El Pacifico
With a voice unlike any other in the Garden State, Eduardo Espinoza fashions a seafood-centric menu that reimagines standards and reinvigorates the outmoded. Whatever the emerging chef cooks will keep you glued to your table in this modest, unaffected space.
Cardinal
Quirks of choice keep a newcomer piloted by an old chef hand from hitting consistent heights. Adam assesses a teeter-tottering experience in Monopoly City.
Bloom
Concepts are smart and primary ingredients properly handled at a BYOB storefront where Korean accents and influences permeate French classics.
Amasi
Jordanian specialties take the lead at a new Middle Eastern restaurant in western Warren County. Once you’ve been awakened to the considerable charms of mansaf, mutabal and magluba, there’s no turning back.
Fat Choy
It’s a mishmash of cultures, of times and of places. It should be fun. But this refugee from the other side of the Hudson is plagued by cooking lapses that shortchange its concept.
Muddy Waters Gastropub
The Asbury of the Garden State’s northwest has an agrarian heritage that today is sparking a culinary hub. If a newcomer intends to be part of that burgeoning scene, it must dig into local sources and make connections.
The Smoky Cottage
Its sign now may say “Salt & Smoke,” but a name-change suited to its residential neighborhood on the borough’s East Side is in the offing at this market with outdoor seating and a giant smoker out back. Family-style barbecue is, and will be, the focus.
Le Salbuen
This eclectic café aims to do it all. But its atmospheric charms can’t make up for missteps in the kitchen that result in plates delivered to diners with serious flaws.
Yugoslavia Balkan Soul Food
Signs of the times are showing at a newcomer to the South Shore that pledges to offer foods not typically served in restaurants in these parts.
Red Lantern
One of a quartet of eateries in Restaurant Village, located at a crossroads community at the foot of Schooley’s Mountain in Morris County’s Washington Township, is this Pan Asian indoor-outdoor spot with a menu that brings even more choice to a locale created for choice.
Red’s Leaf Café
A two-month-old vegan-when-you-want-vegan eatery in a restaurant boomtown shows no shortage of ingenuity in dishes that explore the possibilities of plant-based fare.
Oxtail Pho and Banh Mi
Evolving demographics are helping to spread the reach of ethnic cuisines ever farther and deeper in the Garden State, giving diners options unimaginable a generation ago. It’s a welcome shift, even if some eateries need a nudge to go all-in authentic.