5 Jersey Shore restaurants with a new generation of flavor from clams to subs and empanadas

It’s easy to take your favorite sub shop at the Shore for granted, especially when it’s been there nearly half a century, like Florida Cold Cuts & Liquors in Ventnor. Its married owners Vern and Marion Sutley had roasted their own fresh meats daily for 47 years and had been understandably reluctant to pass their vintage meat slicer and secret recipes for baked ham and tuna salad on to just any successor.

So it feels like a gift that the change finally happened, as it did this spring, and Vern saw his “dream team” of new owners came along. A pair of young couples motivated to preserve the Sutleys’ no-shortcuts sandwich integrity partnered with a local restaurant icon in Cookie Till (of Steve & Cookie’s and the Ventnor No. 7311 cafe just up the block), and they’ve handled the transition with vision and grace.

“We’re honoring the past, but also creating something new,” says Till, noting plans underway to upgrade the shop’s beverage selection and to bolster the grocery with local artisan products.

Old restaurant institutions don’t always age well, especially at the Jersey Shore where real estate is precious and the profit-making season is short. But this summer I came across several new projects where the torch has been passed with care.

Read on for five restaurants where you can appreciate the taste of past, present, and the future all in one bite.

7301 Ventnor Ave., Ventnor City, 609-822-3545; on Facebook

Anyone can make a turkey sub. But as new owners Tiffany Rando and Ryan Bray discovered during their multi-week immersion into “Sandwich School” with their predecessors Vern and Marion Sutley, there’s an art to the rhythms of scratch cooking and careful sandwich-building that have made Florida Cold Cuts & Liquors in Ventnor one of the Shore’s best sandwich shops since 1975.

“It took me two weeks before I was fully trusted to make the tuna,” says Bray, 45, Rando’s brother-in-law, whose career in restaurants with the Dougherty family (Dock’s Oyster Bar, Knife & Fork) did not prepare him for the wrist-action Marion used to hand-whip her savory tuna salad with a spoon, which, when it’s perfect, achieves both airiness and lightness of color.

Slicing the meat to its ideal thinness for delicacy?

“I want to know what number to set the slicer at, but Vern is like, ‘What number? This slicer has been my best friend for 47 years. It’s a feel thing. You have to judge it.’ ”

And Marion disassembled and reassembled more than a handful of their early sub attempts to tidy up the meat placement and maximize the flavor of the sandwiches made on Atlantic City rolls or Ginsburg rye.

“There’s definitely ways we can do this quicker, but then you realize: It’s part of what makes this so great,” says Bray.

And so Bray and Rando come in each day at 6:30 a.m. to set the fresh turkey, roast beef, and sweet, clove-scented hams to bake, to remove labels from all canned ingredients (to preserve brand secrets!), to poach chicken in sweet broth for Florida’s equally coveted chicken salad.

The innovations are coming fast, too. They’ve begun accepting credit cards and have undertaken a major overhaul of the wine and beer selection, which has quickly evolved from an afterthought of jug wine bargains to a showcase for natural and organic producers ranging reasonably from $15 to $38 a bottle.

“It’s our family supporting other families doing cool things with wine,” says Bray.

But he says that carrying on a great sandwich legacy has also had its unique rewards.

“There’s just something awesome about making the actual turkey that goes into a good sub and having some guy come in and say: ‘This is what my summer’s about.’ ”

506 Centre St., Beach Haven, 609-994-8040; dockandclaw.com

The cedar shake house on Centre Street in Beach Haven has been a clam bar since the early 1970s, when a man named Johnny “Potato” Marmando built the business and, lacking a full kitchen, became known for “zapped scallops,” a specialty involving butter and a relatively new technology called the microwave.

The menu’s been updated for the fish taco generation at Dock & Claw Clam Bar, which took over this summer from the Harvey Cedars Clam Bar, which closed after a 30-year run. But there’s still such a quirky DIY vibe to this intimate old BYOB with a horseshoe bar that rings a basin brimming with ice and shellfish. Briny middlenecks and local oysters harvested from the Delaware Bay anchor the platter, their mignonette perked with a sweet-tart raspberry syrup and a side of house-branded hot sauce made with habaneros and thyme.

This is the first venture for co-owners Kevin Ketchel and Steve Haggart, two Long Beach Island restaurant vets who brought chef Matt Porro with them from the nearby Delaware Avenue Oyster House, where Haggart had been chef. They’re serving refreshing mocktails with berry-infused lemonades and kombucha on draft, while Porro and his kitchen partner, sister Amber Porro, turn out well-made seafood classics, from creamy fresh chowder, to garlicky clams and mussels served red, white or with chorizo, or those local oysters baked with compound butter and cotija cheese.

A fondness of Mexican ingredients is key to another of Dock & Claw’s best apps, the crispy tostadas with chorizo, as well as its best-selling codfish tacos topped with mango-peach salsa. But then there is the excellent smash burger with house pickles. And Dock & Claw also makes what I consider the best lobster roll on LBI, its butter-toasted bun jammed with 6 ounces of sweet knuckle meat dressed oh-so-lightly in a little mayo.

The only thing I didn’t love? An overly complicated “scallop melt” with mozzarella, pesto and cherry pepper aioli that was a nod to a very different version popularized by the Harvey Cedars Clam Bar. If the “zapped scallops” ghost of this clam bar’s past could speak, it would say: simple is best!

