Sola, Bryn Mawr

There are only 16 tables inside Sola, but the intimate dining room is an echo chamber for camaraderie. Guests ferry their own libations to dinner under a BYOB policy, which encourages relaxed, familial meals lined with conversation. The menu refrains from overwhelming guests with too many choices or tablecloth-size pages—instead, it details a concise array of meat and seafood entrees. From the brown-butter skate wing to the roasted duck, these French-influenced dishes arrive stylishly poised on white tableware, framed against a backdrop of drizzled sauces and artfully arranged sides. Frozen white-chocolate hazelnut mousse and pumpkin cheesecake, flanked by a pear-cinnamon sorbet, draw evenings to a close.

Executive Chef Stephan Stryjewski composes these seasonally shifting spreads with help from local farms. He also receives organic ingredients, such as goat cheese and honey, from neighborhood producers, and orders his resulting creations into special prix fixe courses. Sola invests in the community through charities as well; every Sunday, it contributes 5% of its earnings to an organization of the month. Examples of past beneficiaries include The Wounded Warrior Fund and Melmark.