The restaurants redefining Italian cuisine at the Jersey Shore

Slip into your slinkiest leopard print and widest lapels for a retro night of cool cocktails and fresh pasta at Angeloni’s Club Madrid, the cheeky revival, reinvention, and tribute to the two long-standing operations — Angeloni’s II and its predecessor, Club Madrid — that previously occupied this Ducktown corner. The restaurant’s multiple lounges and rooms, outfitted by Philly’s Kate Rohrer and Annie Serroka of Rohe Creative, conjure a 1980s collage of knickknacks, mirrored ceilings, and a soundtrack to match. You can gaze at a chandelier that purportedly hung in the South Philly home of mob boss Angelo Bruno and sip a salted amaro espresso martini while Teddy Pendergrass and Hall & Oates fill the room. A 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham limo parked out front doubles as the smoking section. The commitment to kitsch is impressive, but the quality and updated approach to the food and drinks is just as meticulous, creating a full package that lends this project appeal to a wide audience of walk-ins (along with members who pay up to $1,000 for year-round priority access). While the original Angeloni’s was favored by casino high rollers for its massive collection of Italian wines, this reboot is all about the inventive cocktails, wryly nicknamed with multiple “a.k.a.s” for locals (“Mr. Exadaktilos, Sr.”; “Mr. and Mrs. Escape Plans”), and crafted with on-trend methods, from brown butter-washed bourbon for “The Merlino” old-fashioned to chili oil-washed vodka with tomato water and yuzu bitters for the spicy tomato-tini. Angeloni’s kitchen crew is also in tune. All the pastas are made in-house, including the pappardelle with short rib and a fiery seafood orecchiette lit with chili paste, crab, and shrimp. There’s a fennel-vermouth twist on clams casino and a pork chop with a broccoli rabe gremolata and crispy smashed potatoes that may be even better than the (not-a-Parm) chicken cutlet. And the superbly lumpy crab cakes are made to exactly the same recipe as Angeloni’s II by the same cook, Diane Cella, who devised it. The appetizer list, meanwhile, is full of several tributes to the restaurant’s diverse neighbors, from ricotta topped with Setaara’s Afghan eggplant to Pancho’s Mexican chicharrónes and a wedge salad topped with the fixings of a White House sub. “Part of the journey of ... mixing old and new is acknowledging that Ducktown is no longer Italian,” Nolan Aspell says. “We want people to see [Angeloni’s] as a reflection of change in neighborhood.”

You know Azzurri is unusual the moment you arrive and realize that not only is the old Neptune Grill gone, but the building has been swallowed up by a sleek all-weather porch whose air-conditioned space now holds nearly two-thirds of the restaurant’s 68 seats. It’s a clever way to expand an otherwise tiny restaurant (plus another 70 seats in a parking lot “garden” tent) as the five partners behind Beach and Bourbon Hospitality have invested big in one of the Shore’s most contemporary Italian spaces. The most dramatic feature is a ceiling designed by group director Tony Marinho that’s lined with undulating wooden fins that flow like a wave to frame a chef’s counter and glassed-in show kitchen. That’s where two veterans of Manhattan’s Jean-Georges, chefs Anthony Gentilella and Joaquin Agnes, assure there’s substance here to match the style with coastal plates built on Italian concepts, along with some modern fusion touches. Grilled octopus arrives over Jersey corn puree with cherry tomatoes. A paccheri turned black with squid ink is paired with a meaty ragù enriched with bone marrow. The crispy rice topped with yellowfin tartare is a popular Asian fusion nod to the chefs’ Jean-Georges pedigree. Pastas keep the menu rooted on theme, with fresh ricotta cavatelli tossed with sausage and broccoli rabe and strozzapreti (or gluten-free ziti) glazed in the peppercorn spark of a buttery cacio e pepe. Even a simple pomodoro sauce gets a flourish here, with nubs of crisped prosciutto. I may have balked at the minimalist branzino presentation during my visit, but it’s since been made more substantial, anchored by a cannellini bean puree with a cruet of tomato-porcini broth, poured tableside. My favorite dish was an early summer pork chop served Giambotta-style, with a ragù of roast peppers and sausage that would have been perfectly at home in South Philly. That chop has evolved, too, toward a lighter summer version with guanciale and champagne beurre blanc. Steady waves of change are expected with this new generation of Italian restaurants at the Shore, after all.

