Friday Saturday Sunday

Friday Saturday Sunday is one of the 3 restaurants that earned a star from Michelin’s inaugural Philadelphia Guide. At the time of my visit they were also ranked #16 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants: North America edition (since downgraded to #40 with the 2026 list) and the highest ranked Philadelphia restaurant on the Opiniated About Dining 2026 survey. Given their popularity I made sure to grab my reservation at the exact minute they were released on OpenTable and was able to snag a Saturday night seating during my weekend trip.

The restaurant is located near Rittenhouse Square in a neighborhood with a very residential feel (translation: minimal parking). Thankfully, my hotel was nearby and I only needed to take a short walk to my dinner. This proved doubly fortunate because Philly was hit with a hefty snowfall that weekend and the roads were not the most friendly that evening.

The atmosphere in the restaurant was relaxed but cozy with low lighting from the candles on the tables. The restaurant has a bar on the ground floor where they serve a separate a la carte menu but I was upstairs in the main dining room, which only offered a tasting menu.

The drink menu had a limited selection of non-alcoholic options, all mocktails, from which I ordered a pleasant phony Negroni.

The Meal

For the opening bites I was presented with an oxtail beignet (warm, fluffy, nice savory and slightly spicy flavor), an amberjack crudo tartlet (basic but the fish was fresh) and a scallop with what I believe was a burre blanc sauce (very nice, but I’m biased towards scallop+acidic sauce). I also had an extra “lobster cocktail” that was a supplemental charge. At $20 for 2 bites I would not order it again, but the lobster was good quality and the herbal peppery sauce was very nice.

The next bite was “eggs and caviar” which was hard to look at and not think about The Modern’s eggs-on-eggs-on-eggs. The (very) small caviar bump on a thin cracker wasn’t enough to really taste like much of anything. The eggs contained a vichyssoise over egg custard that was pleasant. Overall a weaker but inoffensive course.

Next course was a house made fusilli pasta (made with “onion ash” that gave it the dark color) served in a lobster, clam, and Korean pepper sauce. The pasta itself didn’t seem to contribute much flavor but the sauce was nice. It built in heat and flavor complexity with each subsequent bite so even though the first few bites were a bit underwhelming I found myself enjoying it a lot more by the end.

The next course was one of my favorites: crispy sweetbreads with a mushroom plantain ragu. The sweetbreads had a perfect crispy-on-the-outside-and-soft-on-the-inside texture and the sauce had delicious sweet and savory flavor.

The fish course featured a halibut under a bok choy leaf cooked to a nice buttery texture served in a sauce that featured a salsa verde, which added an herbal and tangy flavor. The course was served with coco bread that was incredibly soft and fluffy with a very mild coconut sweetness that was great for soaking up the sauce.

The mangalitsa pig was served very thinly sliced and cooked crispy over rice that was mixed with an aji dulce pepper aioli. I really liked how the spiciness of the pepper balanced the fattiness of the pork and the contrast between the crispy pork and soft rice. Perhaps not the most refined in terms of execution but a very tasty dish.

The final savory course was grilled short rib with an oxtail-peanut jus and some sides that I believe were grilled bok choy, celery root puree, and sweet potato with some sort of glaze. The short rib had a smoky flavor and combined with the jus was giving me major galbi (Korean BBQ) vibes. And maybe I’m just jaded but it was nice to have a great tasting beef course that wasn’t trading on using wagyu. Not pictured but the dish was accompanied by an alium tea made with leftover trimmings of all the vegetables they use to make the other dishes. This tea had a nice rich flavor and was pleasing to sip with the course. Aside from the tea, the other sides were unremarkable.

Unfortunately I forgot to write down the pre-dessert but I believe it was a fig cake topped with mascarpone and honey. A tasty fruit and cheese type bite.

The main dessert was a duck egg mango semifreddo tart with passionfruit pieces on top and a pineapple tepache sauce that added a nice tartness. This was a fine dessert but the flavors and sweetness were very mild.

The final bite was a canelé. Maybe it’s just because I’ve never had one before but this was the most impressive of the sweet courses. The outside was so crispy and had a perfect smoky caramel flavor and the inside was soft moist and custardy. Probably a dime-a-dozen somewhere like France but very enjoyable for me.

Final Thoughts

Overall I enjoyed my meal at Friday Saturday Sunday. Service was friendly, especially one of the owners who stopped by my table to chat for a bit at the end of the meal. The restaurant runs well and there was a consistency to the quality of dishes, even as many of them felt rather “safe”. Although the dishes had a faint Afro-Caribbean flair, the flavors generally leaned on the more mild/subtle side.

I wouldn’t try to argue that they don’t deserve their star but ranking them among the top 50 restaurants in North America seems like a stretch. Even so, I am thankful to them for a lovely evening and I’m sure if I lived in Philadelphia I would be a repeat visitor.