Lambertis Margate: A Restaurant Built on Sunsets, Patience, and One Family’s Long Road from Naples
Picture this. A block-long building sitting right on the back bay in a small Jersey Shore town. Boats bobbing in a hundred slips. The sky turning orange over the water while people eat pasta on a wooden deck. That’s Lamberti’s, and honestly, it took a lot longer to get here than anyone expected.
I want to tell you about this place the way you’d hear it from someone who’s been watching it since before it even opened, because the story behind it is just as good as the food.
Key Facts
| Detail | Information |
| Location | 9707 Amherst Avenue, Margate City, New Jersey |
| Type of place | Waterfront Italian and seafood restaurant with an attached marina |
| Owner | Luciano Lamberti, originally from Monte di Procida, near Naples, Italy |
| Family roots | His father, Giuseppe Lamberti, opened a pizzeria in Brooklyn after arriving from Italy |
| Construction | Started in 2019, faced years of delays, opened in summer 2024 |
| Reasons for delay | The pandemic, supply chain problems, and the owner’s own serious illness |
| Marina | About 100 boat slips plus roughly 100 more for jet skis |
| Building layout | Two floors, glass walls facing the bay, an open kitchen, a bar on each level |
| Cuisine | Traditional Italian dishes with Mediterranean and seafood touches |
| Popular dishes | Chicken parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana, antipasto platters, tableside fish preparation |
| Atmosphere | Casual daytime dining, livelier scene at night with DJs and dancing on weekends |
| Hours | Generally 11am to 10pm most days, later on Fridays and Saturdays |
| Other Lamberti family restaurants | Pasta Vino in Berlin, NJ; Luce in Medford, NJ; Maxie’s at Temple University in Philadelphia |
Now let’s slow down and actually get into it.
Where This Story Really Begins
You have to go back a long way to understand why this restaurant feels the way it does. Giuseppe Lamberti left Naples and landed in Brooklyn with basically nothing but a plan. He opened a small pizza shop, the kind of place that smells like garlic and dough the second you walk in.
That little shop planted a seed that grew for decades. His son Luciano grew up watching him work, learning the rhythm of a kitchen before he was even old enough to understand what a business really was. By the time Luciano was grown, he already had cooking in his hands the way some people have music in theirs.
Luciano didn’t stop at one restaurant either. Over the years he opened Pasta Vino, then Luce, then a spot inside Temple University in Philadelphia. Each one added a little more experience, a little more confidence, until he was ready for something bigger. That something bigger turned out to be Margate.
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Why Margate, Of All Places
Just south of Atlantic City, Margate is a sleepy little beach town where things calm down as summer approaches.. It’s not flashy. It’s not full of casinos. It’s mostly quiet streets, close beaches, and a bay that turns gold every evening.
Luciano saw something in that bay. He didn’t want just another restaurant with four walls and no view. He wanted people to eat dinner while actually watching boats drift by and the sun sink behind the water. That vision is really the whole reason the building looks the way it does today, wrapped almost entirely in glass so nobody misses a second of it.
The Long, Frustrating Road to Opening Day
Here’s the part of the story that surprised me the most. Construction on this building started way back in 2019. Most restaurants take a year, maybe two, to go from empty lot to open doors. This one took five.
First came the usual headaches: permits, a growing design, changes to the plans as things went along. Then came 2020, and everything slowed to a crawl because of the pandemic. Supply chains got tangled up everywhere, and simple things like glass panels or kitchen equipment took forever to arrive.
Then, on top of all that, Luciano got seriously sick. His son Joe, who had been working alongside him since he was a kid, basically too young to legally be on payroll, had to help carry the project the rest of the way. That’s not a small thing. That’s a son stepping up while his father fights through illness, refusing to let years of work sit unfinished.
By the time the building was finally ready, locals in Margate had been walking past it for half a decade, wondering if it would ever open at all. When Joe finally told a local paper “soon, definitely this summer,” you can just imagine how many people had heard some version of that promise before and were quietly rolling their eyes. But this time, it actually happened.
