Sad but true: 18 years after opening, many restaurants are only a memory. But not Gladstone Tavern.
Since chef Tom Carlin opened this inventive yet unpretentious spot in 2006, it has become deeply rooted in Peapack-Gladstone. Lunch, brunch and dinner tables are typically fully booked with locals. “Oftentimes I’ll come out of the kitchen and know every single diner in the house,” Carlin says.
We recently spoke with the chef about how he built his longstanding community hub.
On the busy night I visited Gladstone Tavern, everyone, staff included, was having a good time. How have you accomplished this?
We do what a restaurant must to go the distance: cover all the bases. First, lovable food at gentle prices. Our ingredients are great, and our menu updates familiar bistro food to the tastes of the moment. So, eating here is interesting and fun. And the restaurant is good-looking and comfortable, with various places to eat indoors and out—whether you’re on date night, out with the kids, or meeting a friend at the bar.
Chef Tom Carlin visits with diners in Gladstone Tavern’s main dining room. Photo: James Worrell
Still, an appealing menu and varied dining environments don’t guarantee long-term success. How does the Tavern maintain its status as the gathering place for its Peapack-Gladstone community?
We’re all about consistently providing what the community wants, and that’s why our diners are more than 90 percent locals. Many of our regulars come two or more nights a week. The atmosphere is almost like a clubhouse or an extended family, where people know and like one another, where local musicians play weekly, and where there are frequent special events, like Lobsterpalooza and Dine with Your Dog. Our restaurant staff is like a family, too, with incredible staying power and great rapport with diners. To say our service is personal is an understatement.
Salad seekers find their bliss at Gladstone Tavern. Photo: James Worrell
Let’s talk more about food. What hits the spot with your diners?
They love that everything that can be from Jersey is. The menu is seasonal and thoughtfully composed, with every dish claiming its fans. I’m proud of our burger; I learned to ace that trick, plus fries and onion rings, at my first food job as a teen—Don’s Drive In in Millburn. Though here, the burger is made with local grass-fed beef. We offer plenty of complex salads to dig into. The kitchen mixes things up with unexpected tastes, like a Middle Eastern za’atar spice topping on salmon, making it more than ‘salmon again.’ Our crab tots are playful, too. They’re mini crab cakes served with zippy, kitchen-made sriracha mayo. Jersey sea scallops have a Thai spin, with coconut curry sauce. We pay a lot of attention to desserts, and our cocktails are just right, too. They’re made with all-fresh everything and aren’t too sweet or bitter. They’re pure flavor with a kick.
Gladstone Tavern’s delectable duck confit with ginger-orange sauce and crispy sweet potato. Photo: James Worrell
I have to say, the presence of duck confit on your menu hints at a high-end French culinary background, despite your stint at Don’s Drive In.
Guilty as charged. I love cooking. I grew up in Maplewood in a family of mostly lawyers. My mom, a painter, encouraged us to explore our creative side. My brother became an artist and art historian. I majored in fine arts at Rutgers but was drawn further into cooking. On the side, I worked as a line cook at Gerard’s, a French bistro in Lambertville, where perfection was the goal.
Quite a few other excellent New Jersey chefs studied art, like Cal Peternell of Finnbar and Alec Gioseffi of Ironbound Farms.
Cooking is an art! You’re using all your senses, designing with flavors, and working with your hands. Plus, there are more jobs for cooks than for artists, so you make a steady income while still avoiding the typical 9-to-5 grind.
Chef/owner Tom Carlin (in gray apron) and staffers who have 10+ years of service to Gladstone Tavern. Photo: James Worrell
What was your big break?
After graduating from college, I landed in a series of high-profile restaurants. First was 40 Main in Millburn, a pioneer of New American food. Tom Colicchio started there, too. Then I worked for Jonathan Waxman, becoming sous-chef at Jam’s in Manhattan, which had a radically open kitchen. Next was the equally famous Gotham Bar & Grill, where Colicchio and Tom Valenti, recently of Jockey Hollow in Morristown, were aboard, too. We’d joke about being the Jersey Toms.
Then I went to Quilted Giraffe, also in Manhattan, and the first restaurant to combine Asian and French styles—which got four stars from the New York Times. That kitchen, which included José Andrés, was such a smooth team. Next, I was at Mondrian, run by chef Dennis Foy, who’s now behind D’Floret in Lambertville. I had my chef’s bucket-list moment when Tom Keller—yep, another Tom—held a dinner at Mondrian for potential investors in his restaurant-to-be, the French Laundry in Napa. We cooked that meal together. I’ve learned from the best.
How did you land in Peapack-Gladstone?
I lived in Jersey City while cooking in NYC and moved to Maplewood to raise my three kids. I commuted for a while and then became executive chef at a busy Italian-American restaurant, which I made a lot more modern. When the kids went off to college, I relocated to Bedminster for the nature, the beauty, the quiet—and for me to have my own restaurant. With my business partner, who has been my best friend since nursery school in Maplewood, I bought and restored an 1847 farmhouse that was later a stagecoach stop and an inn with a tavern. In 2006 we opened as Gladstone Tavern and, as they say, the rest is history.
It’s harmony, too.
For sure. Gladstone Tavern is a wonderfully happy place all around.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Gladstone Tavern, 273 Main Street, Gladstone; 908-234-9055; @gladstone.tavern on Instagram.
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