Meta Café
A breakfast-lunch spot on the edge of the city’s core downtown has a new chef-owner who’s keeping what’s loved on the menu but taking steps to not only show off his own considerable skills, but expand the café’s scope beyond the mainstream. Call ahead to secure the best dabeli anywhere.
The Circle
A destination that started out as a curiosity on the trend-spotting trail is growing into a restaurant where folks now gather to catch the pulse of Garden State ingredients tended to with imagination and sometimes daring. Much, much works well; a couple of dishes don’t hit their marks. But the farmhouse is assuredly home to a pair of confident chefs who care.
Sebastian’s Schnitzel Haus
For more than 30 years, cheerful, hearty German-American food has been the calling card and draw at this roadhouse heavily populated by Hummels, dolls and beer steins. It’s old-fashioned in other ways, too – cash only, menus encased in plastic, checks written in long hand – and that’s A-OK by all who belly up to the brats.
Poy’s Kitchen
Sporting mostly Thai, with a side of Lao-style dishes, this storefront in the county seat of Sussex County is helmed by a chef with some serious chops. Take a flier on the less available cuisine and be rewarded with mindful cookery.
Espo’s
Nowhere does the flag saluting the red, white and green in the Garden State wave more deliciously that at this mainstay in a Somerset County borough long steeped in Italian-American traditions. Here, it’s always Sunday Gravy time.
Jade’s
From a roost in a small borough in Sussex County, a couple who made a name for themselves at a chicken-centric spot in the county seat serve hearty self-styled Afro-Latin fare that does more than toe-dip into seafood and waffles.
Saja & Shawarma
Not just a shawarma standout, this newcomer to the best Main Street of Eastern Mediterranean eateries in the U.S. also sports beatific broasted chicken and savory crepes overstuffed with juicy meats. It’s the Triple Crown winner for cookery you’d otherwise need a passport and plane flights to experience.
Lokotas Argentine Empanadas
Hearty empanadas from a mother-daughter team have a home in a brick-and-mortar takeout locale in Southern Ocean County. You won’t need to ask “Where’s the beef?” – or the chicken, vegetables or sweet stuff – inside these homey, hand-held pockets. Their fat bellies betray all.
Nature’s Plate Vegan Café
A plant-based eatery in the Bayshore provides a global outlook to the dishes on its menu and keeps regulars who gather in the cozy comforts of its storefront dining space on point with a mutual mission.
Minoru
Meiji Pattamasingcha’s new upper-floor Japanese restaurant thinks of itself as casual, yet acts out in ways utterly fascinating and cunningly sophisticated. Classics and innovative concepts share space on a menu that’s high-reaching and able to hit its marks, making this destination about ambitions attained.
Paratha Project
The namesake flatbread may star at a princely showcase of India’s vegetarian street foods. But there’s more on a wide-ranging menu that struts its stuff in trendy style. Come for a timely education.
Edible Getaways
Suddenly, it’s the weekend that marks the unofficial end of summer. But you’re not yet ready to sing the season’s swansong, nor are you ready to call a halt to that blissful on-vacation attitude – not with weeks of warm weather ahead. Good thinking! Keep the Garden State’s dazzlingly intriguing ethnic restaurants in your sights and take a hot-footed escape at mealtime that’ll serve as a passport to our home state’s top culinary adventures. We’ve compiled a list of circa 2025 Restaurant Revue columns to jump-start escapes in our own very wonderful midst.