Dining
Subscribe to this tagBest of Jersey 2010: Food and Drink
We asked our readers to list their favorite places to eat and drink, and boy-howdy did they ever respond. Read on to find out which places are readers feel are the "best" in the state.
more
Panico's
Can eating at a particular establishment in New Brunswick be considered a gamble? One of our dining critics certainly thinks so.
more
Vine
Vine, a eclectic-menu establishment with a spacious and upscale ambience in Basking Ridge, offers a refreshing Southern Mediterranean option for jaded foodies.
more
So Long, "Stringent" Process
Looking back with Ruth Cousineau, test-kitchen director for the late, lamented Gourmet.
more
Eno Terra
After earning his stripes with restaurant royalty, chef Chris Albrecht triumphs at home.
more
Bona Vita Osteria
This traditional Italian restaurant, which occupies a handsome storefront in downtown Summit, is run by culinary veterans.
more
Oceanos
Oceanos, a Greek-accented seafood restaurant in Fair Lawn with a luxury yacht-esque ambience, aims for loftier standards.
more
Why Cupid Has Chopsticks in His Quiver
The Chinese Year of the Tiger (4707, not Woods) begins on
Valentine’s Day. Here’s a guide to dumplings and other festive fare. (Photos by Brian Yarvin)
more
Food: Iron Bounty
There are many fine Spanish and Portuguese restaurants in Newark’s Ironbound section, so inevitably when you select one to write about, there is dissension.
moreThe Original
A century ago, after crossing the Atlantic, pizza crossed the Hudson and established itself in Trenton as the tomato pie—and you can still get the real deal.
more
Searching For The Soul of Jersey Pizza
This month, we attempted to answer a question that has befuddled philosophers for centuries—does pizza have a soul? Laura Schenone believes it might.
more
Celebrity Pizza Picks
New Jersey-based celebrities dish about they favorite pizza joints around the state.
more
25 Perfect Pizzas
We asked for your suggestions, then we started to eat—and eat. We logged more than a thousand miles, and concluded
that these are the pies to pine for.
more
Speak Quickly, And Carry a Big Spoon
Whether cooking at her Hoboken restaurants (or at the White House), hunting edible lizards in Peru or hairy chayotes in Weehawken, Maricel Presilla is an ebullient culinary force.
more
Big Wing Wah
Can a Chinese and Japanese restaurant in Hillsborough, whose name translates to "big success," make a splash on the dining scene?
more
Ebbitt Room
Curtis Bashaw recruited chef Lucas Manteca to run the Ebbitt Room, the AAA Five Diamond Award-winning restaurant at the Virginia Hotel in Cape May.
more
Day Trip: Edgewater
A shopping and cultural center along the Hudson.
more
Cookbook as Cliffhanger
Restaurant Nicholas’s handsome tome is for kitchens as well as coffee tables.
more
Doc's
Builder Don Luisi bids to make his hometown of Sparta synonymous with superb steaks and seafood.
more
Butternut Squash Soup
“Butternut squash soup is a classic dish," says Michael Burbella, executive chef of Table 8 in Montclair.
more
Fornelletto
A rustic Italian restaurant in the Borgata has developed a convincing wine cellar theme.
more
Food: Help On The Side
Daylight savings has come and gone, which means Thanksgiving's right around the corner. You'd love to get into the kitchen and prepare a spectacular meal from soup to nuts, but your schedule's insane.
moreA Soup Kitchen That Turns Out Chefs
Camden's venerable Cathedral Kitchen has been producing some accomplished chefs.
more
Tomatoe's
While other Shore restaurants hibernate,
Tomatoe’s in Margate kicks into holiday gear
—and keeps the festive fires burning all winter.
more
Witherspoon Grill
When Princeton restaurateur Jack Morrison snapped up a piece of prime real estate on Princeton Library Plaza in 2004 and dropped a substantial sum for the last available liquor license in town, it seemed he had a plan. Turns out, he didn’t. “It took months just to come up with a concept,” he says, laughing. “I like to pick a goal, then figure out the hardest route to get there.”
