For all of Asbury Park’s culinary riches, the Jersey Shore’s culinary capital is sorely lacking in one category: Indian food. The beachfront city offers dozens of restaurants serving excellent Italian food, inventive New American eats and most things in between — but no marquee South Asian cuisine.
That will soon change.
The ownership group behind acclaimed Freehold eatery Aarzu is opening a new restaurant at 525 Cookman Ave., the space that once held James Avery ventures The Bonney Read and The Mainstay. While the new restaurant does’t have a name yet, co-owner Archana Sharma told NJ Advance Media the group hopes to open in late April with a menu geared toward coastal Indian cuisine.
Sharma said the group, which also includes Sammeer Raajpal, Shravan Shetty and Sidharth Sharma, has been eyeing an Asbury Park outpost for years. Part of the appeal is obviously the prime downtown location — but the restaurateurs also relish the chance to expand Asbury Park palates.
“We needed some ethnic vibes in Asbury, so we’ve always wanted to open there,” Sharma told NJ Advance Media. “We’ve been looking and waiting for an opportunity to come. Luckily this just kind of fell into our laps over the summer.”
Aarzu opened in Freehold back in 2016, swiftly becoming one of New Jersey’s most acclaimed Indian restaurants. The menu features classics like butter chicken, lamb rogan josh and samosas along with more contemporary takes on the cuisine like duck paratha tacos and truffle butter pav bhaji. Sharma promises that the new restaurant will offer that same flair.
“We were the first Indian restaurant in New Jersey to come up with this modern concept,” Sharma claimed. “Elevating some Indian flavors and presenting them. ... So with this concept, we also are going to be doing something a little different than the norm.”
While Aarzu focuses more on Northern Indian cuisine (curries, butter chicken, paneer), the new restaurant’s coastal Indian menu will feature dosas (savory crepes made from fermented batter), seafood and beef pepper fry among other dishes.
“In the city right now, New York and London, this concept is just going crazy,” Sharma said. “Everybody’s trying to open a restaurant like this. So we’ll be the first in New Jersey.”
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Jeremy Schneider may be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @J_Schneider and on Instagram at @JeremyIsHungryAgain.