A proper plate of lasagna announces itself before the first bite. The edges are still bubbling, the top has those browned patches everyone quietly hopes to claim, and the first forkful threatens to pull half the cheese on the plate along with it.
New Jersey has no shortage of Italian restaurants, but finding lasagna worth making a special trip for narrows the field considerably. The best versions aren’t simply heavy piles of pasta and mozzarella.
They have structure, sauce with actual personality, enough richness to qualify as comfort food, and—most importantly—a reason you’ll remember them the next time the craving hits. This list runs from century-old family restaurants and little Hoboken institutions to a celebrity-chef dining room inside an Atlantic City casino.
Some keep things proudly traditional; others play with the formula. All 12 offer a very convincing argument for skipping the frozen aisle and letting somebody else’s kitchen handle dinner.
1. Trattoria La Sorrentina
The move on Bergenline Avenue is to arrive hungry and keep your order pointed toward Southern Italy. Trattoria La Sorrentina has the kind of menu where gnocchi, orecchiette, brick-oven pizza, veal parmigiana, and seafood all compete for attention, but lasagna lovers have a particularly good reason to stay focused.
Its Lasagna Napoletana is built around ricotta, mozzarella, meat, and tomato sauce—the familiar lineup, handled without unnecessary reinvention. That simplicity is exactly the appeal.
This is lasagna for people who want tomato sauce to taste like tomato sauce and cheese to be generous without swallowing every other flavor on the plate. The restaurant also makes mozzarella in-house for some dishes and proudly leans into family recipes, which fits the old-school character of the food.
You’ll find it at 7831 Bergenline Avenue in North Bergen, a useful stop if you are anywhere along the Hudson County side of the state. It also opens for lunch as well as dinner, making this one of the easier places on the list to turn a lasagna craving into an afternoon plan instead of waiting until date-night hours.
If your table wants to branch out, add the homemade gnocchi or an order from the wood-burning pizza oven—but leave enough room for the reason you came.
2. Angeline by Michael Symon
There is a good reason the lasagna at Angeline comes with the word “Mom’s” attached to it. Michael Symon built the Borgata restaurant around the red-sauce dishes and family recipes that shaped his cooking, and lasagna is one of the most personal items in the lineup.
The version associated with his mother, Angel, became known for an almost comical number of layers—30 in the recipe Symon has discussed—which turns a supposedly simple comfort-food dish into something with serious architectural ambition. Yet the point is not to make lasagna precious.
Angeline’s current menu simply calls it Mom’s Lasagna, alongside meatballs, arancini, handmade pastas, chicken parmesan, and other dishes that make the room feel more Italian family dinner than culinary science experiment.
The setting, of course, is several steps more polished than grandma’s kitchen: this is Borgata in Atlantic City, and reservations and proper attire are required.
Dinner service runs Tuesday through Sunday, with later closing times on Friday and Saturday. That makes Angeline a smart choice when the lasagna craving coincides with a casino weekend, concert, or night out where you want something more occasion-worthy than a neighborhood takeout container.
Order the lasagna because it has a story behind it; order something for the table because nobody comes to an Italian family dinner and eats politely alone.
3. Catherine Lombardi
For a downtown New Brunswick dinner, this is the lasagna to choose when you want old-school comfort food without giving up a more polished night out. Catherine Lombardi lists its Lasagna with Meat Gravy among the house specialties, describing it as a rustic version stuffed with meat and cheese.
That tells you almost everything you need to know about the approach: substantial, unapologetically rich, and more interested in satisfying you than showing off. The menu around it reinforces the point, with pappardelle Bolognese, spaghetti and meatballs, manicotti, veal parmigiana, chicken scarpariello, and plenty of other Italian-American heavy hitters.
Still, the lasagna makes an especially convincing main course because the restaurant treats it like an entrée in its own right rather than the obligatory baked-pasta option hiding near the bottom of the menu.
