shrimp, chickpeas, and chunks of chicken, salami and apple—is better than the
iceberg wedge, drowned under bacon-vinaigrette in addition to blue cheese
dressing. Fish and chips ($31) comes out
flaky and crunchy, accompanied by thick
rods of Yukon Gold fries dusted with
malt-vinegar powder.
For dessert, the sticky toffee pudding,
based on a recipe by Ramsay’s mother,
delivers deliciously dense date cake
smothered in toffee caramel with vanilla
ice cream. It sells even better than the
beef Wellington.—DANYA HENNINGER
on which to dis-
play cheesecakes,
danishes and other
baked goods. After
graduating from
Cornell’s School of
Hotel Administra-
tion, he joined the
family firm full-time. During his
life, Junior’s has expanded from
one restaurant to four and cre-
ated a large mail-order business
that ships cheesecakes around the
country and the globe to locations
as far-flung as Dubai and Japan.
In 1995, Junior’s signed a contract with QVC to sell its baked
goods over the cable shopping
network. Rosen appears on camera
on QVC about 50 times a year,
selling a total of 150,000 or more
cakes, mostly cheesecakes. One of
the benefits of the Jersey move for
Rosen, who lives with his wife in
Great Neck, New York, is that the
new facility is just an hour’s drive
from QVC’s studio in West Chester,
Pennsylvania. Rosen turned an office in the new plant into a bedroom for days when he has to work
late or drive to QVC.
Rosen began shopping for a
larger facility in 2012. He considered Carlstadt, but didn’t find
exactly what he needed until last
year, when Mother’s Kitchen, which
bakes cheesecakes for Buffalo-based Rich Products Corporation,
moved from Burlington to Texas.
Out-of-state corporations often
seek tax abatements or other incentives to relocate to New Jersey,
but not Junior’s.
“We didn’t even ask,” he says.
“This facility presented itself, and
we jumped at the opportunity. I just
wanted to get it done.”
About 20 people who worked in
the old bakery in Maspeth, Queens,
moved to Burlington, where Ju-
nior’s hired about 65 local workers
to bring the staff to about 85.
The cheesecakes are baked
the same way as ever. Apart from
chocolate swirl, strawberry, or other
embellishments, the only ingredi-
SOUTH + PINE
MORRISTOWN
FOOD: New American
AMBIENCE: Shabby chic with a wink
SERVICE: Upbeat and engaged
WINE LIST: BYO
PRICES: Appetizers, $9-$14; entrées,
$18-$28; sides, $5; desserts, $10
HOURS: Dinner: Monday through
Thursday, 5 to 9: 30 PM; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10: 30 PM; Sunday, 5 to 9 PM.
Lunch: Monday through Friday, 11: 30 AM
to 4 PM. Brunch: Saturday and Sunday,
11 AM to 3 PM
AX, D, MC, V, X
90 South Street, Morristown
(862-260-9700; southandpine.com)
On South + Pine’s website, chef/ co-owner Leia Gaccione bills herself as “chief cook + bottle
washer.” I don’t know about the bottles,
but the Ball jar in which she served a terrific panna cotta last summer with cherries and candied pistachios was sparkly
clean. As for cooking, she sure can.
There’s a wink in that self-deprecating description, and it enlivens every
dish at South + Pine, which Gaccione
named for its location on Morristown’s
burgeoning restaurant row, South Street,
near the corner of Pine.
The servers wear black T-shirts that
say S+P, a felicitous abbreviation for a
restaurant, though you won’t need to
add salt or pepper to Gaccione’s food.
The Passaic native, 32, graduated from
the New York Restaurant School in
CHEESE WIZ: Alan
Rosen, third generation of his family to run Junior’s,
moved its baking
to Burlington to
boost production of its famous
cheesecakes.
(Continued from page 113) 2003, worked at Raymond’s in Montclair,
Gaccione assisted Flay as a sous in
three of his Iron Chef battles. On the
phone, she told me she learned from him
“the importance of balance in a dish,” be
it sweet/spicy, sour/soothing, or creamy/
crunchy. She learned well.
Opening South + Pine last May, Gaccione tempered summer’s heat with
several artful dishes. There was her spicy
green gazpacho, as she called it. Made
from green tomatoes, cucumbers, fennel
and bell peppers puréed with lemon
juice, olive oil and a touch of jalapeños,
it was thick, creamy, and sumptuously
enhanced with a poached-shrimp salsa
featuring chunks of ripe avocado. Green
tomatoes, this time cornmeal-crusted
and fried to a happy crisp, complemented
a luscious lump of burrata in an arugula
salad. Fresh peaches, Gruyère and duck
confit blended beautifully on a hot, crisp
flatbread showered with arugula.
“I want this to be a really good neigh-
borhood spot,” she told me, “the kind
of place I would want to go to where
the food is really good and fresh, but it’s
casual and affordable.”
South + Pine is especially affordable
at lunch, where a terrific Angus burger
with fried egg, house-smoked cheddar,
bacon aioli and hand-cut fries is $15.
Gaccione lavishes no less care on her $9
S+P salad, a mix of bibb lettuce, radicchio
and arugula in a buttermilk dressing with
sunflower seeds, grapes, cucumbers and
grated ricotta salata.
Prices are somewhat higher at dinner.
But even at the vaunted Jockey Hollow
Bar & Kitchen (separated from South +
Pine by the Mayo Performing Arts Cen-
ter), you won’t find a fish dish more out-
standing than Gaccione’s $26, pan-seared,
butter-basted bronzino. It comes with a
vivacious retinue of smoked corn relish,
basil pesto and a roasted-tomato purée
sparked with Calabrian chilies. Hanger
steak with horseradish hollandaise and
crunchy fries was exemplary. The prici- (Continued on page 117)
