About Jai Alai Restaurant

The name on the door

Jai alai is a Basque phrase meaning “merry festival”. It is also the name of the Basque ball game played with a long curved wicker basket called a cesta, hurled against the wall of a court known as a frontón. The game is the fastest ball sport in the world, and it travelled from the Basque Country to Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States — which is how a restaurant in Dover, New Jersey, came to carry a name that a lot of people first heard at a sports arena.

For the restaurant, the name was a statement of origin rather than of sport. The menu card opened with a note on the Basque people and closed with a line in small caps: all food is prepared to order using only the finest Spanish extra-virgin olive oil. Read the full history of the Basques here →

The kitchen: La Cocina Vasca

The subtitle the restaurant used for its own cooking was La Cocina Vasca — the Basque kitchen. In practice that meant a menu built around olive oil, garlic, saffron, sherry and Jerez wine, with Atlantic fish and shellfish in the leading role.

There were casseroles of mariscada for two or more, a classic Basque paella with lobster and chorizo over saffron rice, egg-battered escalopes and albardados, grilled meats treated with the seriousness of a Gipuzkoan asador, and a sangria made in house with no sugar added. A shared plate carried a $5 charge, which tells you how the kitchen expected people to eat: in company, out of the middle of the table.

The signature dishes, explained → · The full menu →

Ignacio Cenicacelaya, chef and owner

The restaurant was led by chef-owner Ignacio Cenicacelaya, whose name appeared on the contact page and on the menu card. A review of the restaurant in the local Dover press described the front of house as a family affair: guests were usually met by Saul or Nick Cenicacelaya, who would steer them through the food and the wine.

That division — a kitchen cooking Basque food to order, and a dining room that knew its guests — is what the review remembered best, along with the sangria. Read what reviewers said →

Dover, New Jersey

73 West Blackwell Street put the restaurant in the middle of downtown Dover, Morris County: one block south of Bassett Highway (US 46), between Prospect Street and Warren Street, and a short walk from the Dover station on NJ Transit's Morris & Essex Line. That location made it a stop for people coming off the interstate and a walk for people coming off the train.

Directions and transit details →

What happened: the 2023 fire and the closure

In September 2023 the restaurant was damaged by a five-alarm fire and closed, initially “until further notice”. In May 2024 it was reported that the Jai-Alai would not reopen, ending a run of decades on West Blackwell Street.

The closure was covered by the local press, and the reports are the primary record:

• NorthJersey.com, 2 May 2024: “Dover's beloved Jai-Alai restaurant won't reopen after 5-alarm fire”
• Patch, May 2024: “Popular Morris Co. restaurant officially closes after five-alarm fire”
• NorthJersey.com, 18 September 2023: “Jai-Alai restaurant in Dover NJ closed after a fire”

Because the restaurant is closed, nothing on this website can be ordered or booked. The telephone number, fax number and email address published on the contact page are kept as historical records only.

About this website

This site preserves the Jai Alai's original public pages: the home page, the page on the Basque people, the menu, the reviews page, the contact details and the directions page. The original pages were built as tables of sliced images, which meant their text could not be read by search engines, screen readers or phones. Those pages have now been rebuilt as semantic HTML with the text restored, the layout centred and made responsive, and new pages added for the restaurant's history, its signature dishes and common questions.

No page address that the restaurant ever published has been changed. The original four-page menu is still available as a PDF at downloads/menu.pdf.