Allen Perchonok, Umai
He doesn’t look like your average suburban sushi chef and he doesn’t act like one, either. He’s a former haute couture furrier whose passion for high-style omakase prompted a 180 and shaped the most individualistic and exciting new Japanese restaurant in the Garden State. TPW’s Mike Peters spent a day with Allen Perchonok and made images of how it all happens.
Le French Dad Boulangerie
No matter the time of year, a très-magnifique storefront in the downtown district packs perfected basics that are all you’ll need for a grand pique-nique. No passport required.
Erica Leahy, Three Daughters Bakery
In the latest installment of TPW’s monthly column featuring Martha Rabello talking shop with a fellow practitioner of the pastry and baking arts, she visits with Erica Leahy, whose just-opened bakery in South Orange is the showcase her extraordinary talents deserve.
Kickoff at Sweet Amalia
A pre-reopening special-event dinner at the nationally recognized market-cum-kitchen underscores its fundamentals while tipping to what’s soon to come.
Winter Wind Down: 2.27.23
It’s a most wonderful time of year, a time to appreciate foods that somehow taste better than they might at any other time of year. Take advantage of them, these favorites of the two weeks just past, before the sundial shifts.
Double Chocolate Pleasure
Ever-intrepid Ella finds inspiration from a trio of her farmers’ market favorites and bakes a simplified chocolate-on-chocolate Bundt cake that leaves her with energy aplenty to decorate – and savor at the table.
Rakesh Ramola: Indeblue
The newest inductee into TPW’s elite chef-picks-chef club of top Garden State toques juggles tradition with innovation masterfully at the modern Indian restaurant he first opened in Collingswood, then reincarnated last year in Cherry Hill, according to his selector and admirer Elias Bitar. It’s what happens when a well-traveled explorer unleashes a worldly command of spices.
Chasni
Everything breakfast is lunch again and dessert is also brunch. Then again, back-flip any item on the menu of this sibling to the Nashville hot chicken spot next door and call it dinner.
A Restaurant ‘Game-Changer’ Goes Front-Burner
Loosening the lock on liquor licenses in the Garden State would generate billions in economic activity and provide opportunities culinary pros currently lack. At a roundtable in Clinton, chefs and elected officials make it clear that legislation proposed by Gov. Murphy needs to be enacted now.
Beneficial Bakery
Allergen-free baking is creating a community around a small shop in Egg Harbor Township. It is there that folks who otherwise couldn’t enjoy a conventional cookie, muffin or slice of bread indulge and appreciate the efforts of an irrepressible woman who is its architect.
Drew’s Bayshore Bistro
There’s a dramatic new space, new dishes already on the menu and the chance to catch riffs of kitchen conversations and whiffs of what’s cooking at the new incarnation of the Bayshore’s most beloved restaurant.
Salmon Crepes
It’s ubiquitous, the fish that’s perennially in the Top 3 of most popular and consumed fishes in America. Chances are you’re going to have a chunk of it leftover at some time or another. TPW’s food upcycling wiz knows you can turn that chunk into salmon cakes or tacos – or a dish fit for a celebration.