New Sea Girt Restaurant Promises Farm-Fresh Meals

SEA GIRT, NJ — If you love a home-cooked meal with that farm-fresh taste and that feeling of good food, a new Sea Girt restaurant opening soon in Sea Girt will be just what you're looking for.

Farmly, which will be at 2100 Route 35 in Sea Girt, says on its website it will be serving slow-cooked roasted meats and home-style sides, meant to be enjoyed in or taken home."

An exact opening date has not been announced; the Farmly website and Facebook page say only Spring 2018.

The food is made "with quality, nutrient-dense ingredients from farmers who share our values of wholesomeness and authenticity," the restaurant's website says. "We have something savory for every diet."

The restaurant is the creation of Chef James Avery, a New Jersey native who lives in Monmouth County, according to his website. He learned about home cooking from his family, "rolling dumplings with his grandmother for her famous chicken and dumplings, stirring gumbo with his aunt while preparing for the crawfish boil, grilling clams and shucking corn at his grandparents house at the Jersey Shore."

"I wanted to create a place where I can feed my community the same way I feed my family on my day off," Avery says on the Farmly website.

As a teenager, he worked in a local pizzeria, and worked through college in Florida at several bars and restaurants learning various aspects of the industry. He has a culinary arts degree from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, and returned to New Jersey in 2005, where he started his own catering company, Backyard Barbecue Group, then worked under David Burke at Fromagerie in Rumson. He also has worked in Atlantic City and spent time working on the culinary production team for Gordon Ramsay’s television show “Kitchen Nightmares” in 2010 and later was the Blue Team Sous Chef on Gordon Ramsay’s "Hell’s Kitchen" on Fox.

Farmly isn't his first restaurant. He previously opened J Café – offering from-scratch cooking with local and seasonal ingredients – in Lake Como, and it was later transformed into Jersey Burger.

Avery also started and oversees Le Petit Chef program teaching N.J. schoolchildren more about food, nutrition and simple meal preparation.

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