PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS
Additional restaurants will be added in the near future. Please check back for more information.
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The Bent Spoon
35 Palmer Square West
Princeton, NJ
609-333-1330
www.thebentspoon.net
Calling the wonderful gelato Bent Spoon makes ice cream is sort of like calling the Mona Lisa a painting. This Princeton institution has legions of fans (me including) for its world-famous gelato (critics say it is as good or better than the famous Berthillion gelato in Paris) made with ingredients sourced from local farmers. The flavors change to reflect the availability of local ingredients and the inventiveness of the owners (bourbon with caramel and sea salt anyone?) A trip to Bent Spoon on Palmer Square will also turn up amazing cupcakes, home made cookies and more.
For more info, check out the following review from Serious NY Eats:
Opened in May of 2004 by Gabrielle Carbone and Matt Errico, The Bent Spoon is less an ice cream shop than a lab of ingredient wizardry. Sure, they have a few standard house flavors—no, not chocolate chip and strawberry; more like chocolate habanero and cardamom ginger.
But "seasonality" doesn't quite capture the philosophy behind the rest of their rotating offerings. It's not "Where can I get the best ingredients for this ice cream?" Rather, "This is what I want to be eating right now. Let's make an ice cream out of it!" That explains the sweet potato ice cream and the Triumph Brewery stout, the crème fraîche ice cream and the heirloom tomato sorbet. Olive oil. Bourbon with caramel and sea salt. Earl grey. Red cabbage. And, literally, hundreds more.
The Spoon works closely with surrounding farmers and dairies, milking the most out of their New Jersey location. Princeton may be a straight shot down the Northeast Corridor from New York, but wander half a mile outside the town proper and the farms pop up around every bend.
"We choose to support local farmers, producers, and purveyors," reads Carbone's whimsical handwriting. "You are really tasting and experiencing the essence of this region."
And local ingredients turn up everywhere, from the milkshakes to the baked goods. The Bent Spoon's cookies are reliably fantastic: smooth, just-crumbly peanut butter cookies; super-buttery chocolate chunk; pliant, spicy molasses; hearty, sugar-topped oatmeal raisin; and chewy, musky ginger cookies. They taste like the best sort of homemade cookies—taste carefully, and you can still sense the butter and sugar they started as.
Cupcakes come both big and tiny. The cake itself is moist and mild, with a bit of a bite in the crumb, intensely rich buttercream frosting on top.
But no matter how cold the New Jersey winter may get, no matter whether you've already ordered a cookie and a silky, European-style hot chocolate, it's impossible to resist the ice cream. On my most recent visit, that meant earthy New Jersey pumpkin mascarpone with cacao nibs, New Jersey honey, peanut butter, and cranberry cider and pear prosecco sorbets. Each one was phenomenal. The latter sorbet had the gritty, hefty mouthfeel of a real pear; the honey had a raw, floral taste that made one wonder where the bees had been landing. I found a tiny bit of cranberry stem in the former, but I didn't mind. Just an extra dimension.
These are the kinds of flavors so powerful that they go beyond mere taste—conjuring up memories, rather than just sensation. "This tastes like Peanut Butter Ripple at this one, tiny ice cream place on the Jersey shore," mused my dining companion, as we worked our way through the flavors. "This tastes like stealing my neighbor's pears in September." "This tastes like Thanksgiving." And with the lingering warmth of all those pumpkin pie spices, with the bite of cranberry and sweetness of apple, it truly did.
It was a sharply cold October night when we sat outside, shivering over our ice cream, one bite at a time. But across the street, back at the Bent Spoon, there was a line out the door. Even into the winter months, they draw a crowd, students and families crunching in from the snow for their frozen desserts. It's hard to make sense of. Well, until you've gotten a taste.
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Brothers
Moon
7 W Broad Street
Hopewell, NJ 08525
609-333-1330
www.BrothersMoon.com
Chef Will Mooney is the co-owner and Executive Chef of
The Brothers Moon. He has an extensive background in fine food. A Culinary
Institute of America – CIA graduate, he has worked at The Hotel Pierre
(NYC), Forsgate Country Club, The Frog and the Peach, Stage Left, Patina
(Los Angeles), the Peacock Inn, The Stockton Inn, Wild Oats and Bon Appetit.
Brothers Moon is an 80-seat full-service restaurant featuring a seasonally
changing menu as well as daily specials. On the other side of the same
building is take out cases filled with the freshest salads, cheese, specialty
meats, olives and breads as well as special goodies from their ovens. Health
conscious and vegetarian foods are always available.
Brothers Moon has won rave reviews from papers, critics, the Zagat Report
and diners. One review sums it up: Brothers Moon glows with glorious cuisine.
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Cherry Grove Farm (cheeses platters)
3200 Lawrenceville Road (Rte. 206)
Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648
(609) 219-0053
www.cherrygrovefarm.com
Cherry Grove Farm is a self-sustaining, diversified farm that strives to produce quality cheese while respecting our animals and the environment. This ultimately benefits our customers by offering them healthier, locally produced food made without “factory farming” environmental impact.
