Wildwood has no shortage of good restaurants, but a big Italian dinner at Little Italy followed by ice cream at Duffer’s is hard to beat.
WILDWOOD CREST, N.J. – Labor Day may be the unofficial end of summer, but the calendar doesn’t get the final say at the Jersey Shore. If the weather is still warm, the Boardwalk is open and you’re spending a September weekend in Wildwood, summer isn’t quite finished.
For us, there is one more test. A Wildwood staycation isn’t complete without dinner at Little Italy in Wildwood Crest and dessert at Duffer’s.
That’s how we ended this one after a long day walking the Boardwalk, watching the planes overhead and taking in Wildwood during what might be the best few weeks of the year. The crowds have thinned, parking is easier and you can finally get into some of the restaurants that routinely have long waits in July and August.
Little Italy is one of those places.
There’s a Reason People Wait for a Table Here
Wildwood has plenty of good choices when dinner rolls around. Cattle ‘n Clover, Urie’s, Two Mile Landing and countless smaller restaurants could easily take care of a night out.
But sometimes you don’t want to debate the options. You want garlic bread, a big bowl of salad for the table, red sauce, pasta and something covered with enough mozzarella to make you forget how far you walked on the Boardwalk that afternoon.
That’s Little Italy.
The restaurant has the familiar feel of a family Italian place without trying to reinvent what that means. Dinner begins with a complimentary family-style salad that is much better than the obligatory bowl of lettuce some restaurants put on the table. The garlic bread should be ordered immediately.
From there, the menu gets dangerous if you’re hungry.
Little Italy can Parm the heck out of just about anything. Chicken, veal and eggplant all get the full treatment, and this is not the place where you need to apologize for ordering something you’ve eaten a hundred times before. A good chicken Parm is a good chicken Parm.
If deciding between the Italian standards becomes a problem, get the Italian Sampler. That’s what it’s there for.
The portions are what you’d expect from an old-school Jersey Shore Italian dinner, which means there’s a decent chance part of your meal will be going home with you. That’s not a complaint.
Save Some Room for the Seafood
Little Italy isn’t just a red-sauce stop. The seafood side of the menu deserves a look, especially when you’re eating dinner a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.
There are seafood and pasta dishes, along with heavier combinations for the person who spent all day at the Shore and decided dinner should count. The steak-and-crab-cake surf and turf is exactly that kind of plate.
That’s also one of the reasons Little Italy works so well for a family dinner. Nobody has to agree on what kind of restaurant they want. The person craving veal Parm is happy, the seafood person has choices, steak is on the menu and there is plenty of pasta for everyone else.
More importantly, the place feels like dinner rather than another quick stop between attractions. After spending the day moving around Wildwood, it’s nice to sit down, order too much food and stay awhile.
During the heart of summer, plenty of other people have the same idea.
An hour-long wait isn’t unusual on a busy July or August night. That’s something you accept when the island is packed and seemingly everyone decides to eat at the same time.
September is different.
Walk in after Labor Day and there’s a good chance you’ll simply get a table. The restaurant hasn’t changed, but Wildwood has slowed down around it. That’s one of the reasons we keep saying September might secretly be the best month at the Jersey Shore.
You still get the restaurants, Boardwalk and beach without having to fight peak-season crowds for all of them.
And Then You Go to Duffer’s
There is, however, a tactical mistake that can ruin the evening.
Don’t eat so much at Little Italy that you can’t make it to Duffer’s.
That’s easier said than done after the garlic bread, salad and an Italian dinner, but dessert at Duffer’s is part of the deal. The Pacific Avenue institution has been sending families home with ice cream, sundaes and milkshakes for generations, and it feels especially right after one of those long Wildwood days when nobody is quite ready to head back yet.
You don’t really need the ice cream.
You get it anyway.
That’s what makes these places matter. Wildwood has newer restaurants, trendier restaurants and plenty of places where you can eat extremely well. But family Shore vacations aren’t built entirely around finding the newest thing.
They’re built around the places everyone wants to return to.
Nobody sits down one summer and formally decides that Little Italy followed by Duffer’s is now a family tradition. You have a good night, come back the next year and eventually realize you’ve been doing it for years.
That’s where we are.
So Labor Day can mark the end of summer for everyone else. We’ll call it when the last plate is cleared at Little Italy, the last ice cream is finished at Duffer’s and it’s finally time to leave Wildwood until next time.
Editor’s Note: Our camera card had issues and our Little Italy photos were corrupted, so we are using their own photos for this article. We’ll make sure to get good ones next year!