A Philadelphia restaurant with deep Lebanese roots has been named the best in the United States. Kalaya, a Southern Thai restaurant in the city's Fishtown neighborhood, won the 2026 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant, the most coveted national prize in American dining.
The award, announced at the James Beard Foundation ceremony in Chicago on June 15, recognizes a single restaurant each year for excellence in food, hospitality, atmosphere and operations. Kalaya beat four other finalists from across the country to take the title.
The restaurant is led by chef and owner Chutatip "Nok" Suntaranon, who built her menu on the flavors of her native Southern Thailand. She opened Kalaya as a 32-seat BYOB in South Philadelphia in 2019, then moved to a larger space on the edge of Fishtown in 2022, where the restaurant kept climbing.
The Lebanese Hand Behind the Restaurant
Kalaya is co-owned by Roland Kassis, a Lebanese entrepreneur, real estate developer and film producer who runs the Fishtown firm Kassis & Co. Kassis left Beirut when he was 14 years old and later settled in Philadelphia, where he became a driving force in turning Fishtown into one of the city's most active dining and cultural districts.
His partnership with Suntaranon gave Kalaya the backing and the space to grow from a small BYOB into a national winner. Kassis & Co invests across real estate, construction, restaurants and film, with hospitality at the center of its work in the neighborhood.
A Pattern of Lebanese-Rooted Hospitality
Kalaya is not the first Fishtown project tied to Kassis. He is also a co-founder of Suraya, a Lebanese restaurant, market and garden that opened in 2017 and helped define the area's elevated dining scene. Suraya is named after Kassis's grandmother, Suraya Harouni, who helped raise him and his sister, Nathalie Richan, in Beirut.
Suntaranon dedicated the win to the city, telling the audience the honor was "for the city of Philly." The 2026 ceremony was a strong night for Philadelphia, which also saw chef Jesse Ito of Royal Sushi & Izakaya named Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic.
For Kassis, the award caps a long run of building in Fishtown. What began with a Lebanese restaurant named for his grandmother now includes the restaurant judged the best in the country.
