If you are looking to reclaim a coherent sense of America after this nervous breakdown of an election season, let me suggest that eating your way through Philadelphia is a fine way to start.

It is, to state the obvious, a city bound up in our collective history — old by a young nation’s standards but ever evolving, with neighborhoods that are distinct and at the same time reflective of a shared fearlessness. Ninety-five miles from New York, 61 miles from the Atlantic, Philadelphia (population, 1.5 million, fifth largest in the United States) is what it is because of the Dutch, German, Irish, Russian, Italian, Polish, Greek, Filipino and Korean immigrants who have added color and character to the City of Brotherly Love’s ruddy fiber. Those same qualities happen to define a great eating city as well.

Philadelphia was, of course, America’s first capital city. Whatever it may have lost when George Washington prevailed upon Congress to resettle along the Potomac River 136 miles to the south, the city did not forfeit its culinary primacy, then or now. Even leaving aside its indigenous cheesesteak sandwiches and soft pretzels, Philly as a culinary destination feels like an organic accomplishment — the natural outcome of being itself — rather than a banal eventuality of economic development. Each of these four restaurants I recently visited felt instantly approachable and un-self-conscious. These ineffable traits, as much as the sheer deliciousness of the food itself, made my four-day inhalation of Philadelphia memorable.