Mamma Lena’s may be new, but it’s not exactly a fresh take. From the gargantuan bone-in veal chop Parm to the Bee Gees soundtrack and clusters of well-tanned regulars dining in their white leisure slacks, this is very much your Pop-Pop’s Shore Italian destination — refreshed with a sunny view of a Ventnor condo pool and the shimmering Atlantic just beyond. “Am I old school? To the core!” says chef-owner Domenico “Dom” Rizzo, a Shore kitchen veteran whose pork chop agrodolce I’ve missed since he closed Domenico’s in 2019. “I’m old-fashioned in everything I do, including taking care of people.” Rizzo’s comeback after a few years on the country club scene is newsworthy in part for his family’s revamp of a once-generic dining room into a sleek destination for a special occasion meal. It’s even more notable as a point of reference for how good classic Shore Italian dining can be when it’s done right: The seafood cocktail gets a triple upgrade with a generous helping of sweet colossal lump crab, shrimp, and a half-lobster tail, perfect with cognac-splashed salsa rosa dip. The massive meatball, fluffy with fresh-grated cheese and house breadcrumbs, meanwhile, is a tribute to the chef’s Abruzzese mamma — Filomena “Lena” Rizzo — simmered in pomodoro sauce with ricotta on the side. The main dishes are where Rizzo’s kitchen steps on the gas, embellishing already rich carbonara with truffles and a one-pound, hand-cut veal chop that gets pounded, gratinéed with mozz, and served over a marinara wave of toothy spaghetti. It’s a luxury nostalgia splurge worth the $70, especially if you share. I also can’t stop thinking about the couscous alla Trapanese, a nod to the Sicilian side of Rizzo’s family that delivers a paella pan of seafood treasure and pearl-shaped couscous that’s a master class in harmonizing myriad flavors — fennel, golden raisins, pine nuts, and shellfish broth — and cooking every morsel to perfection, from the littlenecks and lobster tail to head-on prawns and calamari that were more tender than any I’ve eaten in a while. I asked Rizzo for his calamari secret. “You cut them thin and cook ‘em quick-quick... or, you cook them a loooong time,” he said. The wait for Rizzo’s return was longer than I’d like. But the final result, now rounding into form after nearly a year, is worth it.

How do you transform a Ventnor BYOB into a vision of the Amalfi Coast? Start by hanging 6,000 lemons from the ceiling on ornamental vines, as Tanya and Peter Petrov did when they took over the former Pulia Ristorante. Then there’s all the customized ceramics hand-painted by Tanya, the wax mounds of flickering candles radiating romance into the 49-seat room, and a pizza hearth roaring in the corner. Martina’s has yet to properly calibrate that new pizza oven to consistently replicate the delicate puff of a proper Neapolitan pie. There’s plenty of other things I enjoyed on the lunch and dinner menus, however, as the Bulgarian-born Petrovs, who own both Agnes and Velo Cafe, showcase their lifelong passion for Italy’s many regions. They do a satisfyingly rich carbonara with guanciale, and a Genoa-inspired fresh linguine with clams in white wine sauce that was superbly delicate. The pappardelle with truffled mushrooms is the customer hit but my favorite, a Southern Italian ragù alla nonna, featured a slow-stewed red sauce ladled over rigatoni with sausage, meatballs, and braciole roulade stuffed with cheese and herbs. That ragù isn’t cheap, at $41, but Martina’s uses quality ingredients cooked from scratch. The service is professional and charming, and this kitchen goes the extra mile for those avoiding gluten, with gluten-free pasta alternatives and other excellent gf-friendly dishes, including a grilled variation on eggplant Parm. The most memorable thing I ate was dessert, a clever twist on an old favorite that hides tiramisu inside the top half of a Ferrari red moka pot with a shot of espresso on the side. Pour it over top, let the bitter coffee soak through the lady fingers and sweet mascarpone, and try to remember as you polish it off that you’re not in Italy. For Ventnor, though, Martina’s is close enough.

