Top N.J.’s chef’s flashy new restaurant is a middle finger to fine dining, love letter to mozzarella: Review

On a recent research trip to Japan, Robbie Felice found himself in a deep conversation about his future.

The James Beard Award-semifinalist has long been one of the top chefs in New Jersey. But his ascent accelerated after opening the highly acclaimed Pasta Ramen in Montclair in 2023. The Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant took the New Jersey dining scene by storm, becoming the most coveted reservation in the state and garnering legitimate national attention.

We’re talking the kind of attention that lands you on business trips to Japan, and prompts big questions about his next steps. The conversation centered around Felice’s focus — would he aim for Michelin stars and conform to fine-dining norms, or buck convention and let his personality shine through at his restaurants?

Because up until now, Felice says he has been holding back.

“Am I going kind of still do my own f---ing thing and be like, ‘Listen, if you don’t want to give me a star because I’m blasting Biggie Smalls and Ashanti and I have stickers on my tables, then so be it,‘” Felice told NJ Advance Media earlier this month. “That’s exactly who I am right now and who I’ve always been. I was just kind of afraid to show that.”

Whatever the future holds for Felice, it’s clear he’s no longer censoring himself. His first two restaurants, Viaggio in Wayne and Osteria Crescendo in Westwood, feature fancy but mostly understated dining rooms. That’s not the case at his newest project, Bar Mutz in Westwood, which opened in February and is unapologetically Felice-ian.

Think less Italian restaurant, and more mozzarella-themed night club.

Throwback hip-hop booms (and I mean booms) from the speakers. Graffiti-centric art adorns the walls along with collages featuring colorful images from movies and television shows. Plates have the phrase “best f------ mozzarella” painted on the rim, and tables are in fact covered in stickers.

This doesn’t feel like a dining room that dishes out food from a James Beard-nominated chef. And that is exactly Felice’s aim.

“You don’t have to do what the Michelin Guide wants or what the food critics want,” Felice said. “You can do whatever the f--- you want if you’re putting really special food on a plate.”

So, what is being served on those braggadocious dishes? A cuisine Felice swore he’d never prepare — Italian-American food. Caesar salad. Chicken and sausage cutlet Milanese. The inescapable, ultra-trendy spicy rigatoni.

Felice built his reputation on authentic Italian food, the kind of stuff Paulie Walnuts scoffed at when he visited Italy in “Sopranos” — you’ll find a caricature of him on the wall here, too.

Oh yeah, and as the restaurant’s name suggests, mozzarella. Lots and lots of mozzarella. Mozzarella sticks. Burrata. Even fresh mozzarella prepared table-side that is hand-fed to diners by the wait staff.

Bar Mutz is indeed an abrupt departure from Felice’s fine dining roots, and the vibe here is polarizing — the kind of experience that could overshadow how special some of these dishes truly are.

Let’s dig in.

The good

With Felice’s pedigree, it’s no surprise his well-worn classics like spicy rig ($27) and chicken and sausage cutlet Milanese ($49) are tasty, though not overly ambitious.

But before you consider this menu a waste of his talents, I implore you to try the pasta dishes that may have been better suited for the chef’s more upscale restaurants. Read on.

I was floored by the trottole ($33), a short, twisted pasta shape that looks like a spinning top, served with short rib ragu, mozzarella whey and Belper Knolle — a cheese from Switzerland aged in caves and rubbed with raw garlic and black pepper. The salty, cacio e pepe-esque notes from the cheese contrasted superbly with the rich, earthy yet sweet short rib.

That sugar comes from both the soy and ponzu marinade and the red wine braise — Wafu Italian, shades of Pasta Ramen. The braising liquid is then reduced and turned into a sauce that coats every twisty little noodle.

Equally impressive was the lobster mac (M/P), a dish I almost never order. Tossing lobster meat into a dish is often a lazy attempt at luxury, with little regard for flavor blends. But Felice’s take on the dish is a far cry from whatever your local steakhouses churns out. This is clever alchemy of crustacean and carbs, inspired by his time working with former three Michelin star chef Sergio Herman.