Catherine Lombardi sits at 3 Livingston Avenue, right in downtown New Brunswick, and one practical detail makes dinner considerably easier than it once was: the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center parking deck is essentially next door, with its entrance on Bayard Street.
The restaurant serves dinner Monday through Saturday, while Sunday is reserved for private parties. Reservations make sense on busier evenings, particularly if you are pairing dinner with something downtown.
Come for a proper sit-down meal, order the meat-gravy lasagna, and don’t schedule anything afterward that requires moving quickly.
4. From Scratch
Rome native chef Claudia Rovegno gives you a clue about this Ridgewood spot before you even look at the menu: the restaurant is literally called From Scratch. The kitchen’s lasagna choices lean closer to Italian regional cooking than the giant ricotta-heavy squares many Americans grew up eating.
Lasagna alla Bolognese layers homemade pasta with Bolognese ragù, béchamel, and Parmigiano Reggiano, creating a softer, silkier kind of richness. Then there is Lasagna Cacio e Pepe, which takes the Roman combination of Pecorino Romano and black pepper and turns it into a baked, layered dish with béchamel and mozzarella.
If you have eaten classic meat lasagna a hundred times, that second version gives you a reason to pay attention again. From Scratch is especially useful for diners who want flexibility: beyond dining in, the restaurant offers single servings and larger family or catering portions of several dishes, so lasagna can just as easily become Sunday dinner at home.
The restaurant is at 44 East Ridgewood Avenue, and its identity goes beyond regular service; Rovegno also runs hands-on cooking classes, including dedicated lasagna workshops. That tells you how seriously pasta is taken here.
Go traditional with the Bolognese if your craving demands red sauce, or order the cacio e pepe version when you want proof that lasagna does not need tomato sauce to earn its place on this list.
5. La Pastaria
Some restaurants earn loyalty by constantly reinventing themselves. La Pastaria has spent more than three decades proving there is another route: give people the homestyle dishes they actually want to come back for.
Opened in 1993, the Summit restaurant was created around a deliberately casual, family-friendly idea, and the lasagna fits that philosophy perfectly. The current menu keeps the description wonderfully uncomplicated—lasagna stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella.
No truffle drizzle, no surprise ingredient, no paragraph explaining the chef’s interpretation. Just baked pasta and cheese doing what baked pasta and cheese have successfully done for generations.
That makes La Pastaria particularly useful when you are dining with a group whose idea of Italian food ranges from adventurous to “please just give me something covered in mozzarella.” The broader menu stretches from handmade ravioli and penne Bolognese to chicken Savoy, seafood, steaks, and familiar parmigiana dishes.
Its location at 327 Springfield Avenue also puts it squarely in downtown Summit, so dinner can easily be folded into an evening around town rather than requiring a dedicated drive to an isolated restaurant.
Reservations are available for parties of all sizes. If you are here specifically for lasagna, resist the temptation to over-order appetizers.
This is straightforward comfort food, and the whole point is having enough appetite left to appreciate why straightforward can be exactly right.
6. Augustino’s
Here is the useful warning before you start planning around this Hoboken favorite: call first if lasagna is the entire mission.
Augustino’s current standard menu is packed with Southern Italian staples—stuffed artichoke, linguine with clams, orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage, chicken on the bone, pork chops, and cutlets—but lasagna does not appear on the posted regular lineup.
It does, however, turn up as an order and has been served beyond some long-forgotten menu era; a 2025 account of Hoboken native Joe Pantoliano dining there specifically mentioned taking lasagna home. In other words, think of this as the insider entry on the list rather than the guaranteed walk-in order.
That actually suits Augustino’s. The restaurant at 1104 Washington Street is small, old-school, cash-only, and the sort of place where reservations are far smarter than hoping a table magically appears at 7 p.m.
