Red Bank’s Greatest Tables
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$ under $40 · $$ $40–$80 · $$$ $80–$150 · $$$$ $150+ per person
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The Top 5 Red Bank Restaurants
Nicholas Barrel & Roost
Nicholas Barrel & Roost occupies a refurbished modern-farmhouse dining room at 160 Highway 35, ten minutes by car from downtown Red Bank, and represents the second act of one of the most decorated restaurant projects in New Jersey history. Chef-owner Nicholas Harary opened Restaurant Nicholas with his wife Melissa in 2000; over the next decade and a half it earned Zagat's highest rating in New Jersey fifteen years running and a four-star review in the New York Times. In 2018 the Hararys reconcepted the space as Barrel & Roost — same kitchen team, same ingredient discipline, but with white tablecloths stripped off, prices recalibrated, and a menu designed for accessibility any night of the week.
Char Steakhouse
Char Steakhouse occupies a long-standing dining room at 33 Broad Street, the spine of Red Bank's restaurant strip, a two-block walk from both the Count Basie Center for the Arts and the Two River Theater. The room is the modish New York interpretation of a steakhouse — dark woods, leather banquettes, an oversize central bar, lower light levels than the older Monmouth County steakhouses, with two private dining rooms upstairs handling parties of up to forty for a corporate dinner or rehearsal-night buyout. The kitchen has been the most consistent steakhouse on the Two Rivers since opening.
Birravino
Birravino occupies a converted riverfront building at 183 Riverside Avenue on the Navesink River, a five-minute walk from Marine Park and a ten-minute walk from Broad Street. The room is the project of Vic Rallo — a Monmouth County restaurateur whose Eat! Drink! Italy! television programme on Create TV documents more than twenty research trips to Italy, and whose family has run hospitality businesses on the Two Rivers for three generations. The dining room runs about ninety covers across a main level with an open kitchen and pizza oven, a long bar that handles walk-in dining and aperitivo, a private dining room for parties of fourteen, and an enclosed riverfront patio that becomes the most desirable seating in Red Bank from May through October.
Catch 19
Catch 19 sits at 19 Broad Street in the centre of Red Bank's restaurant row, a forty-five-second walk from the Count Basie Center for the Arts and a hundred yards from the Two River Theater. The room is a converted historic Broad Street building with an open kitchen, a long marble raw bar at the front of the dining room, and ninety covers across the main floor and an upstairs private dining room that handles birthday and rehearsal-dinner groups of twenty to forty. The kitchen is positioned as Red Bank's principal contemporary-seafood address — a counterpoint to Char's beef-forward room a block north on the same street.
The Bistro at Red Bank
The Bistro at Red Bank occupies a long, narrow Broad Street storefront at 14 Broad Street, just south of the Count Basie Center for the Arts. The room is a Red Bank institution — a BYO that has been continuously operated since 1996, predating the modern Broad Street restaurant strip by almost a decade, and now in a renewed wood-fired configuration with an open kitchen and a centre-of-the-room brick oven that anchors the dining experience. The space seats about fifty across a main floor with a long counter facing the open kitchen (twelve seats, the best in the room for a solo diner or two-top), a small front patio in season, and a private back room for groups of up to fourteen.