It’s a quarter way through the 21st century and we’re feeling our roots in ways more palpable than we have since before the Industrial Revolution changed the way we work, connect and eat. Especially how we eat.

For today, as we head into 2026, our plates are expressing to us the fundamentals of our place, people and processes. It’s a narrative keyed into this diverse-in-every-way peninsula where we live by residents both myriad and energizing and the ideas that spring from inspiration, collaboration and a desire to make the most of all our resources.

Throughout 2025, as I ate statewide in more than 200 different eateries roughly 1,300 different dishes, I was struck anew by how the fortifying, ever-instructive, always astounding three Ps of our Garden State – place, people, process – truly do shape our lives and eating habits. They conspire, in a good way, to not only structure what’s on our plates, but to nourish, inform and expand our views. If you eat as I do, in a wide variety of restaurants, avoiding fast-food drive-throughs, chains based elsewhere and mimics of trends, you’re going to end up with an edible “State of the State” of eateries, a summary of what’s there to be found near the end of every exit ramp of a highway, bend of a back road, stretch of strip malls in a commercial zone, and stroll down a Main Street and its side roads.

These 200-plus eateries and their 1,300-plus dishes I encountered after exiting highways, tooling around back roads, scouting strip malls, and skipping around downtowns are places and foods I reprised in my mind when paring them all down to a baker’s dozen favorite restaurant dishes of 2025, which posted yesterday. As always, I fretted those left on the cutting room floor. Only this year, I balked at leaving all of them there.

Dear readers, it’s been a great eating year. Astoundingly so. My 35th, doing so as a professional restaurant critic, and I came to realize that the motivation for keepin’ on keepin’ on is that sense of place the people working in our restaurants today engender and how their processes underscore and help us understand the cultures that are woven into the multicolored fabric of life in New Jersey. No matter our different views and allegiances, we live in a state that’s richer because of its diverse geography, populace and abilities to both conceive and enact ideas that express voice.

As I looked at photos of those plates of food and remembered, I realized there was too much too valuable there to forget – to let you forget. So today we offer another collection, one that could be listed as a compilation of bests or favorites, but instead I’ll call Tributes to the Garden State.

Foods, in other words, that best express our place, our people, our processes.

In no particular order, as my looking-back scribblings were made during the course of the last two months in various gridded notebooks I keep at home and the tiny pads I stash in my handbag, on my cell phone, in the margins of menus and on the backs of a couple of envelopes and one paper napkin, here are the Tributes to the Garden State of ’25:

WHEN FARMERS AND COOKS OPERATE IN SYNC

• McCay’s Blueberries with Lemon and Butter Cake ice cream, made by Jake Hunt at Windy Brow Farm in Fredon from Bluecrop blueberries harvested by fellow farmer Ed McCay at his organic patch in Chatsworth, defines collaboration. Take two Garden State bests, one from the Northwest Kingdom, the other from the Pine Barrens, merge their skills and watch them rise in tandem. It happened last summer when Hunt made an ultra-jammy blueberry puree from McCay’s lush, pure blueberries and used that to fortify the base of an ice cream laced with Meyer lemon curd and chunks of butter cake. Website for Windy Brow: www.windybrowfarms.com; for McCay’s, follow on Facebook @McCayBlueberryFarm.
• Tilefish collars, fished by Cape May County scalloper/fisherman Brady Lybarger that were cooked and served by chef Drew Araneo at Drew’s Bayshore Bistro in Keyport, show off the same high-level of collaboration. The mild, mellow meat cozying up to the collarbone is some of the richest and fattiest on a fish, inherently moist and impossibly plush. Fished and partly prepped by Lybarger, after it got into Araneo’s skilled hands, the tilefish collars were smoked and seasoned a smidgen, then finished and set on a platter with red cabbage slaw and local corn, a saucer full of remoulade on the side. Nothing could be finer. Websites: Scallop Shack Farms, www.scallopshackfarms.com and Drew’s Bayshore Bistro, www.drewsbayshorebistro.com.

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  A Sweet Amalia Market and Kitchen twofer, both eaten at the same meal at the market-kitchen in Newfield, of oyster farmer Lisa Calvo’s bristling-fresh raw Sweet Amalia oysters and chef Melissa McGrath’s smoked whitefish salad sandwich, follow that same collab action. OK, OK, OK! I want to change that twofer to a threefer, as I also can’t stop thinking about McGrath’s pitch-perfect frying of Calvo’s Sweet Amalia oysters, which makes both a sandwich and a platter of fried oysters a whole other heart-and-soul-feeding experience. Website: www.sweetamalia.com.

