One of the great passions of the residents of New Jersey is trying some of the best restaurants New Jersey has to offer, and with a new year beginning, it's time to start making plans to eat at some great ones.

Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash
Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash
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The great thing about the food scene in New Jersey is that we have so many outstanding restaurants that it's actually hard to get to them all, and even if you could, how do you choose your next one?

One of the ways so many of us make those choices is by leaning on foodie experts across the nation, and when a well-respected one like Food & Wine holds one restaurant above the rest in our state, it gets our attention.

Photo by Cloris Ying on Unsplash
Photo by Cloris Ying on Unsplash
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That is exactly what they did when they chose the best "classic" restaurant in each state. Which one did they choose here in New Jersey?

First, let's get a good definition of "classic restaurant, so we know what we're dealing with here. They looked at restaurants that have been around a long time and didn't consider any opened after 2000 for this article.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash
Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash
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With that, we are so excited to find out their choice for the Garden State. The good news for us is they didn't choose just one, they chose 5. So here are the classic restaurants they think you should choose from.

In Westfield, there's Chez Catherine, and in Atlantic City, the awesome Italian restaurant, Chef Vola's, but the list doesn't end there.

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Google Maps
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The foodie experts also suggest Camden's Donkey's Place and Bloomfield's Holsten's Brookdale Confectionery (which was the setting for the final Soprano scene).

They also talk about the really great Harvey Cedars Shellfish to wrap up a really awesome group of Garden State eateries.

Google Maps
Google Maps
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Of course, we all have our favorite old-school, classic restaurants, mine is Graziano's in Point Pleasant, and we love to visit them. But when we feel adventurous and want to try something new, that's not exactly new, we know where to go.

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