Ten Top Upscale Restaurants in South Jersey

South Jersey’s restaurant scene has come a long way from the idea that crossing the bridge means choosing between red-sauce Italian, a diner, or a chain restaurant on Route 73.

Today, some of the Philadelphia area’s most interesting cooking is happening on this side of the Delaware.

There are tiny chef-driven BYOBs, six-course seafood tastings, elaborate French tableside preparations, restaurants built around foraged New Jersey ingredients, old-school steakhouses, and Shore institutions that can turn dinner into the centerpiece of an entire weekend.

For this list, “upscale” doesn’t necessarily mean white tablecloths, jackets, or a $200 check. We’re looking for restaurants where the cooking, service, atmosphere, or overall experience makes dinner feel like an occasion.

The list is subjective, of course, but current critical recognition helps: New Jersey Monthly expanded its annual best-restaurants list to 50 restaurants in 2026, while Philadelphia Magazine and The Infatuation continue to give several South Jersey restaurants serious regional attention.

At a Glance

Restaurant	Town	Cuisine	Experience
Park Place Cafe & Restaurant	Merchantville	New American	Foraged tasting menu
Zeppoli	Collingswood	Sicilian	Prix fixe BYOB
June BYOB	Collingswood	French	Fine dining / tasting menu
Hearthside	Collingswood	New American	Wood-fired prix fixe
Gass & Main	Haddonfield	New American	Elevated, playful seasonal cooking
Two Fish BYOB	Medford Lakes	Seafood	Six-course tasting menu
ITA 101	Medford	Italian	Handmade pasta / regional menus
Cafe 2825	Atlantic City	Southern Italian	Tableside Italian
Knife & Fork Inn	Atlantic City	Steak & Seafood	Historic fine dining
The Ebbitt Room	Cape May	New American	Refined farm-to-table

Two Fish BYOB

Cuisine: Seafood
Format: Six-course chef’s tasting menu, BYOB
Best for: Seafood lovers
Address: 34 Trading Post Way, Medford Lakes, NJ 08055
Phone: (856) 428-3474

Two Fish is tiny, focused and unapologetically seafood-driven.

Chef Michael Stollenwerk currently offers only a six-course tasting menu for $100 per person, served Thursday through Saturday. The menu changes weekly and is designed to let the kitchen work with seafood at its best rather than maintain a permanent list of entrées.

Expect crudo, octopus, crab, skate, seasonal fish and composed seafood dishes rather than the broiled-fish-and-potato treatment.

South Jersey Magazine’s 2026 Golden Forks describes Two Fish’s six-course experience as a carefully constructed progression of sophisticated seafood dishes.

The dining room is small enough that securing a reservation can be part of the challenge.

Why go: It is one of South Jersey’s few restaurants built entirely around a chef-directed seafood tasting menu.

Park Place Cafe & Restaurant

Cuisine: New American / Foraged
Format: Tasting menu only, BYOB
Best for: The serious food person
Address: 7 E Park Ave, Merchantville, NJ 08109
Phone: (856) 662-2200

Park Place is probably the least conventional restaurant on this list—and arguably the most interesting.

Chef Philip Manganaro builds his cooking around foraging and preservation, using wild and local ingredients to create tasting menus that change with the seasons. This isn’t a restaurant where you browse a 40-item menu and order chicken because you don’t know what else to get. Dinner is the experience.

The Infatuation currently gives Park Place a 9.0, its highest rating among South Jersey restaurants, describing a sophisticated six-course experience built around locally foraged ingredients. The restaurant itself operates by appointment and offers tasting menus customized around individual diners and its seasonal cooking.

A meal might involve crudo accented with wild grape juice, local mushrooms under a seared scallop, wild crab, preserved fruit, or something Manganaro found in the woods that week.

It’s intimate, idiosyncratic, and about as far from corporate fine dining as you can get.

Why go: Because dinner here feels less like ordering from a restaurant and more like being invited into a chef’s culinary world.

