Chester County date night: eleven tables, one from 1830
A speakeasy with nine reviews and a five-star wine lounge, plus the Italian rooms that do the heavy lifting.
Chester County has forty-three date-night spots in the catalog, and eleven of them are worth clearing the evening for. A reservation-only teahouse that opens after dark in Exton, a speakeasy tucked off West Chester's North High Street, and a Downingtown Italian where the octopus comes out made to order. Here is where to book.
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Chef Anthony Andiario's West Gay Street kitchen turns out farm-driven Italian with house-made pasta and a James Beard nomination, open Wednesday through Saturday only.
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California wines on Market Street, where $25 gets you three pours and a pizza from Pizza 316, and one of the owners is a schoolteacher. Five stars across 105 Google reviews.
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A speakeasy-style bar tucked off North High Street, low-lit and cocktail-focused, a step away from Gay Street's busier crowd.
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Fine dining in a historic inn where chef Joshua Smith runs locally sourced ingredients through classic technique, and the soapstone bar sits on the footprint of the original 18th-century tavern.
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A modern American steakhouse in the former Stove and Tap space, running dinner seven nights with daily 4-to-6 food-and-drink specials as the cheap seats.
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Dinner in an 1830 house split into eight period dining rooms, each done up in Early American antiques, with a 13-room country inn attached if the evening runs long.
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A reservation-only teahouse that opens after dark, built on the Norwegian idea of koselig: shoes off, clean socks required, unlimited tea with pastries, music, games, and art.
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White-tablecloth Italian in the middle of Bridge Street's beer crawl, where the homemade pasta does the persuading and the reservation is the one you make when the night matters.
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Mediterranean with coastal leanings on Baltimore Pike, handmade pastas and fresh seafood from Italy, France, and the wider Mediterranean. Online reservations cap at five; bigger parties phone for a table.
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Sit-down Italian on East State with red-sauce classics and a dining room locals have kept full for years, running lunch through dinner seven days a week.
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Italian on East Lancaster Avenue that leans special-occasion, where the octopus comes out made to order and regulars rank it near the top of Downingtown's Italian list.
More field notes
- Bring your own bottle to seven tables in Chester County
- Chester County pizza: one parlor open since 1959
- A brewery in a Victorian house, and eleven more out here
- Eleven coffee shops that beat driving into the city
- Montgomery County pizza, one shop open since 1946
- Kettle-boiled since 1993: eight bagels in Bucks County
- Every field note
