New Jersey’s 21 best restaurants of 2021, ranked

New Jersey restaurants spent 2021 battling to rebound from a catastrophic 2020, a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic created a series of crises unseen in our lifetimes, closing eateries around the state and putting the industry on the brink of collapse. This year brought an ever-evolving set of challenges for restaurants, from a massive labor shortage and hostile customers to supply-chain issues and proof of vaccination debates.

But 2021 also saw the return of indoor dining with zero capacity limits in May, the closest thing the food world has had to normalcy since early 2020. It was a chance to begin the climb back from plummeting profits and lost restaurants.

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