WHEN PROCURERS AND MAKERS LET IT BE (MOSTLY)

• Pulpo sandwich, at Bocadillo in Moonachie, shows off the passion and knowledge of the curating/kitchen team of wife-and-husband Dalida and Anthony Treus and brings to the Garden State the experience of eating in Spain. Exhibit A among many Exhibit As is this  sandwich of plump and fleshy octopus that does something not ordinarily associated with octopus and that is squirt juices that seep into a soft, ripe Galician cheese and, together, stand up to the harissa-stoked aioli swiped generously within. Website: www.bocadillonj.com.
• Japanese gizzard shad appears rarely, mostly in major big-city sushi havens. Chef Kunihiko “Ike” Aikasa is able to procure it once in a while for Shumi Leonia, where he handles as he does all his fishes: with precision slicing and exacting, often barely there accenting. His gizzard shad, slashed on the top and given a speed-ball hit of vinegar, tastes somewhat like a fresh sardine, only purer, cleaner. It requires ingredient perfection and the high skills of a chef to happen as it happens here.  Website: www.shumiomakase.com.

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  Broasted chicken at Saja & Shawarma in Paterson might not be a named headliner at this sliver-storefront on Main Street, but it’s a head-tuner when made by lead chef Ahmed Khawalda and his team. It’s spit-roasted, coated in spiced breading, then fastidiously high-heat deep-fried. Roast, coat, fry; that’s all. Be ready with a cord of paper napkins to keep your clothes from being drenched by the chicken’s spurting juices. Or come garbed in an apron. Broasting: It needs to be a very, very big thing. Follow on Facebook @Saja&Shawarma and on Instagram @saja.shawarma.

WHEN PROCESSES AMPLIFY INGREDIENT

• Red beans stewed in pork-rind stock at El Ganadero in Brick might better be called bean pudding for the beans are rather buried in pork; that’s how rich the pot liquor that envelopes them is. They’re pretty much a side show on meat-based platters at this multi-Latin storefront, but I’m thinking that if Rancho Gordo’s owner Steve Sando ever tasted them, he’d want to score owner Miguel Castillo’s recipe and publish it in his Bean Club’s newsletter. Website:  www.elganaderorestaurant.com.

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  Indo Breakfast Bowl at AwesomeYo’s Kitchen in Metuchen comes with a secret, so lean in and hear me whisper “Dried shrimp.” Yup, that’s what chef-owner Yolanda VanWettering tells me when I ask what the heck makes the broth of her Indonesian breakfast bowl have the depth of, say, the Mariana Trench. “A lot of dried shrimp” unites this bowl’s many cooked shrimp, its tangles of curly noodles that mingle with bok choy’s stems and leaves and even its poached eggs. Its complexity is beguiling, and that’s due to the shrimp, shrimp, shrimp that shout throughout. Website: www.awesomeyoskitchen.weebly.com.

• Red lentil balls at The Ethnico in Lambertville come as a group of six set on a platter drizzled with tahini and scattered with flakes of fresh parsley. They’re not patties, not flattened nor fried to crisp a crust, but rounded at the start and coddled as cooked to emphasize the softness of the red lentil-superfine bulghur combo. The seasonings seem gentle at first, but as they reveal themselves, you see how cumin, red chilies and garam masala work in tandem with minced onion, garlic, lemon and tomato to bring out the nutty, earthy qualities of the mild-mannered red lentils. You’ll soon realize that beef, pork, veal, lamb, chicken and turkey may have met their superior in ’Ball Land. No dedicated website. It’s located at 13 Klines Court and you can call 609-460-4076 for more info. Catch a good chunk of its menu at www.the-ethnico.square.site.
• Pickle soup at Pierogies House in Morristown may strike some at first menu-reading as an also-ran. Don’t be an idiot! Get it – and a gallon to take home. Pickles and pickling are what it’s all about, this house version of the Polish zupa ogórkowa that not only has a backbone of salt-brined pickles, but also carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, garlic, loads of dill, washes of vinegar and chunks of rye bread that you’ll need to catch at the start of your sip before they melt into the intense pickle-y broth. And chicken. Not mere shreds, either, but chunks of breast meat, which make the soup more of an entrée. Moreover, it speaks to Poles’ love of fermenting cucumbers and their ability to incorporate pickles into so many dishes. Bless chef-owner Evelina Berc for making a soup so reflective of place, people and process.  Website: www.pierogieshouse.com.

WHEN PEOPLE JUST LET ’ER RIP

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  The Frenchy Smashburger at Sad Boyz in New Gretna deserves a special alert because it’s the Smashburger of the CURRENT Month, which is December and likely  only will stay on the menu for the first few days of January. Given that Sad Boyz will be closed on New Year’s Day, just re-group and get there post-haste for the best smashburger in the Garden State. The Frenchy is a double, with a hefty rasher of caramelized onions peeking out from the sides and cut-open middle, and just-enough melted mozzarella and sharp provolone to coat the patties pretty much everywhere. There’s an eggy brioche bun not-so-successfully containing its innards, but isn’t that a good thing? And there’s a cuplet of beefy, oniony juices served on the side, ready for dipping. It’s real-deal au jus, reminiscent of a proper French Dip and a top-notch Mexican birria-style taco all in one. Website: www.sadboyzbites.com.