Stepping Inside for the First Time
Walk in and the first thing that hits you is the amount of glass everywhere. Wall after wall looks straight out over the water, so wherever you sit, you’re not missing the view. That was clearly the whole point of the design.
The building has two levels. Downstairs feels calmer, more like a proper dinner spot, with a large open kitchen you can actually see into, a thirty-seat bar, and a mix of bigger and smaller dining areas. There’s also a long deck outside where people can eat right up against the bay breeze.
Upstairs is a different mood entirely. On weekends, that floor turns into something closer to a lounge, complete with a DJ, a dance floor, and lights that keep things going late into the night. So really, Lamberti’s tries to be two different restaurants stacked on top of each other, one calm and one lively, depending on which staircase you take.
Even the materials chosen for the space tell you something. Italian stone floors, marble bar tops, ramps and an elevator so the whole building stays easy to move through no matter your mobility. Somebody clearly cared about the details here, not just the view.
What’s Actually On the Plates
Let’s talk food, because that’s really why people keep coming back. The menu leans heavily on Italian classics with a seafood twist, which makes sense sitting right on a bay full of boats.
Starters lean toward things like antipasto piled high with meats, cheese, roasted peppers, and olives, plus grilled eggplant stuffed with spinach and mozzarella. Fried calamari shows up often too, served the classic way with marinara for dipping.
For mains, you’ll see chicken parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana, and a wide stretch of pasta dishes that change a little with the seasons depending on what’s fresh. There’s also tableside fish preparation, which is a nice little touch you don’t see everywhere anymore, where the server actually finishes cooking or plating certain fish dishes right at your table.
Kids get their own simpler menu too, so this isn’t only a date-night kind of place. Families show up here just as often as couples watching the sunset with a glass of wine.
The Marina Side of Things
Here’s something that makes Lamberti’s a little different from most waterfront restaurants. It’s not just sitting near water, it’s actually attached to a working marina with room for around a hundred boats, plus space for roughly a hundred more jet skis.
Boaters can dock for the whole season or just pull in for an hour to grab lunch before heading back out. There are dock hands ready to help tie boats up, which matters more than people realize if you’ve ever tried docking in a busy summer crowd. That marina piece turns Lamberti’s into more of a destination than a normal sit-down restaurant, something boaters plan whole afternoons around.
What People Are Actually Saying About It
Reviews since opening have been a real mixed bag, and honestly, that’s worth being upfront about. Plenty of people describe the sunset and the building itself as something genuinely special, calling it unlike anything else at the Jersey Shore. Others walked away less impressed, especially early on, with some frustration over pricing given the portions or slower service on busy nights.
That kind of split reaction isn’t unusual for a big new restaurant, especially one that opened with so much buildup behind it. Five years of anticipation creates high expectations, and high expectations are hard for any first summer to fully satisfy. Several regulars have mentioned coming back multiple times since it opened and noticing real improvement, which is often how these things go once a kitchen and staff settle into a rhythm.
One older review from years before this current building, describing an earlier, smaller version of Luciano’s restaurant nearby, mentioned genuinely loving the appetizers and the tableside fish, but noted the dessert options felt thin compared to everything else on the menu. It’s a small detail, but it shows this family has been refining their approach to hospitality for a long time, learning from each version of the restaurant along the way.
The Challenges of Building Something This Big
I think it’s worth pausing here and just appreciating how hard this must have been. Building a two-story, block-long restaurant with a marina attached is already a massive undertaking. Doing it while living through a global pandemic and a serious personal health scare is another level entirely.
There’s also the pressure that comes with a long build. The longer a project drags on, the more a town starts talking about it, wondering aloud whether it will ever really open. That’s a strange kind of pressure to carry, watching your neighbors speculate about your unfinished building for half a decade.
And once a place like this does open, the challenges don’t stop. Staffing a two-level restaurant with a busy bar, a dance floor, and full dinner service takes a lot of coordination. Balancing a lively nightlife scene upstairs with a calmer dining experience downstairs is its own kind of daily juggling act.