Zeppoli

Cuisine: Sicilian
Format: Prix fixe, BYOB
Best for: Italian food without the clichés
Address: 618 Collings Ave, Collingswood, NJ 08107
Phone: (856) 854-2670

Chef Joey Baldino has been quietly cooking extraordinary Sicilian food in this tiny Collingswood dining room since 2011.

And consistency is part of the appeal.

Philadelphia Magazine ranked Zeppoli #23 on its 2026 list of the region’s 50 best restaurants, while The Infatuation currently scores it 8.8, its second-highest South Jersey restaurant rating after Park Place.

The food isn’t Italian-American excess. It’s focused Sicilian cooking: handmade pasta, seafood, rabbit, citrus, pistachio, bottarga, herbs and preparations that often look deceptively simple.

The current dining format is prix fixe, and the 35-seat BYOB remains one of those rare suburban restaurants that people from Philadelphia willingly cross the bridge to visit.

And save room for the namesake dessert.

Why go: Zeppoli proves that simple cooking becomes luxurious when every ingredient and technique is right.

June BYOB

Cuisine: Modern French
Format: À la carte and tasting menus, BYOB
Best for: The full fine-dining experience
Address: 690 Haddon Ave, Collingswood, NJ 08108
Phone: (856) 240-7041

If you miss the days when French restaurants felt theatrical, June is your place.

Chef Richard Cusack’s background includes Daniel in New York along with Le Bec-Fin, Bibou and Parc in Philadelphia, and that classical training shows.

There are escargots, Dover sole, beef Wellington and elaborate sauces—but also seasonal dishes that move beyond the French canon.

Then there is the duck press.

June’s canard à la presse is prepared tableside with an antique silver press in the sort of elaborate dining ritual that has nearly disappeared from American restaurants.

Philadelphia Magazine ranked June among its 50 Best Restaurants in 2026, and New Jersey Monthly included it among the 50 best restaurants in the entire state. The restaurant currently offers a five-course $100 chef’s tasting menu Wednesday through Saturday and a four-course $55 Sunday tasting menu.

Why go: For one of South Jersey’s closest approximations of old-school French fine dining—without having to cross the bridge.

Hearthside

Cuisine: Contemporary American
Format: Prix fixe, BYOB
Best for: Wood-fired meats, seafood and date night
Address: 801 Haddon Ave, Collingswood, NJ 08108
Phone: (856) 240-1164

The centerpiece of Hearthside is right there in the name.

Chef Dominic Piperno’s kitchen revolves around wood fire, using its grill and oven for meats, fish and vegetables while surrounding those dishes with polished crudos, pastas, salads and desserts.

The result feels serious without feeling stuffy.

The Infatuation rates Hearthside 8.6 and calls it a fine-dining destination, while New Jersey Monthly continues to include it among Collingswood’s essential restaurants. Its summer 2026 menu centers on seasonal ingredients and wood-fired cooking, with prix-fixe dining as the primary format.

If June represents classical technique and Zeppoli represents tradition, Hearthside is the modern counterpoint.

Why go: Few kitchens in South Jersey use live fire this thoughtfully.

Gass & Main

Cuisine: New American
Format: À la carte with tasting experiences, BYOB
Best for: People who want fine cooking without fine-dining seriousness
Address: 7 Kings Court, Haddonfield, NJ 08033
Phone: (973) 721-3179

Gass & Main doesn’t necessarily look like an upscale restaurant.

That’s part of its charm.

Chef Dane DeMarco takes familiar American comfort food and pushes it somewhere unexpected: gnocchi mac and cheese, playful deviled eggs, caviar-topped snacks, vegetables handled with the same attention usually reserved for expensive proteins, and rotating dishes built around what’s in season.

DeMarco was a 2024 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic, and Philadelphia Magazine placed Gass & Main at #26 among its 50 Best Restaurants for 2026. South Jersey Magazine’s 2026 Golden Forks also singled the restaurant out for its mix of comfort and creativity.