13504 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach, 609-207-6832; lomitolbi.com

Had it not been for the pandemic, 26-year-old Max Oehlmann might still be cooking in New York, where the Culinary Institute of America-trained chef found success and inspiration working at upscale addresses like Augustine and Casa Mono. But when COVID-related restaurant closures obliged him to return home near Long Beach Island, he saw an opportunity to channel his family’s Chilean roots with Lomito.

Oehlmann, who got his start in local establishments run by the Tide Table Group (Mud City Crab House, Parker’s Garage), chose a quick-serve concept for the beach crowd. He’s given a stylish makeover and added indoor-outdoor seating to the former El Swell taqueria in Long Beach. But don’t let the casual format fool you. Oehlmann’s dedication to careful scratch cooking shines through every dish.

The pan-Latino menu glances past some Mexican favorites like quesabirria and fish tacos al pastor, and they’re very good. The adobo-rubbed chicken wings are impossible to resist. But Lomito’s menu gains real traction with dishes inspired by the Chilean flavors from Oehlmann’s father’s side of the family, especially the flaky empanadas plumped with a deeply savory ground beef stuffing scented with smoky merken spice.

The sandwiches are also deeply satisfying, especially the chacarero of birria-braised beef topped with the surprise crunch of green bean salad, as well as the house signature Lomito, a superbly tender braised pork loin sparked with Peruvian aji mirasol peppers.

All that savory goodness calls for something sweet. Don’t miss the brownies, which aren’t especially Chilean — except for the house made dulce de leche that ribbons each square with silky caramel.

3004 W. Brigantine Ave., Brigantine, 609-264-5909; cordivarisrestaurant.com

If only every old Wawa could be reborn as an Italian restaurant like Cordivari’s, our world would be a tastier place. Yes, the convenience store’s generic-yet-iconic architecture is still hard to mistake from Brigantine Avenue. But once inside the low-lit dining room bustling with large tables and a guitarist singing “What a Wonderful World,” you’re fully enveloped by warmth and tradition.

The Cordivaris have roots on Brigantine dating to the 1976 founding of the Pirate’s Den, which they no longer own. They’re best known for Tre Figlio, a fine dining Italian destination that drew fans in Galloway Township on the mainland for 23 years until it closed in 2007. The founders’ son, Jim, now 57, has revived many of Tre Figlio’s recipes at Cordivari’s, which he opened as sole owner in 2019. His mother, Antoinette, came out of retirement at 78 to help run the dining room: ”You could say I’m crazy working at my age, but I love helping my son and I’m passionate about the restaurant,” she said.

The dishes exude “1990s retro Italian,” a post-red gravy style notable for creamy blush sauces, arugula, and fresh pasta. But with good ingredients and careful cooking, they still hold a timeless appeal. Shrimp Antoinette brings shrimp francaise over arugula in a caper cream sauce. Local scallops star beside a crispy polenta cake flecked with fig and topped with cippolini agrodolce. The kitchen could go lighter on the cream sauce for the lobster ravioli — and heavier on the lobster, which was barely present in the stuffing. But I loved the minimalist pappardelle Abruzzi, because it highlighted the supple, hand-cut egg noodle ribbons in garlic-oil sauce with broccoli rabe and sausage.

Next time, I’m splurging for the lobster Venetian (francaise with white wine cream sauce), or going for the gusto of pasta Giacomo, named for Jim’s father, sauced with a spicy marinara filled with long hot peppers and the savor of chopped meatballs.

Don’t be surprised if one of the Cordivari grandkids, Danielle or Natalie, is serving your table. Or if Jim’s brother, Dean, a liquor exec by day, is helping out on the line. This old Wawa turned restaurant is a true family affair.

106 N. Dorset Ave., Ventnor City, 609-822-8366; thedorsetnj.com

As a longtime resident of Absecon Island, chef Joseph Tucker had always considered Annette’s to be his home away from home for brunch.

“When my daughter was 3, we used to live just over the bridge on Dorset, and I’d order the same thing every time: an egg white omelet with ham, American cheese, and grilled tomatoes,” says Tucker, 56, who owns the upscale seafooder Catch in nearby Longport with wife, Chastity, and brother, Robert Liccio.

When the trio boughtAnnette’s from previous owners Cheryl and David Venezia, who ran it for two decades, they gave the breakfast-and-lunch space a bright makeover and a new name in honor of its street. But Tucker also heard from fellow regulars: “You’re not getting rid of the smoked fish platters, are you?!” No, he didn’t. Which explains the boogie board-sized plate piled high with huge scoops of smoked whitefish and bagels that landed to nods of approval at the table behind us.

We ordered some other breakfast classics, like the notably silky creamed chipped beef and an “El Paso” omelet that was promising but whose chorizo filling was dry. The real winners draw on the Italian flavors of Tucker’s South Philly upbringing. The cutlet sandwich with broccoli rabe and provolone, for example, brought serious Ninth Street savor.

But there was something magnetic about “Grandma’s Pepper and Eggs.” It’s just a simple sandwich on a seeded Aversa long roll. But done right, those fluffy eggs ribboned with strips of sweet-and-smoky house-roasted peppers and molten cheese worked like a time machine to whisk us right back with little Joey to his Nonna Pauline Liccio’s kitchen table in the Italian Market. I unexpectedly ate the whole thing, and the Dorset’s nostalgia mission was complete.