When a sushi chef presides at a sweet
sixteen birthday celebration, you know you’ve entered
a new party era.
Forget the
rich and famous—today we create our own red carpets.
We bask in Marc Jacobs and fuss enormously over the color
of the favors. Our parties are lush, elaborate, and exceptionally
significant to us in this otherwise rough-and-tumble post-modern
world.
Joanne and Frank Cretella recognize those yearnings and have
retooled The Stone House in Warren to cater to our inner
celebrity. The Stone House is no more a simple banquet hall
with a restaurant than Aspen is a quaint ski village.
The Cretellas appreciate clean, nature-inspired design (they
live in the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed house in New
York City) and have created here an expansive California-lodge-like
structure. The walls are cliffstone, the entryway bluestone,
the fireplace copper. Wrought-iron gates, exposed beams,
and distressed steel add to the style. If New Jersey had
a celebrity hideaway, this would be it.
But $15 million for atmosphere isn’t everything. What
about the food? It’s billed as creative American, and
frankly, it’s more innovative than you’d expect
from a kitchen that must feed so many at once. Jerry Villa
is executive chef (Villa is a veteran of other Cretella projects—the
Liberty House in Jersey City and The Boathouse in Central
Park). General manager Yasir Chaudry—a sommelier—comes
from the Ryland Inn and pastry chef Lee Wong comes from Bernards
Inn and the Pluckemin Inn. It’s an impressive team.
For starters, you’ll see an edited list of specialty
cocktails that is much more refined than your typically saturated
recitation of martinis. How about a Manhattan at Midnight,
with Woodford Reserve bourbon, fresh pressed black cherries,
and bitters?
Stone House at Stirling Ridge is a showcase of nature-inspired
design.
Some of the signature dishes include baby iceb
erg lettuce
with proscuitto, blue cheese, and shallot crisps, bayberry-accented
tuna tartare, bass ceviche, grilled Berkshire pork chops,
and T-bone lamb chop with zucchini “spaghetti.” Desserts
are twists on favorites, such as the bananas foster wrap,
which comes in a spring roll, or the Yodel with white
chocolate mousse, raspberry sauce, and chocolate milkshake.
The best bet is the more low-key three-nut caramel tart.
Better than the food, though, is the wine that goes with
it. Chaudry has built a collection that impresses not for
its size (more than 4,000 bottles) but for its specificity
to the menu. Ask for recommendations. Chaudry’s food/wine
pairings are on point, and you’ll be glad you yielded
to his expertise.
The Stone House can occasionally feel overdone, not 100 percent
authentic. Warren is, after all, hardly a celebrity sanctuary.
But you’ll forgive it, just as you do the teenager
who trades her heels for flip-flops at party’s end.
Because when it’s all said and done, both of you have
felt a bit famous for the evening.
Experience the Pluckemin Inn
What you should know about Chef David C. Felton: He grows
a fig tree and an apple tree in his Hoboken yard. He tends
the Pluckemin Inn herb garden himself. He personally oversees
the produce grown at nearby Three Meadows Farms for the restaurant.
Felton doesn’t just believe in local, sustainable,
organic. He lives it.
Pluckemin Inn
pluckemininn.com
359 Route 202/206 South & Pluckemin Way, Bedminster
973-658-9292
What you should know about the Pluckemin Inn: Yes, it’s
a structural tribute to its Revolutionary-era history—the
original inn first built here was where the Washington Army
held safety meetings. But the dominant architectural centerpiece
is the restaurant’s three-story temperature-controlled
wine cellar, with 15,000 bottles. Some bottles were bought
in the 2004 estate sale of tobacco heiress Doris Duke. One
bottle—a 1934 pinot noir from Burgundy—goes for
$17,700.
What you should know about dinner at the Pluckemin: If dining
out is a mini-vacation, this will be a treasured excursion.
