PHILADELPHIA and Boston aren’t exactly better food cities than New York, but their chefs could teach ours a few things about diversity and taking on projects that might seem out of your comfort zone.

Andrew Carmellini has become one of New York’s most buzzed-about chefs after going from haute French food at Café Boulud to Italian cuisine at A Voce and Locanda Verde and now to American fare at the Dutch. For the most part, though, we know what to expect from our top chefs: Scott Conant and Michael White cook Italian, David Chang and Zak Pelaccio riff on Asian flavors, April Bloomfield elevates pub grub.

But in Philadelphia, 2011 James Beard Award winner Michael Solomonov has an Israeli restaurant (Zahav), a Mexican restaurant (Xochitl) and a Texas barbecue restaurant (Percy Street Barbecue). And he’s about to unveil Federal Donuts, serving Korean fried chicken alongside its donuts, in South Philadelphia. (At a recent tasting, our favorite donut had a cardamom-orange glaze with crushed pistachios.)

Zahav, as we’ve noted before, is a revelation — with plates of rich, smooth hummus slicked with olive oil; salads redolent of striking spices like fenugreek and harissa; and delicately salty smoked sablefish piled on buttery toasted challah bread with an unctuous fried egg. So it’s a surprise to visit Solomonov’s barbecue joint and find smoky pork ribs, juicy brisket and hot links that wouldn’t be laughed out of Austin. And shocker, the pork rinds and tortilla soup at Xochitl wouldn’t be laughed out of Austin, either.

Also in Philadelphia, chef Marcie Turney is queen of her own section of 13th Street. She’s got a Mexican restaurant (Lolita), an Indian restaurant (Bindi), a gourmet food shop/catering service (Grocery), a home furnishings store (Open House) and a boutique shop (Verde) where she sells jewelry and artisanal chocolates. Her latest spot is Barbuzzo, a Mediterranean restaurant that’s one of the hottest spots in town.

Barbuzzo is especially impressive because it really does put Italian and Spanish food together in a coherent way while also offering farm-to-table flourishes like heirloom pork and a chalkboard listing the serious collection of daily vegetables. One good way to attack the menu: Start with some local greens and then go whole hog — house-cured chorizo, stuffed pork and short-rib meatballs, paccheri with a smoky pork ragu and maybe even a locally sourced pig special. And then get a seasonal dessert: The cherry-prosecco sorbet we recently tried was as summery as fruit pie.

Maybe it’s lower real estate prices (Turney and partner Valerie Safran live above Lolita and Bindi), easygoing neighbors or less competition that allows chefs like Solomonov and Turney to freestyle successfully in ways that chefs just don’t in New York. Either way, there’s also a taste of this anything-goes mentality in Boston.

Ken Oringer’s sprawling empire includes a French-American fine dining spot (Clio), an adjacent sashimi bar (Uni), a Mexican restaurant right by Fenway Park that serves until 2 a.m. on weekends (La Verdad), a steakhouse (KO Prime), a Spanish restaurant (Toro) and an Italian restaurant (Coppa). Oringer is a highly acclaimed veteran (Gourmet magazine named Clio “Best Newcomer” in 1997) who’s clearly adjusted with the times and capitalized on different markets. (On the night we visited Uni at the Eliot Hotel, he was downstairs dealing with a vegan wedding party.)

Oringer sells late-night burritos to drunks outside a baseball stadium and also runs an inventive sashimi bar (you’ll have to go elsewhere for sushi rolls) that combines sea urchin with Peruvian hot peppers and serves yellowtail marinated in a three-month-old tamari sauce with slivers of lily bulb.

At Toro (a tapas spot offering unexpected delights like a pressed sea urchin sandwich with miso butter) and Coppa, he’s teamed up with Jamie Bissonnette, a so of-the-moment, heavily tattooed, punk-rock listening, offal-loving fella who was recently voted Food & Wine magazine’s 2011 People’s Best New Chef.

