The NJ Monthly’s annual list of the absolute best restaurants to eat in New Jersey. Congratulations Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen
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.
Top floor is the fine dining, mainly prix-fixe Dining Room; main floor the hip, casual Oyster Bar and Vail Bar; ground floor the German-themed Rathskeller (live music on weekends).
Delights range from a superb raw bar to entrancing pastas, a roasted carrot soup beyond all expectations, pork schnitzel with mushroom cream sauce and one of the most atavistically satisfying burgers around. All this plus terrific wine pairings—a specialty of owner Chris Cannon—and great cocktails from mixologist James Gelmi. Read the January 2015 Review. 110 South Street, 973-644-3180.
Morristown FYI 