The 2013 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards

The Scarpettas are back!

22nd & Philly's annual food awards give us a chance to review all our food experiences from the previous year and give you a round up of our favorites.

Each year, a reader will ask us, why the "Scarpettas?" Quick background: the Italian phrase for using bread to clean your plate is "fare la scarpetta." It's perfect for our awards because one of the most telling signs of a great meal is whether Bradd cleans his plate with a piece of bread. To wit, winning a Scarpetta means you not only passed the test, but exceeded all others.

Serpico's Duck Buns

Without further ado...

Best New Restaurant: Serpico. The latest winner from Stephen Starr puts a fresh spin on modern Asian/American cuisine, with dishes like fried duck leg buns and diver scallops you'll talk about for weeks. We loved our meal from start to finish!

Best Sandwich: Border Springs Pulled Lamb Shoulder with piri piri sauce and crushed potato chips on brioche. Skip the lines for other things at Reading Terminal Market, hustle straight to Border Springs for a lamb sammie instead. Here's our first podcast with the owner, Craig Rogers.

Best Place We Never Wrote About: Han Dynasty. This place deserves all the praise it gets from everyone else and we wholeheartedly back up the popular claim that you're guaranteed to dream about Han's spicy Szechuan food within days of eating it.

The 2012 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards

Welcome everyone to the second annual 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards!

2012 was a banner year for us with some fantastic meals, events and new ideas started on the blog (The Nana Test, our first contest and more). The Scarpettas are our unique way of celebrating the best of Philadelphia and our favorite food experiences. Some we already blogged about, others we didn't have time for. At a minimum, you can follow pretty much all our food adventures on Twitter or Facebook (or subscribe to posts via email).

Why the name Scarpetta? Read last year’s awards to find out why we chose Scarpetta to characterize our own "Best Of" awards.

Without further ado, the 2012 Scarpettas go to...

The 2011 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards

Welcome everyone to the first-ever 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards!

Why the Scarpettas? On the About 22nd & Philly page, we detail why we started this blog and how we define a good food experience: "at the end of the day, if Bradd cleans his plate with a piece of bread, you know it was a good meal." Little did we know there is an Italian phrase for using bread to clean your plate, Fare La Scarpetta. We learned about the word from Anthony Bourdain's show, The Layover, when he visited Rome.

What better way to characterize our own "Best Of" awards for Philadelphia?

The Scarpettas are based on the eateries we visited in the past year, food quests, local events, readers and friends we’ve met, among other considerations. It's our way of pointing out some of our favorite - and least favorite - discoveries within local food scene during 2011. Either our plates were clean, or something was left to be desired.

And the 2011 Scarpettas go to...