more
Food: Cinnamon and Spice
The aroma is incredible as you enter Cinnamon Indian Restaurant in Morris Plains.
moreZylo
When Zylo opened in March in the new W Hotel in Hoboken (the first W in New Jersey), it was hobbled by amateurish service and no clear identity beyond its slick “Tuscan steakhouse” label. Half a year later, it has emerged from its growing pains as an appealing and even cocky young restaurant.
more
Pig Heaven
The Mangalitsa pig has bounced back from near extinction to be prized by foodies for its beefy flavor and luscious fat. The only place Mangalitsas are being raised East of the Mississippi is, you guessed it, New Jersey.
more
Food: Lo Fatt Chow
It’s hard to miss the Route 31 billboard for Lo Fatt Chow in the Ringoes/Flemington area-not for its design, but for its name.
moreThe Barkeep's Barkeep
Ray Foley’s recipe for success runs from punch to punch lines.
more
Anton's At The Swan
The plush style harkens back to a time before casual was the mantra, but the food is fully contemporary.
more
Hoboken's Tastebud Tour
The Hoboken Food Tour offers can't-miss culinary delights fit for the most discriminating palates.
more
Farm2Bistro
The term bistro has been so abused it’s easy to forget its original meaning—a small, casual dining spot (originally in France) where locals can eat, drink, socialize, and perhaps enjoy entertainment.
more
Equus
It may be immodest, but not altogether inaccurate, for Scott Cutaneo, chef-owner of Equus in Bernardsville, to brand himself Great Scott. The Staten Island native, 41, is something of a celebrity chef, hosting regular “Great Scott” cooking segments on TV’s Fox & Friends and Good Day New York.
more
Glad Tidings
As crisp autumn winds begin to blow, grab your favorite sweater and head over to the charming Gladstone Tavern for warm mulled wine, Grandpa Chet’s pumpkin cake, and some neighborly cheer.
more
Soulful Stirrings
Consummate queen of cuisine Julia Child once declared, “I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”
more
Sonic Boom
It began quietly in the fall of 2007 with the opening of Sonic’s first New Jersey location in Waretown. Millville and Rio Grande followed in 2008.
more
Blackfish
Blackfish, a breezy, beach-chic establishment in Stone Harbor, serves up New American fare for the beach-going set.
more
Topaz Thai
Nearly every Thursday since it opened three years ago, about six interns and residents from the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark have driven north to Belleville for lunch or dinner at Topaz Thai.
more
Food: Pick the Blossom
There is a blossom in bloom in a nondescript strip mall on Howard Boulevard in Mt. Arlington.
moreSlow Food For Fast Times
The Slow Food movement has an alternative to the traditional Labor Day cookout: the eat-in, a foodie version of the civil-rights era sit-in.
more
Janice, A Bistro
The Sheridan Café, a circa-1949 Ho-Ho-Kus luncheonette, was bought in 2001 and restored, bistro-style, by locals Janice and John Tinari.
more
Shogun Legends
From the moment you enter its castle-like wooden doors, Shogun Legends in Wall showers the senses.
more
IndeBlue
Indeblue in Collingswood does not look like your average Indian tandoor house. Small and snug, with only 31 seats, it retains the shiny-blue and hazmat-orange surfaces of its predecessor, an icy-hip crêperie called 5th Corner.
more
Cucharamama
Maricel Presilla’s Cucharamama (“Mother Spoon”) celebrates traditional South American cooking as lovingly passed down by women at the family hearth.
more
Save My Restaurant
Owners learn to be careful what they wish for after inviting Gordon Ramsay and his reality TV series Kitchen Nightmares to right their ships.
more
Savor City
Paterson, the one-time Silk City, is a Great Falls of ethnic eating.
more
The Wizard of Zod
Why New York wants to grab New Jersey’s hugely talented, most idiosyncratic chef, and why he doesn’t want to leave—yet.