Coppa, not surprisingly, is charcuterie central, and Bissonnette takes nose-to-tail quite literally. There’s a pig’s head terrine on the Coppa dinner menu, and one of our favorite dishes at a recent Coppa brunch was the roasted pig tail with mostarda glaze. The spicy pork sausage pizza packs real heat, too. But our most important tip of all: Cavatelli with chicken sausage and slow-cooked broccoli sounds boring, but it’s not what you think: It’s a hearty ragu and one of the best pasta dishes we’ve eaten in America.

Like Oringer, Michael Schlow is a longtime Boston chef who’s kept himself vital. The former New Yorker opened Radius, his new-American fine dining spot, to widespread media acclaim in 1999. That’s now part of a family of restaurants that includes two popular Italian eateries (Via Matta and Alta Strada). And earlier this year, Schlow opened Tico, a restaurant that’s “American at its core” with Spanish, Mexican and South American influences — meaning Schlow is creating whatever kind of fun food he feels like.

Tico is Boston’s version of Carmellini’s Dutch, with Schlow applying broad strokes to the kind of comfort food you wouldn’t mind eating every day. Fried chicken tacos with fennel slaw and buttermilk dressing? Yes, please. Chorizo risotto with pasilla chiles and parmesan cheese? Why didn’t somebody think of this earlier?

Like Tuco on “Breaking Bad” might say, if he were still alive, Tico is tight.

We met Schlow recently at a Gilt City pop-up dinner he cooked at Fenway Park. You can still hear Brooklyn, where he was born, in his voice. And he can’t help saying over and over again that he’s a Yankees fan — despite now being a Boston icon who’s friendly with the owners of the Red Sox (“just great people”). Schlow moved to Boston in 1995 and, he says, only intended to be there a few years and then head back to New York. Life and success may have gotten in the way, but there’s still time and room, chef. We’ve got great restaurants in New York, sure, but we could use a few more chefs like you.

WORTH A SPECIAL JOURNEY

5 top tables on the Northeast Corridor

#1 Woodberry Kitchen

Baltimore

Spike Gjerde’s stellar showcase for Maryland’s impressive bounty in a converted mill lures in jealous Washingtonians and, increasingly, those in the know from further afield. Service is generally warm and wonderful; the brunch happens to be one of the East Coast’s best.

What to get

Marvesta shrimp salad, Smoked rockfish, Chesapeake oysters, Maryland wines

Go

2010 Clipper Park Road, (410) 464-8000; woodberrykitchen.com

#2 Tico

Boston

The newest and most fun of Brooklyn expat Michael Schlow’s Beantown restaurants, this fusion tavern features quirky American eats with Iberian and Latin-American influences

What to get

Fried chicken tacos, Cubano sandwich with pork confit, chorizo risotto

Go

222 Berkeley Street, (617) 351-0400; ticorestaurant.com

#3 Zahav

Philadelphia

Simply one of the best restaurants anywhere in the Northeast, Michael Solomonov’s punk-ish Israeli cooking, served in a pleasing Society Hill space, continues to impress all comers. The bread alone — often made by Solomonov himself — is worth the trip.

What to get

Persimmon salad, salatim tray, hummus, kibbe, house smoked sable, fried cauliflower, Israeli wines

Go

237 St. James Place, (215) 625-8800; zahavrestaurant.com

#4 America Eats Tavern

Washington

Celeb chef Jose Andres takes on classic American dining in this fascinating and fun project done in conjunction with the National Archives. Wide-ranging menus include the history of each dish. Definitely worth experiencing at least once.

What to get

Hangtown fry, she-crab soup, Waldorf salad, Lobster Newburg

Go

405 8th St. NW, (202) 393-0812; americaeatstavern.com.

#5 Barbuzzo

Philadelphia

Everything from hearty, house-cured chorizo to simple summer vegetables shines at Valerie Safran and Marcie Turney’s hotter than hot Mediterranean joint on the bustling 13th Street corridor.

What to get

Lancaster County pork specials, any local vegetable dishes, meatballs, cherry-prosecco sorbet.

Go

110 S. 13th St., (215) 546-9300; barbuzzo.com — DAVID LANDSEL