Dread the end of summer? Cheer up. A crop of exciting new restaurants are set to open this season.
Watch for new spots by veteran chefs such as Thomas Ciszak and Michael Merida as well as restaurants by new-to-North-Jersey talents such as the Ryland Inn's Daniel Brunina.
On deck and nearly ready to open its doors and light up its burners are a classic French brasserie, a Mexican BBQ joint, a chef-driven vegetarian spot, a funky ramen place, a unique fresh pasta and sandwich shop and a second casual burger location by arguably the best patty chef in North Jersey.
It's shaping up to be a delicious season. Here are 15 restaurants we're excited about.
Stern & Bow, Closter
Restaurateur Russell Stern, who for 13 years owned Harvest Bistro & Bar in Closter, is set to open a "funky, high-quality" American restaurant in mid September.
Stern's new place, Stern & Bow, replaces Azucar Cuban Cuisine on Schraalenburgh Road, just down the road from Harvest's former location, which is now Ben Pollinger's fine-dine restaurant, The Hill.
The 160-seat restaurant has two bars — a raw bar and a liquor bar.
The menu has not yet been finalized but Stern said that a wood-burning oven from Italy will not only turn out pizzas, but razor clams, chicken and steaks, too.
Stern has hired Paul Gerard, who received three stars for his cooking at Antique Bar & Bakery in Hoboken, as his consulting chef. He also has hired Pasquale Frola, formerly with Sofia Steakhouse in Englewood, as executive chef. In addition, he has asked oyster expert Kevin Joseph, who calls himself a "mermmelier," to help set up the raw bar and train his staff. "He's like a sommelier for oysters," Stern said.
Go: 171 Schraalenburgh Road, Closter, sternandbowrestaurant.com/
Brasserie Memere, Closter
Prominent New Jersey chef Thomas Ciszak is not out to reinvent French cuisine at Brasserie Memere, a casual French restaurant scheduled to open in mid-to-late October.
"It's going to be very classic French," said Ciszak, who just closed his well-received American restaurant Chakra in Paramus. He owns elegant seafood restaurant Blue Morel in Morristown and oversees 60 restaurants as vice president of Island Hospitality Management "I don’t want to do any interpretation of French food. I want to cook French food the way it has been cooked forever, the way I learned to cook it in culinary school."
Ciszak, who hails from Germany, trained in his native country where "all good restaurants were French based," he said. "My first chef was Swiss and the owner of the restaurant worked with [celebrated French chef] Paul Bocuse. All the schoolbooks were in French. All the techniques were French."
Ciszak is quick to add that Memere (French for granny) will not be a high-falutin' formal French restaurant. "This is not going to be your six-course, three-Michelin star restaurant," he said. "Every time someone cooks French, it's assumed it's a fine-dine expensive restaurant," he said. "This is casual, affordable. Something that has been missing in New Jersey."
Memere's menu will feature classics such as chicken-in-red-wine stew coq au vin; beef stew boeuf Bourguignon ("made with beef cheek'); tuna Nicoise; Alsatian bacon and onion tarte flambée; and Alsatian braised sauerkraut and meat dish choucroute. Plus pork schnitzel. "I have to have a schnitzel on the menu," Ciszak said.
The menu will also include a section of "very light in calories" cuisine natural, that is dishes cooked without butter or cream. "A lot of people think French food has to be rich and heavy," he said, "but that's not the case." Poached chicken and salmon paillard are some of the lighter dishes he plans to offer.
Pastries and lunch will be served at a small retail area and cafe, he said
The restaurant will be anchored by a "30-foot zinc bar, the kind you find in old French brasseries," wooden tables, banquet chairs, cafe tables in the cafe area that are "not modernized, the old-fashioned kind."
Ciszak added, "It's important to me that the food is entry-level prices. I want as many people as possible to be able to afford it.."
Go: 107 Vervalen St., Closter
Bar Bacoa, Summit
Barbacoa, a way of cooking meat in an open fire that originated in the Caribbean and is widely practiced in Mexico, is coming to North Jersey via Justin Antiorio, executive chef at two-year-old Summit House. He will helm the kitchen at next door Bar Bacoa, named for the trendy cooking style.
Antiorio plans to marry American smoked meats with Mexican food. He said he'll offer a variety of home-made tacos stuffed with in-house smoked brisket or chicken.
The restaurant, which will seat around 60, will also have a tequila and mezcal bar.
Bar Bacoa is scheduled to open in October.
Go:10 Maple St., Summit; 908-273-6006, facebook.com/BarBacoaNJ/
Steve’s Burgers, Garfield
After nearly 10 years cooking what are arguably the best burgers in Bergen out of a roadside stand in Garfield, owner/chef Stephen Chrisomalis is set to open a second burger joint — on the other side of town -- the first week of September.
