Lola’s Café
Next-door neighbor and offspring of White Horse Wines & Spirits, this city-style, swanky day café is the answer to wide-ranging needs for smart, contemporary eats. It’s the dream of a couple who know how to do it mindfully and right.
Peru Chikann
Helmed by a cookbook in human form, a classic Peruvian restaurant makes the case for diving into the cuisines of this South American country with the idea of expanding your own home menus.
Viecco Sabores Quilleros
Street eats from the Caribbean coast of Colombia are a joyful play of ingredients at a modest storefront that might seem unable to contain such heaping platters. Don’t worry; just dive in.
Plain & Simpol
Home-style authentic Filipino is the order of the day at a family-run storefront where the blackboard menu is a primer and the open kitchen might as well be a classroom.
Taka Taka Street Greek
Zhuzhed-up Greek fare is the focus at a newcomer to City Center. It’s all casual, all the time, whether the call’s for dine-in or to-go back home or to the dorm. Bottom line: The eats are fresh-faced and swell.
Chez Daniel
New, and yet not new, this mainstay address on a river town’s main drag currently sees a chef segueing from Irish standards to the French classics of his heritage. Daniel Gras is part way there. Let him run with his vision at full tilt.
Harry’s Daughter
Island attitudes pervade a jovial gathering spot for respectful Trinidadian classics that include beloved beach-food “bakes.” Cup your hands to eat, then clap them in response to joyful fare served in compatible style.
Nai Brother
Hidden in this incomparable mecca for Asian cuisines is a Chinese sauerkraut soup specialist where proper layering of each broth’s flavors is the charm and the occasional in-house specialty delights.
Eggholic
The egg dishes have it at this hyper-focused Indian street food spot on the main drag for all things South Asian in a municipality with ever-stronger choices for ethnic eats.
Bhan Thai
Bigger and better dressed than your average neighborhood joint Thai, this busy standby is ready for parties, tete-a-tetes for twosomes and pack-ups for tailgates. Wing it, for sure, with a side of dumplings of a different stripe.
Windy Brow Farms: Wood-fired Kitchen
Farm country is home to the best not-a-restaurant in New Jersey, a place where a farmer-chef with extraordinary talent and vision is taking glorious local ingredients to deserved heights. It’s Jake Hunt’s dream, and it’s pinch-me real.
Aoi
On some levels, this Japanese restaurant inside the APA Hotel in Iselin confounds. On others, it can be a salve to overwrought senses. In most ways, it’s in need of clearer messaging.