martin's roll with Cooper Sharp, which is the correct answer.
Mikado Thai Pepper Restaurant
Thai Pepper opened in 1991, Mikado went in next door, and in 2008 the family knocked the wall down so one table could order sashimi and red curry at once. Thirty-five years on the same block is harder to fake than a good opening month, and the double menu is the reason to bring the person who can never decide.
Lola's Garden
The room is the argument: 300 seats under glass on the Suburban Square green, from the group behind Harper's Garden, and a bar list built entirely on Pennsylvania wine, beer and spirits, which no other big room out here bothers to do. Take eight people in February and let the greenhouse do the work.
