Food in Downtown Newark

A small Brazilian lanches counter further up Ferry Street that never closes. The trade is burgers built the Brazilian way, with egg and corn and potato sticks on them, plus salgadinhos and coffee. The name means late hours.

Open 24 hours, seven days a week

Rodízio service on Monroe Street, where waiters carry skewers of picanha and sausage to the table until you turn the card over. One fixed price covers the meat and the hot table. The dining floor is loud and the turnover is quick, so a party of four walking in at 9pm gets sat.

Mon to Sat, 11:30am to 11pm. Sun, noon to 10pm

A Brazilian bakery and cafeteria on Ferry Street that opens at four in the morning and does not shut at all between Friday and Sunday. The case holds coxinhas, empanadas, brigadeiros and the cheese bread it is named for, all baked on site, and there is a plate of the day and a soup as well. Orders go over a counter and most people eat standing or take a bag away.

Mon to Thu, 4am to midnight. Fri and Sat, open 24 hours. Sun, open all day to 11pm

Juan Jose Aurre opened this in 1976 on a quiet corner of Elm Street, off the main Ironbound drag, and it still cooks Basque coastal food with a long list of fish. Portions are large and the dining side fills with families rather than anyone passing through. It is the nearest of the Ironbound places to downtown.

Mon and Wed to Sat, 11am to 10pm. Sun, 11am to 10pm. Closed Tue

Adenah Bayoh and Zadie B. Smith opened the first Cornbread in Maplewood in 2017 and brought it to the ground floor of 915 Broad Street in February 2021. You order fried chicken, collards, mac and cheese and a square of cornbread at the counter and carry the tray. Bayoh co-developed the building it sits in, which is unusual for a restaurant on this street.

Daily, 11am to 10pm

Cooking from Minas Gerais served the way Brazil serves it, off a hot buffet you either pay a flat price for or put on the scale and pay by the kilo. Feijão tropeiro, frango com quiabo and rice and beans sit alongside a grill, and the bar runs separately from the food line. On Friday and Saturday it is still going at half past two in the morning.

Mon to Thu, 11am to 10pm. Fri and Sat, 11am to 2:30am. Sun, noon to 10pm

Fornos sits at the downtown end of Ferry Street, where the Ironbound starts, and it has been the neighborhood's Spanish dining anchor for decades. Paella and seafood come out in quantities built for a table of six. Walk-ins get seated on a weeknight without much waiting because the place is enormous.

Mon to Fri, 11:30am to 10pm. Sat and Sun, noon to 10pm

A deli on Branford Place run by Marc and Michael Brummer, whose father Sam is in the photograph on the wall. The counter does pastrami and corned beef sandwiches built the old way, with pickles brought to the table. It keeps lunch hours and nothing else, which is a downtown-Newark habit rather than a quirk.

Mon to Fri, 8am to 2:30pm. Sat, 11am to 2:30pm. Closed Sun

Open since 1989 on Madison Street, a block off Ferry, and the kitchen is built around grilled octopus and whole fish. Orders arrive on platters meant to be shared and the bread and olives land before you have decided anything. Service runs to midnight every night of the week.

Daily, 11am to midnight

Flame-grilled chicken on Halsey Street, done with peri-peri sauces made on site, drawing on Portuguese, Mozambican, South African and Southeast Asian cooking. You order a quarter or a half at the counter with rice and a sauce and sit down with a tray. The meat is halal and there is a full set of vegan plates alongside it.

Mon to Sat, 11am to 8pm. Closed Sun