Jersey City’s Newark Avenue Pedestrian Plaza has a new place to eat, drink and potentially order a lot more food than originally planned. Bembé Steak & Raw Bar has soft-opened at 143 Newark Avenue, bringing steak, seafood and Latin- and Caribbean-inspired flavors to Downtown Jersey City.
The restaurant comes from Chef Darryl Harmon, whose growing New Jersey hospitality portfolio includes Don’t Tell Liv, Asbury Social and other Garden State concepts. Bembé has taken over the former Better Days space, giving the busy pedestrian plaza a fresh new dining destination.
And Bembé is actually two concepts in one.
The front bar features cocktails and a food menu centered around steak and seafood, while the back of the space houses Steaks Shakes + Harmony, a more casual concept focused on cheesesteaks and milkshakes.
The Bembé menu is already giving diners plenty to talk about. Early offerings include a lobster roll, steak burger, pollo a la brasa chicken chimi sandwich, grilled octopus, coconut curry rice bowl and oysters with salsa verde garlic butter. There are also customizable sauces including jerk butter, chimichurri rojo and sofrito bordelaise.
But the biggest part of the Bembé experience is still coming.
The restaurant plans to launch a more elevated steakhouse dining room, adding a full-service steakhouse component to the already busy concept. An exact opening date for that portion has not yet been announced, so Jersey City steak lovers will have to keep watching.
For now, the front bar is open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with the full concept continuing to roll out.
For anyone searching for new Jersey City restaurants, Downtown Jersey City food, steak and seafood in Jersey City or new restaurants on Newark Avenue, Bembé is officially on the radar.
The steakhouse is coming. The raw bar is already here. Jersey City, start stretching your appetite.
