New Jersey's 25 Best Restaurants of 2016: 'Eat Here Now'

Before you go out on that anniversary date, read this first. New Jersey Monthly has released its annual list of 25 New Jersey restaurants where, the publication says, you should "eat here now."

The list may remind people of a similar list called “20 Restaurants You Have To Visit In New Jersey Before You Die” that was published by onlyinyourstate.com. That list was chock full of New Jersey eating places with food that meet all your desires, whether it’s hamburger or a pork roll sandwich.

This list is more about the elegance of dining, spotlighting restaurants that serve pork, chicken, turkey, duck, goat and lamb on the menu that are raised on local farms.

Below is that list with some excerpts from the publication's reviews. To get the full New Jersey Monthly list, click here.

Brick Farm Tavern, Hopewell

“Brick Farm Tavern takes farm-to-table farther than virtually anyone has dared. Jon and Robin McConaughy, who own the restaurant, also own neighboring Double Brook Farm, which provides most of the fruit and produce served at BFT. Moreover, all the pork, chicken, turkey, duck, goat and lamb on the menu are raised at Double Brook and slaughtered there in the only USDA-inspected, on-premises facility of its kind in New Jersey.”

Café Panache, Ramsey

“Kevin Kohler loves his snowbirds. They fly north in the spring and clamor for their favorites: pecan-crusted chicken breast with mustard sauce; filet mignon ravioli; crispy calf liver with port wine sauce. For 32 years, the chef/owner has been happy to return the love. “They’re like family,” he says.”

Chez Catherine, Westfield

“At the end of this year, Didier Jouvenet, 67—one of the last great, gracious, infinitely fastidious, Old School French restaurateurs working this side of the big pond—will retire. He will release Chez Catherine into the capable hands and charming mien of his longtime maître d’hôtel, Stéphane Bocket.”

Common Lot, Millburn

“To see them now—he, the 31-year-old chef; she, the 27-year-old manager—you’d never guess that, growing up (he in Australia, she in Austria), each was considered the black sheep of the family. But husband and wife Ehren and Nadine Ryan humorously embrace the designation, to the extent of choosing an abstract drawing of a sheep’s head as the symbol of their casual yet ambitious, “globally inspired, contemporary restaurant,” which opened in April.”

Cucharamama, Hoboken

“As widely as Maricel Presilla’s menu ranges across Central and South America, it would be no hardship to create a feast just from the tamale section. Tamales—in simplest form, a seasoned corn dough steamed in corn husks—are humble luxuries, so amenable to variation and embellishment that Presilla, in her award-winning 2012 cookbook, Gran Cocina Latina, calls them “gift-wrapped packages enclosing centuries of culinary wisdom.”

Drew’s Bayshore Bistro, Keyport

“The next gen has arrived, and not a moment too soon. Fresh from the CIA and internships, Andrew “Drew” Araneo’s 21-year-old son, Andrew II, has joined the Bayshore Bistro after what Dad calls “one of the busiest winters we ever had.”

Elements, Princeton

“Like the world-famous Noma in Copenhagen, Elements takes the concept of an open kitchen beyond the norm. As at Noma, the food at Elements is advanced in technique yet rooted in tradition (pickling, fermenting, foraging, seasonality, etc.), and it is brought to the table from the kitchen (even more visible and open than at Noma) and presented, with a brief overview, by the chef or cook who prepared it.”

The Frog and The Peach, New Brunswick

“We’re lucky that, in the Garden State, the virtue of eating local requires relatively little sacrifice. But Bruce Lefebvre won’t get slavish about it. “There’s so much great food in the world,” says the F&P’srestlessly creative chef/owner. “We just find the best, or something unique, and balance it with the local, which is in our DNA.”

Girasole, Atlantic City

“At 61, Gino Iovino is still as passionate about food as you might expect a Naples native to be. Maybe more so. He travels to Italy a few times a year, “always searching for new ideas, new ingredients” to feature at Girasole, his one-of-a-kind temple of Italian food and fashion. Girasole, though just a block from the Boardwalk, has no connection to any casino, and has been delighting visitors from near and far since it opened in 1992.”

Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen, Morristown

“Chef Kevin Sippel, 39, oversees one of the most multi-faceted and ambitious restaurant under one roof in New Jersey. JHBK, as staffers call it, is actually three restaurants on three levels. All serve food as deep in flavor and steeped in tradition as it is informed by modern cooking techniques and ideals like local, seasonal ingredients, meat produced without growth stimulants and so on.”

