South Jersey Roadside Market Among NYTimes’ Top 50 Restaurants

Sweet Amalia Market & Kitchen, a roadside market in suburban South Jersey, has been chosen as one of the New York Times' 2024 "America’s best restaurants," the only New Jersey eatery to make the list.

South Jersey Roadside Restaurant Named One of America's Best

After canvassing the country over the past year, reporters, food writers, and editors from the New York Times released their choices this week for the annual "The Restaurant List: Our Favorite 50 Places in America Right Now".

Only one eatery was chosen from New Jersey this year, and it's Sweet Amalia Market & Kitchen, 994 Harding Highway in Newfield, just across the Buena Vista Township line in Gloucester County.

Sweet Amelia, which offers only outdoor picnic table seating, caught the attention of New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, who likes their "casual, colorful" plates and recommends Sweet Amalia's falafel,  the BLT, fried oysters on a grilled buttered roll and Italian cold-cut hoagies.

Sweet Amalia's Chef is a Sandwich Master

Chef Melissa McGrath, a James Beard Best Chef nominee who runs Sweet Amalia, grew up in Northeast Philly and worked in several Philadelphia restaurants and at the Diving Horse in Avalon.

She relocated to San Fransico for a time, where she helped open the hoagie restaurant, Palm City, which quickly made Esquire’s list of best new restaurants in America, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In 2021, she returned home to help open Sweet Amalia, which features sandwich options like garlic roast pork shoulder, eggplant cutlet, and grilled cheese with "peach jam, abundantly good cheddar & Cooper sharp".

"The place is set up like any other South Jersey roadside farm stand where you might buy a carton of eggs, a bunch of radishes, and a basket of strawberries," Wells wrote about Sweet Amalia. "This farm stand, though, has a raw bar, and naturally, the oysters are exceptional."