It is also one of those Hoboken restaurants where the supporting cast can easily rescue the night if lasagna is unavailable: chicken parmigiana, linguine with clams, broccoli rabe with sausage, stuffed artichoke, and pork dishes keep the menu firmly in comfort-food territory.
Call ahead, ask whether lasagna is available, bring cash, and make a reservation while you’re at it. A little planning here pays off much better than showing up hungry and optimistic.
7. Clemente’s Pizzeria & Cafe Italiano
A neighborhood pizzeria that makes a serious baked pasta is one of New Jersey’s most dependable food pleasures, and Clemente’s understands the assignment.
The Berkeley Heights restaurant may be best known as the home of its Original Grandma Pizza, but the homemade lasagna deserves attention from anyone who normally stops reading a pizzeria menu after the pizza section.
This one layers braised ground beef with ricotta, tender pasta sheets, and marinara—a sturdy, familiar combination that lands squarely in Italian-American comfort-food territory. It also comes with bread and a choice of soup or salad, so this is a full dinner rather than a modest square of pasta dressed up as an entrée.
Clemente’s is especially easy to recommend when the group cannot agree on what “Italian tonight” means. One person can get lasagna, another can chase the Grandma pie, and somebody else can order penne alla vodka or chicken Francese without forcing the whole table into one style of meal.
The restaurant is currently at 430 Springfield Avenue in Berkeley Heights, and it offers dine-in, takeout, delivery, and catering. One important planning note: it is closed Mondays.
Otherwise, this is the kind of low-fuss stop that works for a weeknight family dinner just as easily as a takeout run. Come dressed casually, order the lasagna, and strongly consider putting a Grandma pie in the middle anyway.
8. The Grotto Restaurant
Not every memorable lasagna has to arrive under dim lighting with a sommelier hovering nearby. Sometimes you want a $12.50 plate of baked pasta from a neighborhood place that also sells two cheese pies as a Tuesday special.
That is where The Grotto earns its spot. This Hopatcong restaurant has been serving Sicilian and Italian food since 1967, and its menu still reads like the answer to a family argument over dinner: pizza, heroes, calzones, wings, parmigiana dinners, baked ziti, stuffed shells, manicotti, and, right in the middle of the pasta section, lasagna.
The value is part of the appeal. While several restaurants on this list turn lasagna into a special-occasion entrée, The Grotto keeps it firmly in everyday-comfort-food territory.
You can add garlic bread, bring hungry kids, or order enough takeout for the house without watching the check turn into a financial event. The restaurant sits at 454 River Styx Road in Hopatcong and advertises easy parking, pickup, and delivery, making it particularly practical for locals around Lake Hopatcong.
Pizza may be the first thing many customers associate with the place, but do not let that distract you from the baked-pasta side of the menu. This is the stop for lasagna when what you really want is dinner that feels familiar, filling, and refreshingly uncomplicated.
9. Carmine’s Italian Restaurant
Family-style dining changes the mathematics of ordering lasagna. At Carmine’s in Atlantic City, you are not deciding whether you want lasagna; you are negotiating whether the table wants lasagna—and the answer should probably be yes.
The restaurant’s dishes are designed for sharing, with the main menu describing its family-style portions as feeding roughly three to four people. Lasagna sits alongside ravioli, manicotti, penne alla vodka, meatballs, chicken parmigiana, and the rest of Carmine’s big-platter Italian-American lineup.
The format is what makes this entry different. Instead of everybody guarding a separate entrée, a big serving lands in the middle and dinner becomes a passing-plates operation.
It works especially well with lasagna, since one order can share table space with chicken parm, a salad, or another pasta without everyone committing to an enormous individual meal. The Atlantic City location is inside The Quarter at Tropicana, at 2801 Pacific Avenue, just off the Boardwalk action.
Reservations are recommended because the restaurant gets busy, though walk-ins are accepted, and the dress code is casual. Parking is available through Tropicana.
This is not the place for a quiet solo square of lasagna and an early exit.
