Osteria Jersey
400 NJ Route 38
Moorestown, NJ 08057
We
had a great meal here a few Saturdays ago. We had to stay in jersey to watch my
family's dog for the night, so we decided to head over and invited one of
friends to go with us. I really wanted
to check it because I love the original in Philly, and I had heard that a lot
of the original dishes from the Philly location that have since been removed,
now resided on the menu at Osteria Jersey. We made a reservation for 3, but
wound up choosing to sit at the bar near the kitchen instead.
The bar program is fantastic. Fran is awesome at the bar, check him out if you can. He really knows his stuff. He knew great things to pair with all of our courses as far as beer, wine and cocktails went. It was some really good stuff.
We ordered the speck, gorganzola dulce and fig pizza to start and it was the bomb. It quite possibly may have been the best thing we ate all night. Awesome crust, incredible meshing of toppings; sweet, earthy and salty. Next up we had the cotechino or winter sausage over polenta and a fried egg. Wow. Another stunner. So rich and homey, I loved the cinnamon and nutmeg spiced sausage. Osteria offers up some of the best polenta I have ever tasted. The texture and cheesiness is simply phenomenal.
I tried a little bit of everyone's dishes which included the veal ragu paccheri, squash tortelli, pheasant lasagnetta, chicken liver rigatoni and suckling pig. I loved almost all of these dishes. The two I had problems with were the paccheri and the chicken liver rigatoni. I love paccheri, but these particular tubes were too think and pretty tough. For fresh pasta, they were definitely undercooked and there was not nearly enough ragu to pair with the amount of pasta that was served. My problem with the chicken liver rigatoni dish is that it was not the same as you would get at Osteria Philly and it was nowhere close to the same quality. The sauce didn’t coat the pasta here as well as it does in Philly. If you are going to offer the same dish at both locations, they had better be executed the same way. That being said, everything else was fantastic. The pheasant lasagnetta was rich and warm, some pretty awesome Italian comfort food. This is not your typical lasagna with red sauce and ricotta, but rather a much more complex and interesting dish. The squash tortelli while sweet, was not overly so, and the tender squash filled pasta was delicious. The suckling pig dish was amazing. The crispy pork skin was absurdly crunchy and the different kinds of pig prepared on the plate were all amazingly flavorful. The slow roasting process over the spit really made the fat melt and juicified the pork fantastically.
Dessert was no slouch either. The rhubarb panna cotta and pistachio and chocolate gelato were on point. The panna cotta was perfectly jiggly, creamy and enhanced beautifully by the sweet and tart rhubarb reduction. The gelato here changes all the time, and the flavors are always phenomenal. The pistachio may be the best I have had anywhere. The ice cream is creamy beyond your wildest dreams and the texture is beyond comparison. Wow!
Three
and a half pints for Osteria Jersey. We had an outstanding meal with great
service, which is exactly what the area needed. We have been back once since, but again to sit at the bar. I have heard from others that there can be problems with the service in the dining room. While I have not had the opportunity to experience that myself, I would still highly recommend sitting at the bar. The Vetri family of restaurants
is full of jewels, and this is the first foray into the Jersey realm. With a
few tweaks it could really shine brightest in the area. Check it out and let me
know what you think! Cheers!
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