EWR's largest bistro, new burger joints, food events and more North Jersey restaurant news
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Permit us to serve you delicious nuggets of noteworthy happenings in the North Jersey dining landscape.
Kitchen Step opens in Newark Airport
Chef Ryan DePersio, who heads the kitchens of restaurants Fascino in Montclair, Batello in Jersey City and Kitchen Step in Jersey City, has opened a second, 200-seat Kitchen Step in Newark Liberty International Airport. His business partners in the venture are Joe Calafiore and Cory Checket.
"This is the biggest restaurant in Terminal A," DePersio said.
It is one of 60 restaurants and retail shops that have moved into the new, improved, one-million-square-foot terminal, with several from New Jersey. Felina, the modern American restaurant in Ridgewood, also has a spot there. Fun fact: the terminal's restrooms are Jersey-themed.
Kitchen Step in the airport is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and offers a more simple, more takeout-friendly menu than the original Kitchen Step. It is designed to feed travelers who don't have the time to enjoy a leisurely three-course dinner but want to have more than a generic slice of pizza or a pre-packaged sandwich and perhaps a drink before they board an airplane.
"It's not a sit-down, have an appetizer-, entree-, dessert-, and after-dinner-drink kind of place," said DePersio, who is in the midst of building a lavish restaurant and venue spot in Eatontown. "It's more sandwiches and quick pick-ups.
Among the sandwiches offered is an Italian breakfast sandwich consisting of a fried egg, grilled prosciutto, baby arugula on a ciabatta roll slathered with chili aioli and the Kitchen Step burger, an eight-ounce patty topped with aged white cheddar and a hefty amount of caramelized onions. "Everyone who likes to get a burger at the airport is going to love this burger," he said, adding, "We are slowly expanding the menu."
Among the additions he expects are skirt steak and grilled salmon.
Go: Kitchen Step at Terminal A, Newark Airport. No phone or website.
Wine tasting menu every Tuesday at Sofia, Englewood
Sofia, a sleek Italian steakhouse in Englewood, now offers a tasting menu every first Tuesday of the month. The five-course meal with booze costs $125/person, occasionally $150, depending on the menu items and wine choices.
The menu for the dinner is posted on the restaurant's website two weeks before the event. You can reserve a seat online.
Sofia holds one of New Jersey's only indoor smoking licenses; it has a cigar lounge that is separate from its spacious, main dining room.
Go: 36 Engle St.,Englewood; 201-541-8530, sofiaenglewood.com.
Cannonball wine-tasting dinners return to Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen in Morristown
Chris Cannon, owner of stunning Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen in Morristown, is a passionate oenophile. He seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of every varietal, region, vintage and history of every bottle in his cellar — and there are approximately 20,000 bottles there — many of them unfamiliar to wine connoisseurs and, well, wine snobs.
Cannon hunts for under-the-radar, affordable wines that are far from mass produced in regions that are often overlooked — South Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Michigan, and more.
You can enjoy his wines paired with dishes cooked by award-winning chef and cookbook author Tom Valenti (Le Cirque, Gotham Bar & Grille, Ouest and Alison on Dominick, all in New York City) at his Cannonball Wine Dinners. Cannon recently resumed the dinners, which he offered before COVID, again in the Oyster Bar, one of four restaurants that make up the historic, marble-rich compound that is Jockey Hollow.
And it's somewhat different now. Cannon has decided to make the dinner more "communal," securing a high-top table with 10 seats for the event.
"People really dig it," he said. "I love doing it."
He continued, "We pour the wines blind. This is not wine Bingo. You're not supposed to guess what wine it is."
Cannon does the informing, in his usual, quick-to-joke way.
"It's a nice experience," he said. "People have a great time. They drink a little too much. They take an Uber. I might even bring a bottle from my cellar."
As for eats: previous dinners included crispy octopus with onion yogurt; bacon-wrapped monkfish in a red wine sauce; and Heritage Berkshire pork chop with braised Savoy cabbage.
The five-course, five-wine dinners, which take place every Thursday, cost $120 to $150.
"We try to keep it reasonable," he said.
"We never try to do wines from the same country. We try wines from around the world. These wines are not expensive but they are fantastic."
Go: 110 South St., Morristown; 973-644-3180, jockeyhollowbarandkitchen.com.
Burgers are highlight of Jack's Fish & Chips & Burgers in Cresskill
In 2015, Jack Tabibian and his wife, Aline, opened their first Jack's Lobster Shack, in Edgewater. It didn't take long for the place to become popular. The Record, (which gave it a 3 out of 4 stars), and The New York Times (a "Very Good,") went gaga for its food, especially the lobster rolls — both Maine and Connecticut style.
The couple went on to open more shacks — in Montclair, Short Hills and then, in late 2018, Cresskill.
But they closed their 1800-square-foot Cresskill shop after Labor Day 2020 and recently opened an outpost in Tenafly, with a name different from their other spots: Jack's Fish & Chips & Burgers.
"Jack wanted to do something different," Aline said. Besides, "not everyone eats seafood," she said, nor can afford a $24 lobster roll, she added. Many can afford a $12 burger.
"When we began, we didn't have a burger," Aline said. They do now.
Their bestselling burger is the Jack's burger ("Of course, it had to have Jack's name on it," Aline said with a laugh), a four-ounce beef patty blanketed by melted Monterey Jack cheese, topped with crispy onions and bacon and slathered with a Jack Daniel's glaze. Cost: $9.95.
There are plenty of other burgers as well including a Swiss burger with sauteed mushrooms, a good morning burger with a fried egg and ham, a vegetarian burger with falafel patty and hummus. And a surf and turf patty called lobster burger, a four-ounce beef patty topped by two ounces of lobster meat with tomatoes, lettuce and American cheese.
Of course, you can also get lobster rolls, New England clam chowder, lobster bisque and fish and chips.
Go: 35 Riveredge Road, Tenafly; 201-266-6575; jacksfishandchipsnj.com.
Acclaimed fine-dine restaurant The Circle in Newton now has wine, beer and curated cocktails
Brendan Ullman and Tyler O'Toole, the chefs and owners of one of the best fine-dine restaurants in North Jersey, The Circle, which opened in 2021, secured a liquor license at the beginning of the year, allowing them, as O'Toole put it, "to have another way to be creative."
The two consulted with a sommelier who had worked at Crown Shy and Jean-Georges, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's two-Michelin star restaurant in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. Ullman and O'Toole met working at Jean-Georges (hence, the name The Circle for their restaurant).
They are beginning by offering a select number of wines, beers and cocktails.
"We didn't want to jump straight into it," Ullman said. "We wanted to make sure our wine and cocktail program fit the mantra of the restaurant."
On the wine menu, you'll find two sparkling wines — an Italian prosecco and a Cremant d'Alsace — as well as four white wines and four red wines, including Mas La Chevaliere pinot noir that Ullman said "we can't get enough of, people just love it."
There are also eight different types of beer from light ales to dark stouts and an array of cocktails. Perhaps the best selling cocktail, Ullman said, is The Fig & the Sprig, fig vodka and orange juice served in a rosemary smoked glass garnished with a smoking twig of rosemary. It pairs well with The Circle's foie gras appetizer that is accompanied by a fig spread and served on house-made rye, O'Toole said. Another nice pairing, he said, is the Aquarius, a tequila-based drink with muddled Thai basil, with the tempura octopus served with a Thai basil chimichurri.
The Circle is open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday.
Go: 310 Route 94, Newton; 973-862-6410, thecirclerestaurant.com.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Explore North Jersey dining landscape: new restaurants, food events