The restaurant is small, lively and BYOB, so this isn’t hushed fine dining.

It’s upscale cooking in a neighborhood restaurant’s clothing.

Why go: Because a great chef doesn’t need chandeliers and white tablecloths to make dinner special.

ITA 101

Cuisine: Regional Italian
Format: À la carte plus tasting menus, BYOB
Best for: Handmade pasta obsessives
Address: 20 S Main St, Medford, NJ 08055
Phone: (609) 654-0101

ITA 101 approaches Italian cooking differently from the typical Italian restaurant.

Chef Kevin Maher focuses heavily on seasonality, sustainability and regional Italian cuisine, with handmade pastas prepared daily and an ever-changing menu. The restaurant uses organic produce and eggs and sustainably sourced meat and fish where possible.

There are also themed experiences: Thursday’s pasta tasting currently runs five courses for $45, while weekend menus explore individual Italian regions.

South Jersey Magazine included ITA 101 among its 2026 Golden Fork selections, highlighting the restaurant’s handmade pastas and its ability to move between traditional and modern Italian cooking.

Why go: Because the menu encourages you to think about Italian food region by region rather than simply choosing between chicken parm and penne vodka.

Cafe 282

Cuisine: Southern Italian
Format: À la carte, full bar
Best for: Old-school tableside dining
Address: 2825 Atlantic Ave, Atlantic City, NJ 08401
Phone: (609) 344-6913

There are plenty of casino restaurants in Atlantic City.

Cafe 2825 isn’t one of them.

This family-run Italian restaurant sits away from the casino dining rooms and has built its reputation around Southern Italian cooking and tableside hospitality.

Its signature experiences include preparations such as cacio e pepe finished tableside in a cheese wheel, along with dishes prepared from scratch rather than assembled for massive resort volume.

New Jersey Monthly’s 2026 Readers’ Choice coverage named Cafe 2825 a critics’ pick for Italian restaurants, further cementing its reputation beyond Atlantic City.

Reservations can be tough, which is often the best indicator that a non-casino restaurant in Atlantic City is doing something right.

Why go: For a polished Italian dinner that still feels personal.

Knife and Fork Inn

Cuisine: Steak and seafood
Format: Classic fine dining
Best for: History, cocktails and a big night out
Address: 3600 Atlantic Ave, Atlantic City, NJ 08401
Phone: (609) 344-1133

If the other restaurants on this list represent where fine dining is going, Knife & Fork represents where it came from.

The restaurant dates to 1912, when the building began life as a private drinking and dining club. Today, its restored mahogany interiors, murals, staircases and dining rooms retain the Prohibition-era atmosphere.

The menu follows the setting: steaks, seafood, oysters, lobster, chops and classic cocktails.

More importantly, Knife & Fork isn’t surviving on nostalgia alone. New Jersey Monthly included it among the 50 Best Restaurants in New Jersey for 2026.

It’s one of the few restaurants where the building itself is nearly as much a reason to visit as dinner.

Why go: For an old-school South Jersey special occasion that actually feels like one.

Ebbitt Room

Cuisine: Seasonal New American
Format: À la carte, full bar and wine program
Best for: A romantic Cape May dinner
Address: 25 Jackson St, Cape May, NJ 08204
Phone: (609) 884-5700

The Ebbitt Room occupies the Virginia Hotel in Cape May and delivers the kind of polished experience you’d expect from the setting.

Its cooking follows a farm-to-table philosophy, with ingredients sourced in part from Beach Plum Farm in nearby West Cape May. The restaurant couples that seasonal approach with seafood, meats, oysters, cocktails and one of the more serious wine programs on this list.

Wine Spectator gave the restaurant a 2026 Award of Excellence, while New Jersey Monthly readers named The Ebbitt Room the 2026 “Best of the Best” restaurant for South Jersey.

Add the Victorian setting, porch, historic hotel and Cape May itself, and the evening becomes bigger than the meal.

Why go: Because few South Jersey restaurants combine food, wine and setting quite as naturally.