The inspiring view of dusk lighting up the sky over Sunset Lake in Wildwood Crest was reason enough to draw me to Odero’s Supper Club, the new Italian dinner project at Turtle Gut. But the briny Violet Sky oysters topped with strawberry-peppercorn mignonette and a splash of basil oil to start my meal commanded my attention to the table, along with the pastas and unusual desserts (malted potato skin ice cream?) that followed. Devoted Turtle Gut fans already know this cafe from Joseph Pettinelli and Eva Basilio Garcia as one of the Shore’s best daytime destinations for Third Wave coffee and Sonoran breakfast burritos. But their sporadic evening hours over the first few years have been experimental. This summer, they’ve committed to exploring the Italian flavors of Pettinelli’s roots, spinning local produce and seafood through family nostalgia (Odero’s is named for his grandfather). Inspired by the membership models of Palizzi Social Club and Angeloni’s, Odero’s has enlisted a full roster of 80 members for the season, for $150 a head— all of which goes toward meal credits. Members have effectively filled the cozy 40 seats split between its dining room and sidewalk patio during prime Saturday evenings. Room for non-members, though, has been available Sunday and Monday, the only other nights it is open. The local sourcing shined on the early menus with a black bass caught by a friend crisped in a light batter with radish top salsa verde over spicy pil pil sauce. Thick spears of asparagus from nearby Stone Circle Farm are fantastic with sherry vinaigrette topped by a generous mound of shaved Comté cheese. Tilefish fillets are turned into a Milanese with fennel salad. Pettinelli’s magnetic clam pasta, with a tangle of littlenecks and spaghettini glossed in spicy Calabrian chile butter, is a convincing lure. Handmade swiss chard balanzoni are irresistible, filled with ricotta dabbed with Marcella Hazan’s tomato butter sauce while one of Pettinelli’s grandpa’s favorites, long passatelli dumplings bobbing in meat broth, were far tastier than they looked. Some combos didn’t work, like the briny agretti greens that pushed an already well-brined Sickler’s Circle View Farm pork chop into the salty zone. But there are more hits than misses on menus that keep evolving. I’m sorry for all who missed the strawberry, beet, and chile sorbetto drizzled with balsamic. When you taste the ice cream made from potato skins — a sweet-and-earthy curiosity inspired by something they ate in Puglia, and fueled by trim from the cafe’s brisk breakfast trade — you can be assured this talented couple will always have something interesting to serve along with the delicious sunsets.

So much Ocean City food nostalgia in my family centered around Voltaco’s, the classic sandwich shop near the Ninth Street bridge that closed in 2022 after 68 years. We went there not only for the iconic subs, but the homey takeout Italian meals, including spaghetti and meatballs served inside Styrofoam cups. The noodle cups are gone and so is Voltaco’s. But brothers and first-time restaurateurs, Bill and Michael Patroni, have revived the old space under a new name and are providing a measure of continuity with a similar operation. Not only are the sandwiches great (noted last week), they’ve brought their own family spin to the takeout Italian meals. The five-ounce beef and pork meatballs are a Parmesan-laced homage to their mother, Ellen Accardi, who grew up in a Neapolitan family in Atlantic City. The ideal way to enjoy them is in the meaty lasagna for two — a hearty pie tin where the noodle sheets are not layered flat (as it is with the larger portion) so much as folded neatly into an origami bundle of pasta, creamy ricotta, marinara, and a pair of meatballs crushed into nuggets. The technique is actually an old Voltaco’s move passed down between the businesses by a common employee, but seasoned, of course, with Mamma Patroni’s red sauce. If ever lasagna could be a metaphor for a gentle transition, this is it.

Growing up in the Smithville, pizza missions to nearby Atlantic City figured large in Dominic Russo’s childhood, from the giant, thin-crusted rounds at the old Januzi’s on Atlantic Avenue to the retro pies of Tony’s Baltimore Grill and century-old Rando’s Bakery, where Russo and his dad bought fresh dough to make pies at home. Those vintage pizzas, and the floppy boardwalk rounds with sweet red sauce at Manco & Manco’s, have nothing whatsoever to do with the airy, crusty-bottomed pan pies Russo is baking now at Squares & Fare in Somers Point. One can argue that Russo’s thick pan pizzas reaffirm a growing trend away from the thin-crust standard that has long defined the Shore’s pizza tradition, especially when you consider the excellent Detroit-style pizzas at both Mike Fitzick’s Bakeria 1010 in Ocean City and Troy Sambalino’s Queen City Crust in Beach Haven (just ranked first out of 55 Jersey Shore pizzerias by NJ.com’s Pete Genovese). Russo arrived at his own method through trial and error as a pharmaceutical copy writer who fell deep in the thrall of the food science mysteries of dough hydration, then parlayed his baking hobby into an Instagram-fueled pandemic cottage business that “took over our house and lives with pies” in 2020. Now that he and wife Joanne Russo have gone brick-and-mortar and converted a former laundromat into the little pizzeria of their dreams — mostly takeout, but with room for a few seats — it’s easy to see what the fuss was all about. These roasty crusts, made with dough fermented for 48 hours, are simultaneously crunchy, chewy, and buttery, thanks to all the California olive oil in the recipe. The toppings are simple but high quality, starting with a Jersey tomato sauce tinted with a pinch of ground fennel and fresh basil leaves plucked straight from potted plants on the counter. Russo’s blush sauce is a popular option whose creamy sweetness pairs nicely with the savory zing of cup-and-char pepperoni. I especially loved the Verdissimo: This garlic-creamed white pie is topped with artichokes, spinach, and mozz, then dusted with tangy pecorino and bright lemon zest. It’s a subtle and harmonious bite, but one that showcases the true magic here — Russo’s dough — which is helping redefine the Shore pizza scene, one square at a time.