His burgers have won numerous accolades, including from this newspaper which recently named it one of the 10 Best Burgers in New Jersey. NJ.com named it one of NJ's Best Burgers four years ago.
The space he has moved into housed the Food Train, a small diner, for nearly two years.
The diner's owners approached Chrisomalis and offered him their business. He was hesitant at first — "People said to me, 'Why are you opening another place in Garfield?'" — but after attending a city council meeting and learning of potential new developments being considered for the area, he jumped on it.
"I'm so excited and nervous," Chrisomalis said. "It's a seven-minute drive from my current location."
The second Steve's Burgers will have the same menu with two additions, Chrisomalis said: sliders and a bacon cheeseburger on a glazed doughnut made by Glaze Donuts in New Milford.
Go: 68 Passaic St., Garfield; facebook.com/Steves-Burgers
Ani Ramen House, Maplewood
Still another Ani Ramen is going to pop up in our midst. This time in Maplewood. The popular ramen soup restaurant has locations in Montclair, Summit and Jersey City (two spots). On the menu: ramen, of course, made with noodles by Totowa-based Sun Noodle, which supplies noodles to numerous top-notch restaurants in the metropolitan area.
The menu will also feature popular dishes such as bao buns, homemade crispy gyoza and Japanese Izakaya small plates. Lunch and dinner will be served daily; Ani Ramen is a BYOB restaurant.
Go: 49 Maplewood Ave., Maplewood; aniramen.com
Dimora, Norwood
While it may not be a new restaurant per se — Dimora has been serving old-school Italian food for years in Norwood. But owner/chef Gino Gjevukaj, a Norwood resident, has gutted much of his two-story restaurant to install a brand new second floor that had been "completely destroyed" by rain after a less extensive redesign of the second floor began. The restaurant has been closed since July.
"I was going to only change the second floor, but then rain damaged everything," he said.
He decided to take advantage of the situation and completely redo the kitchen and redo and enlarge the second floor.
As for the menu? It won't change much, Gjevukaj said. It will include his popular branzino. "It is my most loved dish. Nobody has got my magic. Nobody in the world makes it like Gino."
Go: 100 Piermont Road, Norwood; 201-750-5000; dimorarestaurant.com
Donatella Ristorante, Harrington Park
After 31 years, Dino's has closed and in its place Donatella Ristorante, a Northern Italian restaurant, has moved in. The new 4,000-square foot restaurant, scheduled to open in September, is courtesy of restaurateur Luke Lajqi, a Closter resident, who is part owner of Black Bull Steakhouse & Seafood in Riverdale,
According to Lajqi,his executive chef Paolo Adimari worked as a private chef for both Ivanka Trump at the family's golf course in Bedminster and Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy.
"I was born in the restaurant business," Lajqi said, noting that his father owned an Italian restaurant in New York City and his uncle, Gino Gjevukaj, owns Dino's in Norwood (see above). "I worked as a busboy, waiter, maitre d', bartender."
Donatella features a 12-seat bar, a white marble fireplace, a fish pond and a patio for alfresco dining. A new roof, parking area, boiler, bathrooms and driveway have been installed. "We stopped calculating how much this is costing," Lajqi said. "I'm just hemorrhaging money left and right."
The restaurant will offer Sunday dinner at one long table, seating 130(!), Lajqi said. "Everyone will sit next to each other."
Go: 12 Tappan Road, Harrington Park; 201-767-4245, facebook.com/DONATELLARISTORANTE
Terra e Mare, Jersey City
The folks behind the venerable Ryland Inn in Whitehouse, the Liberty House with 5-star views in Jersey City, and less-than-a-year-old contemporary Italian restaurant Felina in Ridgewood, are set to open a 120-seat spot on the edge of The Hudson River in Port Liberte in Jersey City by year's end. The restaurant will be housed on the main floor of the Hudson House, a multi-story venue newly built by Landmark Development.
Heading the kitchen will be executive chef Daniel Brunina, who for the past two years was chef de cuisine of The Ryland Inn, where, he said, "I learned how to source food extremely well." The 31-year-old Glen Gardner resident, a 2008 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, worked in the kitchen of the luxury, two-Michelin-starred Inn at Little Washington in Virginia followed by stints at award-winning luxury resort Greenbrier in West Virginia and five-star hotel Little Nell in Aspen, CO.
"The name of the restaurant — Terra e Mare — which means land and sea in Italian, kind of tells you what you need to know as far as menu," Brunina said. He declined to give specific dishes he might offer because, he said, much of what will be on the menu depends on what's in the market.
"We will have our own dry-aging room, wood-fired oven, wood-fired grill and pasta machines — fun tools to play with."
