This Old Bridge restaurant, hidden in a strip mall, named of the best restaurants in US
Jenna IntersimoneHeirloom Kitchen is a decade-old restaurant and cooking school in Old Bridge with a James Beard Award-nominated chef at its helm. This week, it made national news: Along with 46 other restaurants across the country, Heirloom Kitchen was included in the 2024 USA TODAY Restaurants of the Year list.
"Whenever you receive recognition it's a wonderful honor," said Heirloom Kitchen founder and partner Neilly Robinson. "It's not why we do what we do, but it does feel amazing to know that we are being chosen and seen. It makes all the sacrifice and hard work feel rewarding."
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What makes Heirloom Kitchen stand out
Robinson founded Heirloom Kitchen in 2013 as a cooking school and a place for people to go for food education without schlepping to New York City. Three years later, she decided to give it another life as a joint restaurant venture and asked David Viana to be partner and executive chef. Those days, his career was a far cry from his later James Beard Award semifinalist nomination and run on Bravo's "Top Chef."
"I was living paycheck to paycheck, and I was about to quit cooking," Viana said. "Neilly proposed this idea and I never heard of anything like it before. At that point, it was my last ditch effort to try and salvage something out of what I was about to give up on. I thought it sounded kind of cool and at the very least would be exciting."
Viana's intuition was right, although from Heirloom Kitchen's strip mall exterior, it's hard to imagine excitement. Get past that facade and discover a warm space full of tables with mismatched chairs — including a table from Robinson's mother's house. There's also a cookbook nook adorned with a circa-1920s Glenwood stove.
Creative and colorful renditions of international dishes are served before a buzzing open kitchen, where guests can pick the brains of some of the most acclaimed chefs in the state while they dine on high-end fare from a prix fixe menu.
"You get a real juxtaposition from the strip mall exterior, and then you’re transported into this lavish best friend’s home with this pristine kitchen as the forefront," said Viana. "It's kind of this entertainment stage, where these chefs are performing and this cozy setting feeds off this energy from the kitchen."
What to order at Heirloom Kitchen
Every week, at least one item leaves Heirloom Kitchen's $89 four-course prix fixe menu, never to return. However, a recent menu included these two dishes:
Lamb with qutab, yogurt, sumac, pistachio eggplant and pomegranate: A pocket of ground lamb with herbs that creator chef Jessica Menshoff compared to a pierogi, this lamb dish was inspired by Menshoff's Azerbaijani heritage. "Every element of the dish is so unique and flavorful," general manager Desiree Martin said. "It stands out so much that it transports you to a different place, growing up and cooking in the kitchen with her family."
Duck with Kashmiri curry, dal, brown butter celeriac, tamarind duck jus and garlic naan: Don't let the curry in this dish fool you. Kashmiri curry, which isn't used as much as other Indian curries, is sweet with hints of tomato and nutmeg. "My inspiration was that I don't see new curries on menus and it's always the same run-of-the-mill curries, so I wanted to showcase Indian curries that don't get a lot of love," chef de cuisine Zachary Abramzon said. He also used tamarind in this dish as an homage to the sauces he loves to slather on Indian eats.
Did you know?
Heirloom Kitchen features a four-course prix fixe menu, where guests "choose their own adventure," Viana said, and select one dish per course. On Sundays at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. at the chef's counter, and at 5:30 p.m. at the back counter, the chefs do the choosing with a seven-course curated tasting menu for $120 per person. It started in mid-2023 and changes every week, offering only off-menu items.
"We wanted to offer a menu where the chef curated the entire experience and added a greater sense of harmony and importance to every course," Viana said.
Details: Heirloom Kitchen, 3853 Route 516, Old Bridge, N.J.; 732-727-9444, heirloomkitchen.com
Contact: JIntersimone@MyCentralJersey.com
Jenna Intersimone has been a staff member at the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey since 2014, after becoming a blogger-turned-reporter following the creation of her award-winning travel blog. To get unlimited access to her stories about food, drink and fun, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. You can also follow her on Instagram at @seejennaeat and on Twitter at @JIntersimone.