Restaurants in Hopatcong

In 1989, Dan Gallagher and Dan Smith joined their respective names and began pursuing one common goal: to bring a contemporary alternative to Berks County's dining scene. The 40-seat eatery was successful in the Dans' hands until 2005, when Bill Woolworth and MD. Monir stopped in for dinner, fell in love with the place, and decided to buy it.

Though much of the space's original charm remains intact, the new owners gussied up the decor with white tablecloths and floral arrangements, and they solicited the help of executive chef Jason Hook to lighten the rotating menu. Jason draws on his experience studying in France and working at The Four Seasons in New York to craft healthful, contemporary French- and Californian-inspired dishes. In every preparation, he highlights the ingredients' natural tastes, often pairing local cuts of meat and poultry with fresh, seasonal ingredients and luxurious flourishes such as truffles or Lamborghini-scented foam.

Hook, Woolworth, and Monir also frequently evaluate their wine selections to ensure that they pair well with the evolving menu, which changes every week. While sipping glasses of red or white, diners can question servers about the building's rich history in the Penn's Common Historic District. Before the restaurant settled into the space, it was inhabited by an old-style soda dive, a prison doctor's home, and a grassland populated with roaming dinosaurs.

Ingredient sculptors at Lee Gribben's on Main sear up succulent seafood and steak while an in-house pastry chef dotes over decadent epilogues. Meat and seafood dishes share equal billing on the dinner menu, where they share a bunk in the surf 'n' turf plate. At lunch, chefs stuff chicken, roast beef, and veggies inside slices of bread or nearby UPS packages for quick delivery to the mouth. The deft pastry chefs at Lee Gribben's on Main handcraft an array of sinful desserts, including boston cream cake, cheesecake, and crème brûlée torched. Guests can dine inside, where vibrant, modern artwork pops against marbled green walls, or outside on the patio. Trivia and karaoke nights encourage guests to stick around and head to the full bar for after-dinner drinks.

At La Vie Restaurant & Lounge, light from moroccan lamps takes on bright colors and effuses across clouds of sweet hookah smoke between DJs and belly dancers. Patrons carrying plates laden with skewers and pizzas that blend French and Moroccan culinary traditions zigzag between canopied and candlelit booths strewn with crimson and gold throw pillows. Plush red benches and stools, sprawling underneath mirrors set in gilded frames, grant ample views of a hardwood dance floor and a chance for ground-floor investment in new dance moves. Live bands play music until as late as 4 a.m., with themed evenings focusing on specific genres. Glasses overflowing with fruit-infused cocktails chase off lingering spices and clink together in gleeful toasts between walls with textural accents of stone and beaten copper.

Sushi Mambo's exterior, with its wooden panels and Japanese-style sloping eaves, evokes the rustic charm of an Edo-era highway inn or the comfortable elegance of a samurai's man cave. Guests dine on artfully arranged maki lined with yellowtail, salmon, and eel or savor the tastes of miso ramen soup or bowls of chicken udon. Specialty rolls combine the complimentary flavors and textures of crunchy tempura chicken, creamy avocado, and spicy sauces, and sashimi plates arrange delicate slices of salmon or tender tuna onto colorful plates of greens, lemons, and carved carrot flowers.

The light strumming of flamenco guitar accompanies pitchers of sangria and sizzling plates of paella at Euzkadi, a 2010 _Michelin Guide_–recommended restaurant. Diffuse lighting illuminates the platters of seafood paella with chorizo for two as it is carried into the dining area, as well as small plates of tapas such as Spanish olives and salmon a la plancha, seared with a fennel-tomato confit. Glasses of red riojas, sparkling cavas, and after-dinner ports float in from behind the full bar or hop off the sturdy wood beams that hold the bottles out at a 90-degree angle. The restaurant’s exposed bricks and soft lighting, further darkened with thick, velvet drapes, lead up to a ceiling of primitive drawings of hunters, buffalo, and motocross races designed to mimic the cave drawings in the Basque region of northern Spain.