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WESTWOOD, NJ — Do you like steak, but your friend has a hankering for sushi — or even a salad?

A new steakhouse in Westwood is set to open next week, satisfying a range of palates.

A local veterinarean has partnered with an experienced Bergen and Hudson County restaurateur to open the venture.

Owner John Centrella told Patch that Morgan Steakhouse And Omakase Sushi Bar will open the week of April 21.

'Dual Concept'

Find out what's happening in Westwood-Hillsdalefor free with the latest updates from Patch.

The team behind the eatery describes it as a "Dual-concept restaurant under one roof, offering two distinct dining experiences; a refined BYOB steakhouse and sushi experience."

Omakase sushi is a trend in which people are served a series of sushi bites by a chef.

The eatery will specialized in dry-aged, Wagyu, wet-aged, game steaks, omakase sushi, plant-based dishes, Italian pastas, seafood, and specials.

It'll open for dinner each night at 5 p.m.

During lunch time, the eatery will also offer another concept: "Flame & Fin by Morgan," a casual omakase sushi bar and burger restaurant. Flame & Fin will be open for lunch and dinner with delivery and pickup via Uber Eats and Grubhub.

The menu will include simple offerings including sushi, burgers, salads, pasta, pizza and appetizers.

On Thursday and Friday, a DJ will mix the latest beats on the outdoor patio.

The steakhouse will include more than 125 seats and a private VIP Room. A chef table room will have a long table that can accommodate up to 24 people for corporate and weekend gatherings. For a monthly fee of $150, members enjoy a wine cabinet personalized with their name.

Experienced Partners And Chefs

Partners include Dr. George Cattiny Jr., a vet at Westwood Regional Veterinary Hospital and Pompton Lakes Animal Hospital, and John Presto Centrella, who has 40 years of restaurant experience. His ventures have included Presto Pizza in West New York and Hackensack, and Let's Meat Steakhouse in Harrington Park.

Chefs include Chef Luis, with more than 45 years Italian dinning and steakhouse experience in Bergen County and New York City, and Chef Lucy, the former sous chef at Let’s Meat Steakhouse in Rivervale. The Omakase sushi chef is Chef Luis, who has more than 15 years of experience in Japanese and Peruvian cuisine.

Do you know of a restaurant opening or closing in North Jersey? Let Patch know so we can tell our readers.

For well over 150 years, the Westwood Kissing Tree has towered over countless couples enjoying their first smooch — at least that's what local legend says.

This Valentine's Day, it will get its own historical embrace.

“Given the trifecta of Flu Type A, COVID and RSV, that's still going around, I'm thinking some of the kissing might be missing," Mayor Raymond Arroyo said in an email.

Nonetheless, the 70-foot-tall copper beech in downtown Westwood is having its moment. The Kissing Tree was designated by the state last month as a Champion Tree, putting it among New Jersey's tallest. It also was inducted into the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Big and Heritage Tree program, which maintains an online map of notable trees in the Garden State.

Story continues after gallery.

At 4:15 p.m. on Friday, the borough plans to unveil a plaque to memorialize the honor. That will be followed by an opportunity for Westwood residents to have their pictures taken under the tree with a loved one by local photographer Richard Frant.

"We wanted to honor the 'Kissing Tree' in a unique way, so what better way to do that than on Valentine's Day," said Dan Zambrano, chair of the Westwood Shade Tree Advisory Committee.

Requests for photos were so great that all the available slots had been reserved as of last week. Twenty-eight adults, 21 kids and two dogs are registered, Zambrano said.

The tree is a copper beech, an ornamental form of the European beech, said a report compiled for the borough last year by arborist Elizabeth Stewart. European colonists brought the species to the region in the mid-1700s, she wrote.

More:'Gateway to Westwood’ gets new look and new shops, thanks to son’s nostalgia

The Kissing Tree's age is unclear. In her report, Stewart said she chose not to take a core trunk sample, as that could speed the decay of the tree. Instead, she estimated its age based on the tree's diameter and growth rate, which put it at somewhere between 168 and 252 years old.

The specimen stands out as a “landmark tree with significant value to the community,” said the report, which was submitted to the state Forest Service as part of the borough's Big and Heritage Tree application. Stewart added that the tree is historically significant, well maintained and in good health.

How Westwood's Kissing Tree got its name

So how did the Kissing Tree get its name? There are various theories, none verified, the arborist said. According to one, a Civil War soldier planted a small sapling in Westwood on his return home from the South.

Over the years, the tree grew, and "under its branches, many couples would share their first kiss," James Gines of the Westwood Heritage Society said during a Shade Tree Advisory Committee meeting in February, according to Stewart's report. "This was confirmed at a reunion of the class of 1943, that they did kiss under the tree.”