Knife & Fork Inn, Atlantic City

“How many restaurants more than a century old remain as good as ever? No statistics are available, but a reasonable guess would be none—except for the Knife & Fork Inn, now more than ever the showpiece of Atlantic City.”

Restaurant Latour, Hamburg

“Latour occupies a rarefied place not only in New Jersey fine dining, but in the entire region. Its spacious, 40-seat dining room is connected to the sky and the sunsets over the Kittatinny Ridge through its floor-to-ceiling window.”

Laurel & Sage, Montclair

“If subtlety is one thing and intensity another, how does chef Shawn Dalziel get them to cohabit so rewardingly? The answer involves balance and attention to detail. Consider the crab cake, that often disappointing appetizer.”

Lorena’s, Maplewood

“The blissfully luxurious food that has made Lorena’s a high-end destination for 11 years is not about to change, but the destination itself very well might. Chef Humberto Campos Jr. and his wife, Lorena, are “actively, aggressively looking,” Campos says, “to create Lorena’s 3.0.” In 2005, they opened their upscale BYO in a tight storefront at this address that allowed just 32 seats.”

Maritime Parc, Jersey City

“The patio overlooking the inlet off the Hudson River is the place to ogle the towers of Lower Manhattan, but wherever you sit, chef/owner Chris Siversen is going to bring your attention back to the plate.Maritime Parc’s name, its location in Liberty State Park within sight of the Statue of Liberty, and the rope cleats and nautical railings in architect Stephanie Goto’s airy design send a clear message: It’s the seafood, stupid.”

Mistral, Princeton

“Chef de cuisine Ben Nerenhausen has a deceptively simple credo. “It has to be fun,” he says of his food. He keeps finding new ways to make it so.”

Nicholas, Red Bank

“In their 17th year of embracing a banner many others shun, that of special-occasion restaurant, Nicholas and Melissa Harary and their all-pro staff actually seem to be raising their game. Their two large dining rooms, illuminated by extraordinary fixtures created by Belle Mead glass artist Robert Kuster, are as dramatic as any—and more tranquil and evening-long comfortable than many.”

Ninety Acres, Peapack-Gladstone

“The raising of expectations begins with the winding, 2.5-mile drive through Natirar Park, up the steep hill, around the corner, into the woods, to the valet waiting outside the converted stable house to welcome you. What’s remarkable is not just that executive chef David Felton and his staff fulfill those expectations deliciously on the plate and attentively in service, but that they do so on a scale found nowhere else in the Top 25.”

Pluckemin Inn, Bedminster

“Executive chef Andrew Lattanzio responds to praise with becoming modesty. When his chilled zucchini soup—a purée eventful with tender lobster, luscious burrata, snipped basil, tiny sourdough croutons and poignant violet flowers—is called creative, he replies, “It’s just basic.”

Poached Pear Bistro, Point Pleasant Beach

“The regular menu at chef Scott Giordano’s gastronomic oasis is so packed with hits, he doesn’t dare change it. Instead, he tempts his regulars away from proven pleasures like short-rib carpaccio, potato-crusted halibut, and veal tenderloin in puff pastry with specials like the recent poached, charred, then chilled octopus topped with the textural cousins mango and avocado in a cilantro-lime vinaigrette. ”

Red Store, Cape May Point

“Lucas Manteca grew up in Argentina a surfer. At 39, he still rides the waves whenever and wherever he can. He seeks out the big swells culinarily as well. He’s a flavor hunter, a freshness freak and a restless creator who now oversees a French bakery in Cape May (Little Store), a hand-harvested salt works (Cape May Sea Salt Company) in Cape May Court House, a hipster seafood shack in Stone Harbor (Quahog’s), and his flagship, the rustic Red Store in bucolic Cape May Point, three miles west of downtown Cape May. ”

Saddle River Inn, Saddle River

“If Jamie Knott doesn’t have one of the most discerning clienteles around, he certainly has one of the best dressed. Look around the old barn-turned-dining-room on a Saturday night; the big tables are buzzing and the twosomes are gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.”

Serenade, Chatham

“Serenade turns 20 in October, and so does the batch of sourdough starter that has put signature rolls on its tables since Day One. Daily inputs keep the starter young and frisky, and something similar applies to the restaurant. In recent years, chef James Laird, 47, has loosened the reins on his own creativity. ”

Verjus, Maplewood

“Chef/co-owner Charles Tutino does just one thing, but few do it better. That one thing, ironically, is making whatever classic dish he cooks taste a) better than you thought possible, or b) the way you imagine it was always meant to be.”

Zeppoli, Collingswood

“If you reflexively skip over antipastos when perusing Italian menus, Zeppoli is a good place to break that habit.”