The Best Restaurants in Bryn Mawr
Ten Bryn Mawr kitchens ranked on what the critics keep writing up, not on who has the most reviews.
The surprise in Bryn Mawr is where the critics landed. The Inquirer put a pizza counter on its annual list of the region's most vital restaurants, so that is where this ten starts. Gullifty's is left off on purpose: a Lancaster Avenue fixture since 1970, but a bar with a kitchen rather than a room you book a table in. Lili's, the Mexican counter hiding inside a takeout pizza shop on Conestoga Road, has no page here yet, and it has earned one.
Johnny's Pizza Bryn Mawr
The only Bryn Mawr kitchen on The 76, the Inquirer's annual list of the region's most vital restaurants, and the only one Craig LaBan has called a rare double threat. Square pies with a crust worth the drive, cheesesteaks built on 12 ounces of house-cut rib eye, and enough volume that online ordering gets switched off to keep up.
The Choice
The one room in town cooking at tasting-menu level, six courses climbing from $80 to $120, run by two Ukrainian families and reviewed at length by Craig LaBan in 2022. French technique with Asian seasoning, and no drinks list at all, so bring the bottle.
La Cabra Brewing Smokehouse
The Infatuation scores it higher than anything else in Bryn Mawr and calls it the best barbecue on the near Main Line. Brisket and baby backs off the pit, beer brewed by the same company, and a 36-hour sourdough pizza that exists on Wednesdays only.
Fraschetta BYOB
The only restaurant in Bryn Mawr carrying an Inquirer bell rating, three of them, and since the paper retired bells in 2022 nothing new in town can ever earn one. Roman-born Gianluca Demontis cooks here what made Melograno a Center City fixture, on a menu that stops at $40.
Dua Restaurant
Both the Infatuation and Main Line Today went out to the west end of Lancaster Avenue for this one, and the Albanian half of the menu is why: burek, lamb chops, shrimp saganaki. Chef-owner Bledar Istrefi took the old Tin Lizard brewery room and put a pasta bar where the taps used to be.
Fellini Cafe Bryn Mawr
Main Line Today's critics called it the best Italian cooking on the whole Main Line in 2025, which is a heavy thing to say in a region this thick with red sauce. Franco Raimondo and Pino D'Alto have run Fellinis out here for two decades and brought the name back to Bryn Mawr. Dinner only, BYOB.
Carina Sorella
Voted Main Line Today's best new restaurant of 2025, and the only place on this list you can sit down at ten on a Sunday morning and again at ten on a Friday night. Chicken cutlets that overhang the plate, from the family behind Trattoria Carina in Media.
White House Tajine
The only Moroccan kitchen on the Main Line, which would put it here on its own, and Main Line Today made the trip out for it anyway. Lamb shank and goat tajines, chicken pastilla, halal kebabs off the grill, mint tea poured by the pot.
The Bakery House
Main Line Today readers have handed it best bakery, best muffins and best cookies across the past two years, and it has held the same Lancaster Avenue address since 1989. Sandy Stauffer's shop moves roughly 2,500 pies over Thanksgiving week, which is a town voting with its feet.