After the application was submitted by Westwood's Christine Blaney, a DEP employee, the agency visited last July to inspect the tree. It was officially added to the Big and Heritage Tree lists on Jan. 8.

Council member and Shade Tree council liaison Erin Collins said the Kissing Tree is "so important to the fabric of Westwood." The idea for the Valentine's Day photo ops came from the shade tree group as well as Westwood High School's environmental committee and is a great way to "keep people thinking about tree stewardship," she said.

Friday's event won't be the last way the borough honors its greenery this year. The shade tree committee plans a borough-wide street inventory of trees in 2025. The effort will record existing trees by type, size, condition and whether utility wires are present, Zambrano said.

“This data will first give us a snapshot of the size and health of our borough's tree canopy,” he said. “We will also have an idea how many vacant spots are available on borough streets for new tree plantings.”

Westwood's Kissing Tree once had a sibling, another beech that was planted at the same time in Woodcliff Lake, Zambrano said. But that tree was eventually taken down.

"This makes our European beech even more special, that it still stands to this day," he said.

Stephanie Noda is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: noda@northjersey.com; X: @snoda11

For more than a century, the Five Corners building has marked the eastern entrance to Westwood's mom-and-pop downtown.

It was almost replaced by a chain drug store — until a nostalgic son stepped in to restore some of its former charm.

Local officials, merchants and residents gathered in late October for the grand reopening of the building at Westwood Avenue and Kinderkamack Road, after a 10-month refurbishment that cost $400,000 and added a new roofline and other architectural touches to the prewar building. The ceremony also celebrated several businesses that have moved in over the past two years.

Five Corners, which was damaged in a 1980s fire, has been a fixture in the borough since before the 1920s, said owner Roger Gross, who was unsure of its exact age.

He bought the property from his family a few years ago after one of his siblings suggested turning it into a Walgreens. The location had a special place in his heart, he said, as the home of the Treasure Cove, a gift shop his mother had owned for 20 years.

“I thought it would be so much nicer to keep the mom-and-pop-type stores,” Gross said in an interview.

He originally planned to add apartments on a second floor of the building, but that became economically infeasible during the COVID pandemic, Gross said. He still wanted to make improvements, however. His renovations raised the roofline and added six gables and other touches to match the structure's original Flemish Revival architectural style.

Nine tenants now use the building: Craft Taco Company, the Good Life Gift Boutique, Maxine’s Bake Shop, Stack Creamery, Supp Hub, Valley Interior Design, New Westwood Nails, Beautiful Buds florist and Collected Works, a purveyor of gifts and home accents.

Gross said Nancy Norton, owner of the Good Life Gift Boutique, helped plan the reopening. She moved into the space when renovations were about 75% done and was excited to help attract customers to the refurbished building.

“She thought it would be a better splash if all the stores celebrated,” Gross said.

Maxine’s Bake Shop will be the newest addition when owners Clement and Abby Fourmont open their store at the end of December. The couple met while working in a pastry kitchen in New York City and decided to open their first business together, naming it after their daughter.

“We’re hoping to have a cozy little spot where people come, drink coffee and try our pastries,” Abby Fourmont said. “We’re really excited to be part of the town, it’s just a really family-oriented town, and we love that vibe.”

Mayor Raymond Arroyo said the restoration shows that “Westwood’s commercial property owners can upgrade and restore, even during the worst economic inflationary period in 40 years, and still fill the storefronts with viable and serendipitous goods and services.”

“And they can do so, profitability, without jamming more density and intensity onto small footprints that cannot handle the bulk volumes, traffic generation and parking,” the mayor added in an email.

Lauren Letizia, the council liaison to the Historic Preservation Commission and vice president of the Westwood Heritage Society, said the borough's streetscape has retained its unique stylings by embracing “gradual, intentional growth” rather than an “architectural boom” in one particular era. Downtown Westwood includes buildings that range from turn-of-the-20th-century artifacts to 21^st-century additions, Letizia said.

“Five Corners Building serves as a gateway to Westwood,” she said. “While it was struck by fire, tenant changes and the pulls of economic challenges over the decades ... it continues to be a destination for shoppers and diners.”

She praised Gross and Westwood-based architect Vincent Chioffi for a ”well-considered facelift.”

Although the building has a legacy in town, Gross said he won't seek an official historical designation by the state.

“Once you have the designation, you restrict yourself in terms of what you are able to do to renovate in the future,” he said.

Stephanie Noda is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: noda@northjersey.com

Twitter: @snoda11

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Westwood-Hillsdale|Featured Event

Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 6:00 PM

Paramus Public Library, 116 E Century Rd, Paramus, NJ, 07652

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