Bring people, coordinate the order before enthusiasm leads to six giant platters, and remember that “family style” is restaurant language for “you are probably taking leftovers home.”
10. GP’s Restaurant
At GP’s, the appeal starts with a menu that seems blissfully uninterested in chasing trends. Mozzarella marinara comes out baked with sauce.
Meatballs are seasoned with garlic, parsley, and Romano. Chicken Scarpairella shares space with veal saltimbocca, sausage giambotta, gnocchi Bolognese, and linguine with clams.
Then there is the lasagna: pasta, meat sauce, and melted cheese baked in layers. That description is almost comically simple, but in an old-school Italian restaurant, simplicity can be reassuring.
You know exactly what sort of evening you are signing up for. GP’s is at 24 69th Street in Guttenberg, and dinner service is concentrated Wednesday through Sunday, generally from 5 to 10 p.m., so this is not the place to spontaneously chase a Monday-night lasagna craving.
Reservations are handled by phone, another detail that fits the restaurant’s straightforward personality. The current dinner lineup gives you plenty of ways to build around the lasagna without turning dinner into a marathon: split mozzarella marinara or meatballs first, then let the baked pasta do the heavy lifting.
Prices land closer to neighborhood sit-down dining than bargain pizzeria territory, but portions and menu style are built around a proper dinner. GP’s works best when you want the kind of lasagna that does not need a clever name—the sauce, cheese, meat, and oven have already done the explaining.
11. Federici’s Family Restaurant
Few dishes on this list come with a better piece of family history. Frank and Ester “Mom and Pop” Federici bought the Freehold location in 1921, and more than a century later, the restaurant still serves Mom’s original cheese-lasagna recipe.
That makes ordering it feel less like choosing from a menu and more like sampling something the family has deliberately refused to mess with. Mom’s Lasagna layers pasta, assorted cheeses, and homemade tomato sauce.
Meat lovers get a second choice: the Special Lasagna starts with the classic cheese version and adds ground beef and sausage. Choosing between the two is basically choosing your philosophy of comfort food.
The restaurant is also famous for thin-crust pizza, perfected by the next generation of the family after World War II, so splitting a small pie before the lasagna is a very tempting mistake. Federici’s sits at 14 East Main Street in downtown Freehold and is celebrating 105 years in business in 2026.
It is closed Tuesdays, and reservations are accepted for parties of seven or more. There is parking behind the restaurant in the Market Yard lot, with free parking there Sunday through Wednesday and a small evening fee later in the week.
One more old-school detail matters: Federici’s does not accept credit cards, although there is an ATM on-site. Bring cash, order Mom’s recipe, and enjoy the rare dinner where “unchanged for generations” is precisely the selling point.
12. Benny Tudino’s
Most people walk into Benny Tudino’s thinking about pizza, which is understandable when a restaurant has spent decades advertising itself as the home of the largest slice. The smart move for a lasagna hunt is to keep reading past the pies.
Benny’s has an entire casserole section featuring baked lasagna, spinach lasagna, and a baked lasagna upgraded with meatballs or sausage. That gives this Hoboken institution something many fancier restaurants do not: options.
Go classic when you want the straightforward red-sauce fix, choose spinach when you want to dial back the meat, or add meatballs or sausage when moderation has clearly left the building.
Benny Tudino’s has been in business for more than 50 years at 622 Washington Street, and its long hours make it one of the most convenient lasagna stops on this list.
The restaurant is open seven days a week and stays open especially late Monday through Saturday, which is useful in a city where dinner plans have a habit of turning into much later dinner plans.
The menu also covers every backup craving imaginable, from chicken parmigiana and eggplant rollatini to seafood, heroes, wings, and those famously huge pizza slices.
Do not come expecting delicate tasting-menu portions. Benny’s strength is abundance, familiarity, and the comforting knowledge that when the table cannot decide between pizza and lasagna, nobody actually has to choose.