Ocean City & Nearby Restaurant Recommendations - Steve & Cookies
This is an occasional update and recommendation of my favorite restaurants in and around Ocean City ... going as far south as Cape May and further north to Atlantic City.
Steve & Cookies (9700 Amherst Avenue, Margate NJ) has been my favorite South Jersey evening dining location since I was introduced to it by Craig French about fifteen years ago. You drive down Ventnor Avenue in Margate and turn at the Channel 6 Action News sign (Amherst Avenue) and head to the bay. It has always been an excellent restaurant in-season and off-season ... although it does tend to get a lot more crowded in the summer.
If you enter through the front door on Amherst, you see a long crowded bar which tends to attract almost as many visitors as the restaurant. Many clients eat dinner right at the bar. There are small booths in the bar area and smaller and larger tables in the room past the bar with the fireplace. Music is available most nights in that area.
There is a much larger dining room to the right with another fireplace and an enclosed porch beyond that for those evenings when everybody is there. An entrance from the porch leads to the Oyster Bar which also has it s own outside entrance at the back of the building. This is a more relaxed location with a bar menu, but you can also order from the regular menu. This addition about four or five years ago is a great intimate location that tends to attract many regulars. It is also my favorite location in this restaurant. Another couple and my wife and I have a standing get-together on the evening when the first snow starts to fall in the Ocean City/Margate area.
Steve & Cookies has an excellent wine selection by the bottle and by the glass including a number of smaller bottles as well. It also has great, imaginative appetitizers which often represent several choices plus a salad instead of an entre. Finally, the daily specials (with my favorite from November through April being the Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursdays) often bring people over for that special evening. Seafood, pasta, and several meat selections represent the mainstays for the regular menu. Plus it is often difficult to leave without at least sampling the dessert menu.
Steve & Cookies in Margate is one of the classics in South Jersey. I have always recommended this one to all of my clients who come to French Real Estate. And it has never failed to impress each and every one. Whenever I read about city restaurants and their efforts, the wine selection, the great dinners ... I always tend to see this restaurant in the same light. Although located in a small town setting, it has the extras and much more of a special city restaurant without the things you don't want to experience there.
Make sure to get to Steve & Cookies in the spring, summer, or fall of 2009. Don't forget to email me, and let me know what you thought. Dap
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