25 Lehigh Valley Dishes You Must Try (2024)

Yes, a true Lehigh Valley cheesesteak comes adorned with a marinara-style sauce, and, yes, this long-running establishment serves those cheesesteaks. But you’d be remiss if you didn’t also try their take on the unsung spin: savory chopped steak, sweet sauteed onions, fresh lettuce, tangy tomato, creamy mayo, and sour pickles—all tucked into a toasted roll. Banana peppers are optional, but, really, they aren’t.

Blueberry Lemon Ice Cream, Owowocow

Chicken Wings, Coal Lounge & Grill

This West African restaurant skips all the fire and brimstone of “atomic-hot” sauces and serves up a dry-rubbed grilled wing that is missing a key flavor other wing joints typically forget: chicken. These aren’t dinky wings either. They’re meaty, hearty, and belly-patting in satisfaction. Though Coal classifies them as an appetizer, two orders make a dang good meal.

Cauliflower with Extra Lemonaize Sauce, True Blue

These tender, roasted florets, perfumed with Mediterranean spices, would be delicious on their own. But then there’s the sauce—my my, the sauce. It’s garlicky, lemony, and altogether heavenly. So, go on, double up for dunking.

Onion Rings, Wert's Cafe

The onion rings at Wert's Cafe keep locals coming back again and again. Sliced very thinly and with a light breading, there's a reason these are 'famous' at this Allentown hidden gem.

Famous Colonial Pizza, Colonial Pizza & Spaghetti House

“The Colonial” has been open since 1947, and this pie has been around about that long too. You could credit the novelty of its “upside-down” presentation—that’s mozzarella on the bottom and pizza sauce on the top. Though you can also credit the crisp-soft crust, the powerfully tomato-y sauce, and the perfect amount of gooey cheese.

Aw Shucks Corn, Coca-Cola Park

You’ll find their stands at Lehigh Valley festivals, but your most dependable source of juicy roasted corn, liberally buttered, and dusted with a lip-tingling blend of salt, spices, and Parmesan cheese, is where the Iron Pigs play, when the Iron Pigs play. This is also a must while "festing" at Musikfest.

Butterscotch Pudding, Bolete

This James Beard-nominated farm-to-table restaurant features a rotating menu that leans on the seasons. But there’s one menu item that’s always available—this luscious blend of egg yolks, cream, vanilla, brown sugar, and Scotch that’s topped with candied pecans and fresh whipped cream. Served in a Mason jar, it’s spoonful after spoonful of amazing.

Lengua Tacos, La Placita

This Mexican deli and grocer makes a mean enchiladas verde and a formidable cemita, but its lengua tacos are legendary. Diced, spiced, and griddled, the chunks of meat are rich and robust, yet well-balanced by chopped onion, cilantro, and a good dousing of freshly squeezed lime juice. Wrapped up in two corn tortillas a piece, you’ll want to tuck into at least three of them.

The Grand Tower, 3rd and Ferry Fish Market

Some meals are quick bites. Some meals are events. Grand indeed is this three-tiered feast of all things seafood. There are oysters. There are clams. There are shrimp, mussels, a chilled lobster tail, and hunks of jumbo lump crab meat. For good measure, there’s even some tuna tartare and ceviche too. And there’s abundance, yes, but that’s exactly the point.

Steamed Dumplings, Jenny’s Kuali

These pillowy pockets of porky deliciousness are made in-house. Drizzled with an umami-packed sauce and scattered with thick-sliced scallions, they’re simple but by no means one-note. However many you enjoy, you’re always left thinking, “It would be nice to have another.”

The Cure Pizza, Birthright Brewing Company

This craft brewery cranks out some incredibly creative beers (a stout called How Many Licks that’s brewed with Tootsie Rolls, for one). But their secret weapon is a wood-fired pizza oven that blasts out charred and blistered pies laden with surprising toppings. The Cure, in particular, carries red and white sauce, mozzarella and parmesan, plus capicola and prosciutto from Nello’s Specialty Meats, a nearby butcher.

Crab Pepper Masala, Biryani City

This Indian restaurant’s expansive menu includes mounds of biryani, flurries of curries, and table-space-gobbling dosas. Yet this dish, a one-two punch of fresh crab and peppercorn sauce, is a standout for both its heat and flavor. They don’t always have it, but when they do, pounce.

Fettuccine Con Funghi, Sette Luna

Twirling through a plate of this pasta feels like treasure hunting. One bite may bring you a hunk of crumbled sausage, another a nugget of wild mushroom, and another still a morsel of creamy goat cheese. Lightly sauced in a marsala demiglace, this is no regular ol’ plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

Breakfast Mac n Cheese, The People’s Kitchen

This could very well be the most sumptuous way to start your day in Lehigh Valley. Inside a small(ish) cast-iron skillet, The People’s Kitchen layers potatoes, mac and cheese, hickory-smoked bacon, and maple sausage. You’ll want to pay the extra buck for the fried egg on top. And coffee. Lots of coffee.

Chicken Avocado Arepa w/ Pink Sauce, La Bicicleta Arepa Bar

Cornmeal-based buns, griddled and split, and then stuffed with shredded chicken and mashed avocado. You have a choice of sauces, but there’s only one real choice: the sweet and creamy salsa rosada, also known as “pink sauce.”