These are the Top 100 restaurants in Delaware, Yelp says, and No. 1 is a coffee shop

Should you trust a Yelp list when it comes to naming the top restaurants?

The user-generated feedback platform recently released its 2024 List of the Top 100 Restaurants in Delaware.

Sussex County food businesses, and not all fancy ones, captured nine out of the Top 10 spots.

Some of the choices and the rankings are, um, interesting to say the least.

While there are plenty of worthy contenders and many possible new-to-you places to check out, it does make you wonder about Yelp's reliability when the No. 1 slot went not to a restaurant but to a coffee shop.

Drifting Grounds in Ocean View scored the top spot. The cozy beach area cafe serves coffee, tea and other drinks, fresh baked goods, and desserts from local bakeries.

One Yelper said her favorite beverage was Drifting Grounds' iced dairy-free caramel oat milk latte. She wrote "I online order and get my drink super quick no matter the time. Service and staff are cool people as well."

No mention, however, was made of the food served there.

The Rehoboth Beach establishments included in the Top 10 best restaurants were La Fable (No. 3), a French bistro; Sunny Bay Cafe (No. 4), a breakfast spot; Frank & Louie's Italian Specialities (No. 5), a sandwich shop; Stop N Go Taco (No. 7), a Mexican takeout; and Café Papillon (No. 8), a counter-service window that serves crêpes, homemade croissants, pastries, sandwiches and salads.

Other restaurants earning top 10 spots were Po' Boys Creole Restaurant (No. 6) in Milton; Pomodoro Pizzeria (No. 9) in Bethany Beach and One Coastal (No. 10) in Fenwick lsland from chef/owner Matt Kern, who was a 2024 finalist for a James Beard Award.

Scalessa's was No. 2 and the only restaurant in New Castle County to make the Top 10 list. The casual Italian restaurant in the city's Forty Acres neighborhood is known for its meatballs, Sunday gravy and rigatoni, and chicken and veal dishes.

What didn't make Yelp's list at all is probably just as surprising as what did make the list.

Who got snubbed? Harry Savoy's Grill, the Brandywine Hundred restaurant that USA Today called one of the best in the country.

Also spurned was Le Cavalier, the Hotel du Pont's revamped brasserie, the Quoin restaurant in the downtown Wilmington hotel off Market Street, and Snuff Mill Restaurant & Wine Bar near Fairfax.

The order of Yelp's Top 100 is curious, to say the least.

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Bardea Food & Drink in Wilmington, which was named by the prestigious James Beard Foundation as one of the best new restaurants in 2019, is ranked as No. 52. Its sister operation Bardea Steak got the cold-shoulder and wasn't named at all.

So, did Yelp get it right? Here's the list.

Patricia Talorico writes about food and restaurants. You can find her on Instagram, X and Facebook. Email  [email protected]. Sign up for her  Delaware Eats newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Yelp says these are the Top 100 restaurants in Delaware