Ava's Kitchen - Kenilworth

I made a reservation there for a last meal before my daughter left Kean University for Europe. Not being familiar with the area, I wasn't sure of where to make a reservation for a casual meal. The food and service were excellent. We had a variety of dishes from tacos to pizza to the hearty entrees. Everything was delicious. The staff was friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. I wish I lived closer as it would be a place I would frequent often.

I had diner a few weeks ago and a diner I was with was served a pizza with a crust that was 100% charred and inedible. Never should have been served that way. I had dinner last night Sep. 13. My meal was served before the other 2 diners I was with and before the appetizer. The waitress said blah, blah about the other food. After looking at my meal, I realized it was served with chips, not fries as was listed on menu. I called waitress back over and pointed it out to her. Rather than take plate away and bring fries, she asked to see menu to confirm I was right. She took plate away after confirming I was right. A short time later she brought plate back with chips and said manager says this is how it gets served. I had her take plate away and did no order anything else due to her rudeness. I’m done with this place.

Ok but overpriced for good but not great “personal” pizzas. In fact, you could probably order one pizza and an appetizer for two people but we were never told that.  Lesson learned. Also, no real flexibility. We had a six year old, who wanted a small side order of pasta and they said no, there’s only one size. So we paid $21 for a bowl of rigatoni with oil.

Our first and last time here. Very disappointed. For a neighborhood bar it looks like a great place to hang out with friends. However we went for dinner based upon offerings on the open table website menu. Several items we would have liked weren’t on the menus at the restaurant. For the calamari and shrimp dishes we were hard pressed to find them.. buried in with the other components of the dishes. Mussels were plenty. We were served a bread dish which came with burnt bread. I don’t know how a chef would let that out of the kitchen nor how a server could bring it to the table. Plus when brought to the attention of the server I can’t understand why it wasn’t removed from the bill.

Great pizza. Noisy in the bar area, will ask for a table on the back next time