Chef Ed Coss

Life without a restaurant is almost unimaginable for Milford Oyster House Chef H. Edwin Coss. Ed got his start in the restaurant business at the Ryland Inn shortly after his sixteenth birthday. He quickly worked his way up through the kitchen hierarchy and has now spent more than half his life "behind the line."

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., Ed was executive chef in a number of notable area restaurants, including the Court Cafe in Somerville and the Top of the Marq at the Marquis de Lafayette Hotel in Cape May, where he earned three and a half stars from the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was soon apparent that Ed needed his own restaurant, and in 1997 he purchased the Milford Oyster House. In 2005, Chef Ed moved the Milford Oyster House to its present location in an old stone mill — still in Milford but on Route 519 two tenths of a mile north of Bridge Street. The restaurant, which now has a liquor license, is open for dinner every night except Tuesday.

Chef Ed has been delighting customers with his creative seafood menu "cooked to near perfection," as New Jersey Countryside put it in the recent feature article "12 Restaurants to Try Now." "Chef Ed Coss knows his seafood and prepares it with assurance," raved the Star-Ledger.

Milford Oyster House is the best seafood restaurant in New Jersey — top-rated for food and top-rated for service — according to the 2011-2012 Zagat Survey. Milford Oyster House is "a place of conviviality, even joy," enthused The New York Times. "Of knowledgeable, nimble servers and happy diners."

Milford Oyster House is located at 92 Route 519 (Water Street) Milford, New Jersey. Call 908-995-9411 for reservations.