Love their food. One of these days I have to take one of their cooking classes. I’d love one on plating…their food is always so artistically plated.
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Chef David Viana will be competing on Top Chef in Kentucky starting December 6th! Go David! Kick some butt!
Chef David Viana competes on Top Chef
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I’m sure it was me in the background of his demo tape for the show that gave him the edge.
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We are super excited about this. Neeli told us this on the sly when we were in a couple months ago. I have watched Top Chef for years. It will be nice to cheer for someone who’s food we have eaten!
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So…we left NNJ for Monmouth County two months ago and have been enjoying every minute of discovering new spots, from off the radar spots such as Johnny Piancone’s to critical darlings such as The Grand Tavern. We have, however, missed some of our previous go-to spots, particularly young home grown chef driven passion projects that source the finest the Garden State has to offer and literally create art on a plate. We said good bye to Anthony Bucco, Ryan DePersio, and the next great Jersey chef Robby Felipe and rather than take our chances at The Outback on Rt. 35, we wandered west to Old Bridge and landed in our new bliss, The Heirloom Kitchen. Anthony Ciano, soon to be of Top Chef fame and his crew provided us with an experience non pareil. The service was so good, so eager, helpful and unobstrusive at the same time they could have served us Alpo and it would have been a delight. However, they doubled down and we were treated to the best meal I’ve had in 2018, by leaps and bounds. I could go on about the duck, the octopus, the amuse, the charred wedge salad, but I wouldn’t do it justice. If I knew how to post a Yelp review I’d give it like 50 stars.
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Robby Felice. Stupid auto correct
DAVID VIANA. CHEF HEIRLOOM KITCHEN. Stupid auto correct!!!
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Glad you enjoyed! Heirloom is my favorite restaurant.
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Thank you (and your girlish figure)! 
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Don’t want to assume you’ve all heard that the chef from HK is on the new season of Top Chef, which started tonight…
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Finally made it to Heirloom Kitchen and had a great night of wonderful food, wine, and company. Also had a chance to chat with Chef David who, as I told him, is a rock star, imo.
6 of us sat at the chef’s counter and we shared just about the entire menu; more details than I’m listing are on their website. I rarely take food photos any more since you can see far better versions on a restaurant’s website, but every plate that gets put down at HK is stunning, so I’ll share a few, even though they really don’t do them justice.
1-Amuse of Umami Bread Pudding w kombu, wakambe, and roasted maitake
2-Lox flatbread, which definitely wins most visually stunning dish of the night (I implore you to view it on their site)
3-Broccoli salad w smoked ricotta and miso caesar
4-DUCK with an insane tamale filled with duck confit OMG
!
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5-Sablefish w split peas, zukes, and pine nut
6-Sides of parsnip and Maitake gratin, baby carrots with coconut labne, and my favorite (if I had to pick one), brussels sprouts w honey sriracha, puffed rice, and mint
Sad I didn’t grab a dessert menu, as I won’t do the descriptions justice, but there was a chocolate/preserved raspberry dish, rice pudding with lemongrass (OH SO LIGHT), and my favorite simply because I absolutely love citrus, a lemon bar. Coffee is from Maiden Roasters here in AP and it was excellent as well.
Chef Rob Santello (formerly of Reyla here in AP) was stationed on our end of the counter and he and the entire team made us happy, comfortable, and FULL. 
Service was great, and w a 20% tip, it was $87pp which is quite reasonable for the level of food we had.
Can’t wait to go back and try the next season of the menu!
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Great looking pics! That duck sounds awesome.
Has anyone been to both HK and Graze’s chef table. I’m just wondering how they would compare.
Glad @CurlzNJ snuck in before they changed the format. Thoughts? Personally I am into it because they do fixed menus faster and I eat or will try nearly everything. I bet it will be a tough sell for most.
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I have never been here but the pics always look great, and I hear positive things.
One thing that caught my eye is the “wild boar charcoal jerk spice.” That is intriguing. I saw it in your pic but I am not on instagram. Boar, charcoal and spice…that sounds tasty. I hope they have continued success with the upcoming changes.
If you appreciate duck this is one of the best.
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Agreed! When I first made my reservation (for last weekend) I was told that they were changing over to the 5-course prix fixe in March, but when we confirmed late last week they said it wasn’t in place yet. Glad I got to experience the original version and I will absolutely go back to try this!
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Agreed on the duck. My husband nearly always orders it. The seasoning and sides change but the duck is perfection.
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I"ve found duck is one of those dishes that is either excellent or horrible, there is no in between. If it weren’t for the reputation of HK going into my visit I ordinarily would NEVER order duck on a first trip, I did and boy was I happy that I did. What really makes it unusual is normally duck requires a strong sauce; ie duck a l’organge or the plumb sauce of peking duck. HK duck is served sans any significant sauce, it’s just the duck and it’s delicious.
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