The restaurant will take full advantage of the views of the New York City skyline with floor-to-ceiling windows and eventually a rooftop bar. "And there will be balconies on every single floor," Brunina said. Two banquet halls planned for the site will open before the restaurant, he reported.
His wife, a pastry chef, brought the Virginia-born chef to New Jersey.
"My wife is from Califon in New Jersey" Brunina said. "We met at The Inn at Little Washington and she wanted to be closer to home." They have a three-year-old daughter.
Brunina said Terra e Mere should open sometime in December.
Go: 2 Chapel Ave., Jersey City
Ardor, Gillette
Ardor, a New American restaurant with European nuances, is expected to open in mid-October in the former Long Hill Tavern space in Gillette The two-story restaurant, situated on three acres of wetlands, is being completely remodeled by restaurateur Bernie Goncalves, who also owns the Publick House in Mountainside.
Helming the kitchen will be Austrian-born chef Klaus Kronsteiner, formerly of Chez Catherine, an elegant critically acclaimed French restaurant in Westfield, and more recently Hudson Hall, an Eastern European beer garden in Jersey City.The restaurant will feature multiple dining options, with a main bar augmented by a whiskey bar.
"There will be fish and chips, burgers and chicken wings but with a twist," said Kronsteiner, a Scotch Plains resident. The fish and chips, he said, will have translucent potato chips in one long strand that "looks like a harmonica" and a "deconstructed" tartar sauce. The chicken wings will be accompanied by a celery and carrot slaw with a blue cheese foam. The burger blend will include dry-aged fat.
"I don't want to say farm-to-table cause that's old," Kronsteiner said. "But everything will be gotten from local farmers, everything will be fresh."
The kitchen crew includes pastry chef Alexa Clark, formerly of Viaggio in Wayne and Common Lot in Millburn; chef de cuisine Jon Hung, who worked at Common Lot too; and executive sous chef Julian Ortiz.
"I'm absolutely excited about this," Kronsteiner said. "It's wonderful when an owner is behind an idea and gives you the equipment you really need. A lot of money has been spent on the kitchen."
Ardor's wine director Adam Greer has worked with chef John Fraser (a protegé of Thomas Keller), at now shuttered Michelin-starred Dovetail on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In New Jersey, he has worked at Restaurant Serenade, a well-received French restaurant in Chatham, Lorena's in Maplewood and Pier 115 in Edgewater,
Go: 632 Meyersville Road, Gillette
Rockin' Roots, Hillsdale
Chef Michael Merida, who has worked at some of the world's most acclaimed restaurants including three-star Michelin restaurants The Fat Duck (UK), El Bulli (Spain), Le Bernardin (New York City) and Nihonryori RyuGin (Tokyo), is set to open a casual café offering "healthy" foods and a juice bar.
"It's going to be all plant-based," said Merida, who said he will continue to helm the kitchen at Montclair Social Club in Montclair, as well. "It's a chef's approach to vegetarian/vegan food." He explained: "All juice bars are the same. They don't bring the same experience and techniques that a trained chef can." The café will offer smoothies, savory bowls, acai bowls and homemade gluten-free baked goods.
Rockin' Roots, the name his 6-year-old daughter came up with ("It's the one I liked the best") will also offer a vegetarian tasting menu every month.The casual, modern spot can seat 25 and will be open daily from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. except Friday and Saturday when it will stay open 'til 10.
Merida hopes to open Rockin Roots the first week in September.
Go: 434 Hillsdale Ave., Hillsdale; facebook.com/Rockin-Roots
Lokal Eatery & Bar, Jersey City
Executive chef Walter Donadio has worked in many restaurants in many countries: Dubai, Japan, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and as of September, he will be cooking at Lokal, an American restaurant with Mediterranean influences that sits on the Hudson River. Yes, the views are glorious. The Florence, Italy-born chef will be preparing dinners seven nights a week for up to 200 guests. Lokal replaces the Taphause.
"I've been all over," said Donadio, currently a Brooklyn, NY, resident. He has worked with Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller and in such high-end restaurants in New York City as Nobu.
"I’ve been around the neighborhood in the area. I've dined at pretty much every one of the restaurants and pretty much everyone is offering the same cuisine. Burgers and fries are great, but let's bring something a bit more elevated." His elevated grub includes crispy oysters topped with housemade spicy mayo ($9); lamb steak served with spiced couscous ($32) and spinach Malfatti with spicy tomato sauce ($23).
As for drinks, Tess Sawyer will serve as Lokal’s mixologist (past bars include The Up & Up and The Happiest Hour, both in New York City).
Go: 2 2nd St., Jersey City, lokaljc.com/
Tacoria, Morristown
New Brunswick resident Sean Patel, his younger brother and two pals — all Rutgers University grads —opened their first Tacoria, a fast-casual restaurant serving Mexican street foods, in New Brunswick 3½ years ago. They went on to open spots in Jersey City, Montclair, Princeton, and sometime in mid-October they hope to open their fifth Tacoria in Morristown.