Why People Genuinely Love Coming Here
Despite the bumps, there’s something clearly working here, and I think it comes down to a few honest reasons. The view is real and it’s free with every meal, which matters more than people admit. Watching a sunset over water while eating good pasta is one of those simple pleasures that never really gets old.
The story behind the place adds something too. Knowing that this comes from a family who started with a small pizza shop in Brooklyn generations ago gives the food a little more meaning. It’s not a chain built by a corporation chasing a trend. It’s a family that slowly built something bigger with each generation.
And the flexibility of the space matters. Whether you want a quiet family dinner or a lively night out dancing, Lamberti’s tries to offer both without asking you to go somewhere else. That’s a genuinely useful thing for a small shore town to have.
What Might Be Next
Given how the Lamberti family has expanded before, opening several restaurants across New Jersey and Philadelphia over the years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this location keep growing too. Talk of adding brunch service has already come up, though the family seems to want to get the basics running smoothly first before adding anything new.
The marina side likely has room to grow as well, especially as boaters discover it as a stop-off point during the busy summer season. And as reviews continue to settle after the opening rush, it’s likely the restaurant keeps refining service and pricing based on what guests are actually telling them.
Final Thoughts
What I keep coming back to with this story is patience. Five years is a long time to wait for something, and most people would have given up somewhere in the middle of a pandemic and a health scare. Instead, a father and son kept going, block by block, delay by delay, until a family tradition that started in a tiny Brooklyn pizza shop finally had a home right on the water in Margate.
Whether every single review is glowing or not almost feels beside the point. What matters more is that this place exists at all, built out of stubborn love for food, family, and a view worth waiting for. If you ever find yourself in Margate as the sun starts dipping toward the bay, I think it’s worth pulling up a seat and seeing what all that patience actually built.
FAQs
1.Where exactly is Lamberti’s located?
It sits at 9707 Amherst Avenue in Margate City, New Jersey, right along the back bay.
2.Who owns Lamberti’s?
Luciano Lamberti owns it, continuing a family tradition that started with his father Giuseppe’s pizzeria in Brooklyn after the family arrived from Naples, Italy.
3.How long did it take to build this restaurant?
Construction started in 2019 and the restaurant didn’t open until summer 2024, so about five years from start to finish.
4.Why did it take so long to open?
A mix of things slowed it down, including the pandemic, supply chain delays, and Luciano’s own serious illness during the process.
5.Does Lamberti’s have a marina?
Yes. It includes around 100 boat slips and roughly another 100 spots for jet skis, so boaters can dock seasonally or just for a meal.
6.What kind of food does Lamberti’s serve?
Mostly traditional Italian dishes with Mediterranean and seafood influences, including pastas, parmigiana dishes, fresh antipasto, and tableside fish preparation.
7.Is it a good place to bring kids?
Yes, there’s a dedicated kids menu, so it works well for family dinners, not just date nights or adult outings.
8.What’s the atmosphere like at night?
The upstairs level turns into a livelier scene on weekends, with a DJ, dancing, and a bar that stays open until late.
9.What are the restaurant’s hours?
Generally 11am to 10pm most days, extending to 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, though it’s smart to check directly since hours can shift seasonally.
10.Are reservations required?
It’s not listed on some major reservation platforms, so calling ahead directly is usually the safest way to confirm a table, especially during busy summer weekends.
11.Is the food expensive?
Some guests have mentioned prices feel a bit high, though many also note that’s fairly typical for a waterfront restaurant with this kind of view and setting.
12.Does Luciano Lamberti own other restaurants?
Yes, including Pasta Vino in Berlin, New Jersey, Luce in Medford, New Jersey, and Maxie’s on Temple University’s campus in Philadelphia.
13.What makes this restaurant different from other shore restaurants?
Mainly the combination of a working marina, two full floors of dining and nightlife, and floor-to-ceiling views of the bay and sunset from almost every seat.
14.Is parking available nearby?
Yes, there’s a dedicated parking lot nearby on Monroe Avenue, with some spaces also reserved for boaters using the marina during the day.
15.Has the restaurant improved since it first opened?
Based on more recent reviews, yes. Several guests mention noticeable improvements in service and food quality compared to the opening rush in its first summer.
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