CITY GUIDES | NEW JERSEY

The Boardwalk Isn’t Atlantic City’s Only Main Course

The city’s best restaurants stretch through casino resorts, Ducktown, and the Orange Loop, with plenty of personality between them.

By Maria Rodriguez | Sept. 15, 2026

Nobu

AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.

I’ve been eating in Atlantic City long enough to remember when choosing dinner mostly meant deciding between an old Ducktown Italian restaurant and whichever casino dining room had the longest line. Those classics still anchor the city, but the best restaurants in Atlantic City now include an Afghan-French courtyard, a Japanese tasting menu, ambitious cooking in the Orange Loop, and Stephen Starr’s latest wager on the Boardwalk. The casino towers continue landing famous names, while chefs beyond the gaming floor are giving people a reason to remember what they ate after they’ve forgotten every hand of blackjack. These are the 12 Atlantic City restaurants where I put my money.

Amada

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José Garces was serving tapas in the shell of the ill-fated Revel years before Ocean Casino Resort settled into the building. His return engagement at Amada still suits the place: bacon-wrapped dates, garlic shrimp, tortilla española, and paella encourage a table to keep ordering long after it has enough food. Larger groups can reserve a whole roasted suckling pig, while the chef’s tasting menu handles the decisions for everyone.

Best for: A leisurely dinner built around shared plates

B-Prime Steakhouse

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B—Prime is a steakhouse calibrated for the casino crowd: loud, loose, and perfectly willing to put sushi beside an Australian wagyu tomahawk. B-Prime sources beef from Japan, Idaho, Texas, and New Jersey, with enough sauces, shellfish, and potato preparations to keep the table crowded. The prime plateau makes a convincing opening move, especially when nobody wants to choose between oysters, shrimp, crab, and lobster.

Best for: A celebratory steak dinner at Borgata

Cafe 2825 Atlantic City New Jersey Best Restaurants

Café 2825

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Chef-owner Joe Lautato runs Café 2825 with the confidence of someone who knows the tableside mozzarella will have phones pointed at it before it hits the plate. The spectacle works because the kitchen backs it up with baked clams oreganata, braciole, veal Parmigiana, and pasta tossed inside a wheel of cheese. Reservations remain scarce, portions remain unapologetic, and the restaurant feels like somebody’s Italian family dining room after that family won several hands of blackjack.

Best for: Tableside theater with serious Italian cooking

Cardinal

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Cardinal gave the Orange Loop an all-day restaurant with enough range to cover brunch, cocktails, and a proper dinner. Owner and chef Michael Brennan, whose résumé includes Le Bec-Fin and Lacroix, moves easily between Korean duck wings, seafood, steaks, and a house-made veggie burger. The garden and patio loosen things up, while the cooking keeps Cardinal out of generic beach-town territory. Come for brunch, then remember the dinner menu on the next trip.

Best for: Brunch or dinner away from the casinos

Chez Frites

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Stephen Starr distilled the French brasserie into a proposition Atlantic City can appreciate: choose a main course, accept the green salad, and keep the fries coming. Entrée options include steak, lobster, mussels, and salt-baked celery root, each joined by hand-cut frites and house sauces. A few starters, French wines, classic cocktails, and desserts fill in the edges. The prix-fixe format makes ordering unusually painless, even after the casino has scrambled your decision-making abilities.

Best for: Steak frites without menu negotiations

Dock’s Oyster House

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The Dougherty family opened Dock’s in 1897, and four generations later, the raw bar still carries the restaurant. Start with oysters, clams casino, or a chilled shellfish sampler loaded with lobster, crabmeat, mussels, shrimp, and ceviche. The pan-sautéed crab cakes contain jumbo lump meat with little interference, while the crabmeat au gratin comes from a richer, more heavily upholstered era of seafood dining. A pianist and cold martini complete the picture.

Best for: Oysters, crab cakes, and a proper martini

Knife & Fork Inn

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The turreted Knife & Fork Inn has watched Atlantic City reinvent itself repeatedly since 1912. Its current life under the Dougherty family pairs that history with steaks, seafood, and one of the city’s most distinctive dining settings. The menu can move from oysters and lobster bisque to rack of lamb or a dry-aged steak. Ask for a table upstairs, where the ocean views explain the building’s longevity before dinner arrives.

Best for: Old Atlantic City with an ocean view

Kuro

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Kuro provides Hard Rock’s quieter counterpoint to the memorabilia, slot machines, and concert crowds outside. The Japanese menu covers sushi, sashimi, robata cooking, wagyu, and dishes such as tuna crispy rice and miso black cod. On Thursdays, the five-course Taste of Kuro menu gives the kitchen control and diners a relatively accessible route through the restaurant. The sake list deserves attention, particularly if the evening’s next stop involves neither cards nor a steering wheel.

Best for: A Japanese tasting menu before a show

Nobu Atlantic City

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Atlantic City’s location of the global sushi operation earns its spot with ocean views and the Japanese-Peruvian dishes that turned Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s cooking into an empire. Yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño, rock shrimp tempura, and black cod miso remain the signatures for a reason. Regulars can dig further into the sushi list and cold dishes, while first-timers should surrender to the classics and save their experimentation for the casino floor.

Best for: Signature Nobu dishes overlooking the ocean

Pancho’s Mexican Taqueria

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Fabiola Sanchez opened Pancho’s in 2005 beside White House Subs, where cooks press corn tortillas and toast them on the plancha behind the counter. Those tortillas carry suadero, al pastor, goat, lengua, and other meats with little embellishment beyond onion and cilantro. Add enchiladas under a blanket of mole and whatever aguas frescas are available. The setting is spare, the prices are merciful, and every taco tastes firmly connected to the people making it.

Best for: Fresh tortillas and an affordable meal

Setaara

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Setaara pairs Afghan cooking with French technique inside a dining room that eventually gives way to a courtyard with fountains, mosaic tile, and a small Eiffel Tower. The combination sounds improbable until mantu dumplings, kabuli palaw, lamb shank, kebabs, and escargots begin arriving. Rice fragrant with spices and slow-cooked meats provide the meal’s center of gravity. The restaurant is BYOB, and the four-course tasting menu gives diners a guided tour through the kitchen’s Afghan and French repertoire.

Best for: Afghan cooking in a transportive courtyard

Sunny’s

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Stephen Starr built Sunny’s for mornings when Atlantic City requires coffee, eggs, and perhaps a minor act of excess. The menu covers eggs Benedict and omelets, then wanders into pigs in a blanket, Nutella pancakes, lobster rolls, and the Elvis, a double stack of French toast with peanut butter whipped cream, banana, bacon, and maple caramel. The cooking is straightforward, the setting is bright, and the portions understand that breakfast may need to repair the previous evening.

Best for: Brunch after a late casino night