Ila Mae’s Restaurant is a well-known favorite soul food restaurant in Trenton located at 313 Market St. They’re known for their excellent dishes–including mac and cheese, collard greens, candied yams, fried fish, and fried chicken–and warm, friendly atmosphere.
When you step inside the restaurant, you see framed African items hanging from the walls, such as dashikis and African masks. The dining room has soft lighting, old school R&B music plays in the background, a few tables have chessboards, and in the back there’s a display with African black soap, herbs, tea, and jewelry. Cook Afrika Brown says “it’s a market back there.”
Ila Mae’s menu features a diverse range of options for customers, with large portions and reasonable prices, with basic dishes starting under $10.
Some favorite menu offerings include “The Truth” fish sandwich which is fileted fried whiting, sweet and spicy wings, shrimp and grits, vegetable lasagna, and salmon cheesesteak. There are options for customers who are pescatarian, vegetarian, and even vegan.
But perhaps the most popular dish is the “Comeback fish sandwich,” which is packed with multiple pieces of juicy fileted fried basa, that has a golden crust to it, on a hoagie roll topped off with lettuce, juicy slices of tomatoes, a smear of creamy tartar sauce, and a golden gloss of gooey American cheese.
“The Comeback is the goods, and that Kool-Aid is something different; it’s not regular Kool-Aid. Once I found out about this place, and had that Comeback for the first time, it’s all I came back for,” says Trenton native Billoh Bah.
“The fish dinner platter is my favorite with the candied yams and mac and cheese, it’s rockin,” says another Ila Mae’s regular.
The candied yams have a cinnamon caramelized finish with a sugared coating that brings a rich flavor that delivers comfort with each bite. The mac and cheese is packed with flavor that brings out the savory blend of seasonings.
Ila Mae was born and raised in Trenton.
“[Cooking] is embedded in my family,” Mae says, adding, “My uncle owns a restaurant, and two of my cousins own a restaurant.” Her father owned a restaurant, too. For 40 years he ran Amefika’s on Stuyvesant Avenue.
Initially, Mae says, she pushed away from the family business.
“I wanted something different,” she says. So she went to work in corporate America. But, she says, “I hated it.” Thirteen years later, she went back to her roots.
Afrika Brown, a cook at the restaurant and also Ila Mae’s grandson, says, “Everything we do in here is from the family. If you look at the names on the menu, they’re all people from our family. It’s not a job, it’s a family business.”
And that sense of family extends outwards.
“We serve the community. We look like the community. We nourish the community, not only mentally but nutritionally as well. We want the people we serve to live long, and when I say ‘our people,’ I mean our customers,” Mae says.