The sauce takes four days to make — yes, four days for mac and cheese — and features not only the meat from the lobster, but the shells being pulverized in a blender and cooked into the stock that is strained and then emulsified with cream and butter. The result is a decadently thick and creamy lobster sauce that enrobes every macaroni noodle, accented by dots of tart and tangy Meyer lemon sour cream and chives. Plus sizable chunks of lobster meat to boot. This is the lobster mac that will ruin all other lobster macs for you.

The samoa cookie cheesecake ($18) feels just like biting into an elevated version of the best Girl Scout cookie and the butter cake ($17) is so rich and creamy that you won’t even care about your cholesterol climbing as you bite in.

But the rainbow cookie and fior di latte gelato ($18) is in the running for the best things I’ve eaten in this new year. Rainbow cookies, like many Italian-American delicacies, are ubiquitous. Bar Mutz breathes new life into the cookie by not only making a damn good version of the treat, but mixing it with impossibly creamy gelato, putting it over top a bed of rainbow cookie crumbs and topping it with tiny Nutella-filled ice cream cones. This is the rare dish that tastes as good as it looks in an Instagram post.

The bad

To survive with a name like Bar Mutz, your approach to New Jersey’s favorite cheese must be flawless. While none of the mozzarella or burrata at Felice’s latest eatery was bad, it was hardly the most memorable component of the meal.

The table-side mozzarella, features a piece of cheese pulled right in front of you and hand-fed to you by the wait staff —yes, from their (gloved) hands right to your mouth. Some might find this charming. I found it underwhelming at best and gimmicky at worst. The warmth and saltiness of the cheese was noteworthy and made for a unique experience. But I still didn’t enjoy the process of being hand-fed. Perhaps I would have felt differently if the single bite of mozzarella wasn’t $10, which feels excessive even in 2025.

Hot honey continues to be one of the biggest trends in the culinary world, one I have denounced. Still, the idea of pairing the sweet and spicy condiment with one of New Jersey’s favorite appetizers caught my eye. But the hot honey was the only thing that saved this dish from being utterly boring. Frankly, I’ve had better mozzarella sticks at a diner.

The Di Stefano burrata with roasted peppers, basil and aceto balsamico ($24) was my favorite of the cheese dishes, but even that didn’t feel revolutionary to me.

The vibe

While the menu may be fairly described as crowd-pleasing, the distinctly boisterous atmosphere Felice has curated simply isn’t for everyone.

As someone who grew up listening to Lil Wayne, Destiny’s Child and the Notorious B.I.G., I enjoyed the millennial-catering playlist. But the music was so loud that I struggled to hold a conversation in our booth.

The decibel level dropped as the night went on — I’m not sure if that’s because the dining room had emptied out or if the music was actually turned down.

If loud, flashy restaurants are your thing, you’ll love Bar Mutz. At times I felt like I was in South Beach, Miami. But if you’re averse to such a bumping experience, you’re going to have a hard time appreciating Felice’s latest project.

The bottom line

Credit where credit is due: Felice has found success in a certain type of Italian cuisine — and plenty of chefs in New Jersey would simply stay in that lane and churn out a bunch of culinary facsimiles. Hell, plenty of restaurateurs have done just that.

Aside from the increasingly omnipresent David Viana and David Burke, he is perhaps the biggest name in New Jersey restaurant game in 2025. A second Pasta Ramen location, or something in that vein, would be booked up night after night.

Rather than rest on his rustic Italian laurels, Felice instead took some big, unapologetic swings with the entire New Jersey culinary scene’s eyes squarely on him. Not all of them connect. The eponymous mozzarella is surprisingly not the star of the show. Felice wanted to stand out in an otherwise stuffy fine dining world, and he certainly accomplished that mission. The vibe isn’t going to connect for everyone, and may alienate some.

But the dishes that showcase the Pompton Plains native’s creativity and skill are clear home runs.

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Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com and followed on Twitter at @J_Schneider and on Instagram at @JeremyIsHungryAgain.