"We're on a good track," Patel said. "For us this is a passion." The four, he said, love Mexican food.
The food they offer, Patel said, is "fresh— none of it comes out of a freezer, something unheard of in the industry." The no-freezer policy was actually forced upon the men when they opened their first spot. "It was so small, we didn't have room for a freezer," Patel said.
Tacoria slings burritos, tacos and nachos plus Mexican street corn and guacamole.
Go: 52 South St., Morristown tacoria.com
Mike's Pasta & Sandwich Shoppe, Nutley
Mike Carrino who recently closed his critically acclaimed restaurant Pig & Prince in Montclair, is set to open a pasta and sandwich shop in Nutley. The official opening date is Sept. 5; the grand opening will be at least one and half months later.
His business partner, Mike Cosenza, was sous chef at Pig & Prince.
"We will be offering fresh pasta, frozen pasta, dried pasta, stuffed pasta, pasta sauces, bone broth, soups," said Carrino, a Food Network "Chopped" champion. "Also we will have a full deli which will include fresh mozzarella, chicken cutlets, eggplant, prepared salads, composed salads, and all the expected accouterments to a delicatessen."
Go: 94 Harrison St., Nutley .mikespastasandwichshoppe.com
Recently opened
Allegory at The MC Hotel, Montclair
Allegory, the lobby-level restaurant at the brand new MC Hotel, opened at the end of August. Heading the kitchen is German-born Daniel Kill, who worked at Michelin-starred Tantris in Germany as well as Kurt Gutenbrunner’s Wallsé, Café Sabarsky, and The Upholstery Store Food & Wine in New York.
The restaurant seats 130.
The hotel features a rooftop bar and lounge, called Alto, that general manager Oscar Fontana Roos said offers lighter fare such as marinated cheese, homemade chips and roasted vegetables. Kill oversees the indoor/outdoor bar too.
The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the dinner menu find such dishes as pea ravioli ($15), chicken tagine ($21), strip steak ($26) and slow-cooked salmon (22).
Go: 690 Bloomfield Ave., Montclair; 844-624-6835, themchotel.com
Hot Plate Southern Cooking, Montclair
"There's nothing like this in the area," said Terrance Burns, chef and owner of newly opened Hot Plate Southern Kitchen, a fast-casual restaurant offering Southern soul food, including shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, honey-dipped fried chicken and home-made sweet potato pie.
"We make everything fresh here," Burns said. "We bake our own pies and cakes."
Hot Plate was launched 10 years ago in Allentown, PA. That branch and another in Bethlehem, PA, closed. The new spot moved into the space that had housed Vital Dining on Bloomfield Avenue.
Burns, who was born in Brooklyn, said he "picked up cooking from my home; it's a gift from God."
Go: 387 Bloomfield Ave., Montclair; 973-973.4182, /hotplatesouthernkitchen.com
Bread & Salt, Jersey City
Jersey City food lovers are abuzz with excitement, thanks to the opening of Bread & Salt, a pizza joint by celebrated bread and pizza maker Rick Easton. His Pittsburgh shop got him a James Beard semifinalist nomination.
Critics are already raving about his meatballs: "Your New Favorite Meatballs Might Be in New Jersey," New York City's Grub Street declared on its website. And they're raving about it in general: "Bread And Salt Is Worth the Journey to Jersey City, NYC's Gothamist proclaimed. The menu is small-- pizza and such. Don't forget to bring a bottle of wine with you.
Go: 435 Palisade Ave., Jersey City; 201-792-2618.
The Vanguard, Harrison
The two brothers behind The Barrow House in Clifton and Cowan's Public in Nutley now have a third restaurant, The Vanguard in Harrison. And like their first two spots, The Vanguard has a distinct, inviting, old-time look -- with a nice, big bar. The Vanguard's bar is twice the size of the one in the Barrow House, seating 60.
Sporting re-purposed reclaimed factory windows, reclaimed bricks and foundry floors, the restaurant serves mostly classic American dishes such as mac 'n' cheese ($8), shake and bake fried chicken ($20), barbecue ribs ($23) and New York Strip steak ($29). There are also cocktails, including "large format" ones, such as the "Take Off Time" (Bulldog gin, Aperol, yellow chartreuse, Prosecco and orange bitters; serves up to 7 for $75).
Go: 705 Frank E. Rodgers Blvd S., Harrison; 201-292-3633, thevanguardharrison.com
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https://www.northjersey.com/story/entertainment/dining/2019/09/03/north-jersey-restaurants-set-open-fall-2019/2033684001/ 2019-09-03 09:13:00Z
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