more
Andrea Trattoria
If not for the luxury cars crowding the parking lot on Saturday nights, Andrea Trattoria in Newfield would look like any number of South Jersey roadside taverns.
more
Resto
What is “modern French,” the cuisine of Madison’s year-old Resto? In the hands of chef-owner Robert Ubhaus—an Edison native who trained in Paris, Italy, San Francisco, Long Beach Island, and at New York City’s French Culinary Institute—it’s above all “fine dining without the pretension.”
more
Due Mari
Emphasizing seafood, Due Mari (“two seas”) joins its Bernardsville sibling, Due Terre (“two lands”), to form a dynamic duo.
more
Iron Hill Cometh
Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant will become New Jersey’s thirteenth brewpub when it opens in Maple Shade this month.
more
Matt's Red Rooster Grill
The Red Rooster, a four-and-a-half-year-old restaurant in a converted Victorian in Flemington, is trying hard to bring big city sophistication to Hunterdon’s county seat.
more
Oh! Calamares
Long before Miami chefs dreamed up Nuevo Latino fusion in the late 1980s, Peruvians had fashioned their own enduring fusion.
more
Deep in the Heart of Jersey
Boyd Lafferty grew up in Cape May, then spent 28 years in the semiconductor business in Austin, Texas. While there he earned a PhD. in international business, but when he returned home in 2004 he was thinking strictly local.
more
Kinkis: The Wings Beneath My Belt
A late-night stop in Atlantic City pays off in peerless chicken wings.
more
Blu
Zod Arifai serves great food at prices that are simply unfair (to other restaurants that charge more for less).
more
Max's Seafood Cafe
One thing that never flusters a 97-year-old restaurant is a culinary fad. So at Max’s—a handsome tavern founded by German immigrant Joseph Fred Leisinger in 1912—you won’t find sous-vide duck breast, tapas, or powdered olive oil.
more
La Fusta
Beef cattle are so plentiful in Argentina, the legend goes, that gauchos barely have to reach out to carve a steak from a passing animal. As gruesome as that sounds, it illustrates the point that beef is an even bigger part of the Argentine diet than it is of ours.
more
Nisi Estiatorio
The Mourkakos brothers lured chef John Piliouras from Molyvos, the New York restaurant he made famous, to Englewood, where he’s raising Greek cuisine to Olympian heights.
more
Food: Goings and Comings
When Jackie Cutaneo, wife of Le Petit Chateau owner/chef Scott Cutaneo, wrote to say that their restaurant in Bernardsville was being “retired” we thought; what an interesting choice of words.
moreFood: Deluxe Burgers
No question, the burger is back in a big way. Restaurants have figured out that a great burger is recession proof, and can still pack ‘em in.
moreRecipe: Goat Cheese Stuffed Zucchini
The versatile vegetable stars in this appetizing appetizer or side dish from chef and author George Kyrtatas.
more
Recipe: Fennel, Feta and Kalamata Olive Salad
Complementary flavors and textures make this simple salad from chef and author George Kyrtatas a winner.
more
Recipe: Summer Berry Smoothie
Here's a delicious and satisfying shake that happens to be good for you.
more
Recipe: Grilled Tuna Steaks Baja
Cumin, cilantro and garlic raise tuna steaks to lip-smacking heights in this dish from chef Chris Koch of Friendship Dairies.
more
Recipe: Baked Prawns and Three Cheeses
Whether served as appetizer or entrée, this adaptable dish from chef and author George Kyrtatas is hearty and delectable.
more
Pour Me In
It’s not always good news when a favorite dining spot revamps, but this story has a happy ending.
moreFood Events
4/6: A Food for Thought charity event to benefit the Mental Health Association of Morris County will be held at the Hyatt, Morristown. 6 PM; $50 prior to April 3; $65 at the door. For more information log on to www.mhamorris.org or call 973 334-3496.
moreRestaurant News
This week Rosie tells us about Chef Michael Carrino of Restaurant Passionné in Montclair, who will be featured on the new Food Network show Chopped; Etc. Steakhouse in Teaneck; the Good Scout Award luncheon in Somerset; the Passover menu at Rosa Mexicano in Hackensack; and much more news about NJ dining.