230 acres of their 400 acre farm is certified organic pasture. This is where their herd of Jersey Dairy Cattle enjoy a lush variety of grasses. They practice rotational grass grazing giving the cows a constant supply of fresh grass. The cows come inside twice a day to be milked but otherwise spend all their time outside at pasture.
Raw milk from grass-fed cows gives their Cheese Maker and General Manager Kelly Harding a fantastic starting material for his craft. The cows mow the grass and fertilize it, too! This saves fuel and eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers. Kelly produces a wide variety of cheeses ranging from fresh cheese like our Buttercup Brie to an 8 month aged Asiago.
Cheese is made Artisanally in small batches allowing Kelly to maintain high standards of quality. All the whey from their cheese facility sustains a population of Certified Berkshire Pigs. Whey is full of protein and makes great pork! Their pigs roam free in the woods in the center of our property and they use no growth hormones, antibiotics or steroids.
All of their pork products have no nitrates or preservatives, even the smoked meats like bacon and ham. They have 1,000 Free Range Chickens for eggs who also enjoy free run of certified organic pasture. They grass feed Lambs and Hereford Cows for meat supplying their farm store with a nice variety of products.
All the heat and hot water for the store, the cheese facility and even Kelly’s house is generated by a wood fired heat exchanger. They allow local tree surgeons to dump wood on the property that they would normally pay to landfill and use it to fire the furnace saving us and the tree surgeons money.
They strive to move towards self sustaining practices like this in everything they do.
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High
Street Grill
64 High Street
Mt. Holly, NJ 08060
609-265-9199
www.HighStreetGrill.net
Our goal is to achieve and maintain the standards that
have always been important to us. Food quality, ambiance, efficient service
and creative wine offerings are our top priorities.
The High Street Grill is a friendly place where the locals can meet and
feel at home, where strains of blues and jazz fill the bar, where fine
dining aficionados will want to frequent, and everyone will enjoy a meal
at a fair price.
The restaurant has received high marks from the Artful
Diner of nj.com, the Trenton Times, diners, as well as the following review
from the Ed Hitzel's Restaurant Newsletter:
“The moment I walked through the door and entered into the lower-level dining
room/bar area, I suspected that something magnificent was about to happen. And
it did. The High Street Grill in Mount Holly is aptly named not only with regards
to its address but because the meals turned-out in this 150 year old establishment
renders an absolute and intoxicating high. Chef/ Owner John McDevitt performs
what can only be described as masterful feats when it comes to presentation,
creative pairings of ingredients, and in ultimately palate pleasing dishes.”
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Matt’s Red Rooster Grill
22 Bloomfield Avenue (just off Main Street)
Flemington, NJ 08822
908-788-7050
www.matts-red-rooster-grill.eggzack.com
Matt’s Red Rooster Grill is a contemporary American bistro recently selected by Open Table as a “Best Overall” top ten restaurant, ranking it with New York’s most notable eateries. Voted on by over 2 million diners across the United States, this acclaim adds to a spreading wildfire of recognition for local hero Matt McPherson’s food philosophy and culinary skill.
Chef and owner, McPherson has stayed true to his local roots integrating the freshest locally grown and harvested ingredients into his unique dishes. He pays homage to a wood fired grill that “brings out the best flavors” of his dry aged Steak, 3 day Baby Back Ribs, Cedar Plank Roasted Salmon, Griggstown Marinated Chicken, and famous wood fired Romaine Heart.
The restored Victorian home provides a comfortable and elegant atmosphere. Tables downstairs feed off the warmth and energy of the bustling open kitchen. For seats close to the action, request the chef’s table where you can watch Matt and his team from a perch overlooking the grill. Upstairs is away from the bustle of the grill, while the porch provides relaxed and refreshing outdoor dining.
As Matt’s creations pamper your taste buds, the award winning staff indulges you with “rock star” service that is the perfect remedy for a long day or week.
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Tre
Piani
Princeton Forrestal Village
120 Rockingham Row
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-452-1515
www.TrePiani.com
Tre Piani Restaurant has been in business since 1998 in The Princeton
Forrestal Village. The restaurant opened to acclaimed reviews under the direction
of Chef Jim Weaver, a New Jersey native. He has trained in Italy and the Caribbean
and led some of the top restaurants in New Jersey. Among the awards that he has
won are; Chef of the Year for 2002 from Share our Strength, 5 Star Diamond Award
from the Academy of Hospitality Sciences, Dirona-Distinguished Restaurants of
North America and stellar reviews from many newspapers, food critics, television
and radio hosts in New Jersey and New York. Jim also serves on the board of directors
for The New Jersey Restaurant Association, is the Restaurant Liaison for the
Governors Counsel on Tourism, is a director for The Hunterdon-Princeton Chaine
des Rotisseurs and is President of Slow Food Central New Jersey.
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