moreOliver A Bistro
Like the European bistros this cozy restaurant seeks to emulate, Oliver has an identity that can be linked directly to its owners.
more
No. 9
In this historic village—a warren of narrow streets filled with eclectic galleries, shops, and cafes—No. 9 has managed the enviable feat of distinguishing itself.
more
Best of Jersey
At New Jersey Monthly, our job every month is to bring you the best the state has to offer.
more
The Orange Squirrel
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. That describes chef Francesco Palmieri and his enthusiasm for his new restaurant. But in the kitchen his passionate and serious side comes to the fore.
more
Restaurant News
This week Rosie tells us about the St. Hubert’s K-9 Cotillion for dogs and their owners, an Opus winemaker’s dinner at the Bernards Inn in Bernardsville, Terrazza Italian Ristorante in Nutley, and much more news about NJ restaurants.
moreJL Ivy
Few mourned the 2004 closing of the Rusty Scupper, a seafood spot that offered Red Lobster-like fare at higher prices. But last May, when the vaulted post-and-beam space reopened as JL Ivy—“Serving French bistro fare and Princeton’s freshest sushi,” according to the website—many wondered if things had gone from bad to worse.
more
Seafood Steals on the Shore
Atlantic City is looking for a shot in the arm. You’re looking for a deal on a meal. That adds up to AC’s first restaurant week, which takes place March 1 through 7.
moreLobianco
If a restaurant is going to defy conventional wisdom and tuck itself away in some obscure spot, it had better be good.
more
Ten East
Reared on Benihana, the Franconeri brothers of Bayonne build a glitzy temple of Asian fusion in their hometown. The decor rocks, sure, but so does the food.
more
Swanky Bubbles Restaurant & Champagne Bar
Swanky Bubbles Restaurant and Champagne Bar in Cherry Hill offers a hip, world-themed abience and specialty martini cocktails.
more
22 New Restuarants to Try
What’s new in New Jersey dining? Here are short takes on restaurants that have opened in just the last six months but have not yet been reviewed by New Jersey Monthly.
more
The Best For Less
Top restaurants want you. They really want you. With these deals you can eat royally and still tighten your belt.
more
The New Brunch
Garden State chefs are finding ways to inject new style, variety, and value into an old standby.
more
Izakaya
In Japan, everyone eats, drinks, and socializes at casual pubs called izakayas. During a year in Japan, chef Michael Schulson fell in love with izakayas. Now he has created an eye-popping one of his own at the Borgata.
more
Day Trip: Mullica Hill
Mullica Hill is a well-restored historic town in the heart of South Jersey farmland. Here’s where you can get the best of then and now, with a few surprises along the way.
more
Day Trip: Princeton
Princeton University’s orange and black pride is splashed along the Ivy League sidewalks and historic architecture of Nassau Street. This central Jersey treasure is filled with upscale boutique shopping, secret sweet spots, engaging theatrical performances, and school spirit.
more
Elevation Burger
Health-conscious fast food.
more
New Carolina Cuisine
Jesse Jones grew up eating the classic Southern cooking his mother and grandmother made in the small town of Snow Hill, North Carolina.
moreManna
Manna, the heaven-sent food that sustained the Israelites in the desert, was not exactly a gourmet treat. In fact, the people complained bitterly to Moses about the monotony of eating it and told him they thought they were better off in Egypt. (Nobody says he had an easy job.)
more
Wolfgang Puck American Grille
Does any celebrity chef spread him-self thinner than Wolfgang Puck? He commands an empire of four Spagos, eight other fine-dining restaurants, four Wolfgang Puck Grand Cafes, and thirteen Wolfgang Puck Express eateries, to say nothing of TV shows, cookbooks, cookware, frozen pizzas, soups, and catering.
more
Readers' and Critic's Picks 2006
These are the readers' and critics' picks for best restaurants of 2006.
more