A restaurant succeeds with its beginnings and endings—customers
remember those moments most. At the Pluckemin, the amuse
bouche and the dessert were Kodak moments. Our dinner started
with a perfect piece of octopus. We’d never had squid
with texture this delightful and its taste was epiphanic—this
is why everyone else keeps trying.
Appetizers were equally impressive: the milk-braised rabbit
risotto ($15) served with crispy garlic, dinosaur kale, and
peppered goat cheese, was divine.
For dinner, it’s easy to recommend the herb-crusted
wild Alaskan salmon ($28), served with coriander broth and
maitake. This isn’t the bland salmon that’s ubiquitous
on restaurant menus; here the salmon had energy; it actually
tasted wild. The corn-fed Angus strip steak ($39) was honest
and robust, served with peanut potatoes and a merlot reduction.
(Appetizer portions are also available.)
You’ll be impressed by your dinner, but you’ll
talk about your dessert. The signature presentation, the
Pluckemin Inn must-have, is pastry chef Joseph Gabriel’s
chocolate timeline ($12), a three-dish homage to chocolate’s
beginning, past, and present. First is the soulful Aztec
hot chocolate, using chocolate imported from Guanaja Island and
lightly flavored with chili peppers. Second is the more sophisticated
sesame caramel tart, a French-influenced New World tribute
(the notes of sea salt in the caramel will awaken your taste
buds to the chocolate). Third are the flash-frozen buttons
of chocolate pudding, inspired by the Jell-O pudding pop,
skewered and covered in puffed rice. This is a trio of chocolate
as you’ve never had it, and one of the most popular
and most shared—or not shared—desserts on the
menu.
Service was friendly and polished; the staff also speaks
expertly about dinner preparations and ingredients. You sense
that these people enjoy their jobs. In all, The Pluckemin
Inn is uncompromising but not arrogant, earnest but not fussy.
How they manage that is no small miracle.
What seems to drive the success is the fact that Felton respects
the food, where it came from, and how it was grown. But he’s
not an elitist. “I don’t believe that fine-dining
food has to be served in a white tablecloth restaurant,” says
Felton. “You can still enjoy it in a pair of jeans.”
—
Teresa Politano
Mellow Music
Unconventional venues feature folk and classical sounds.
Coffee with conscience concerts
The Coffee with Conscience Concert Series is held monthly
at the First United Methodist Church of Westfield, and
showcases some of today’s up-and-coming folk performers.
Ticket prices range from $16 to $26 and a portion of
the proceeds are distributed (on a rotating basis) to
the following charities: The Eric Johnson House, Community
Foodbank of NJ, Keith Knost Special Needs Trust, Habitat
for Humanity, and HomeFirst.
.
“A lot of people are put off by the word ‘folk’ and
the fact the performances take place in a church, but if
you come once, you will fall in love with it,” says
series presenter Ahrre Maros, owner of Ahrre’s Coffee
Roastery in Westfield. “You’ll wonder why
these people aren’t famous!”
March will feature unique, jazzy performances from friends
Lipbone Redding and Kelly Flint. In April, Scott and Michelle
Dalziel, a harmonizing husband-and-wife duo will perform.
“My connection to the whole thing is a personal one.
I love music, and I like getting to know the musicians
and singer/songwriters,” Maros adds. “The
cool thing about coming to one of our concerts is that
you can go up after the show to buy CDs and ask questions,
and you will be talking to the performers themselves.”
Tickets are usually available at the door, but pre-ordering
is recommended (coffeewithconscience.org; 908-412-9105).
Rhapsody in Brew
Most young professionals will agree that their social life
starts to suffer once life becomes all about career and
family.
Luckily,
organizations like New Jersey Young Professionals are
teaming up with some of the state’s best cultural
and entertainment outlets to offer twenty- and thirty-somethings
a much-deserved opportunity to take a break from the board
room. The NJ Symphony’s Orchestra’s “Rhapsody
in Brew” event series offers the chance to mingle
and network during a pre-concert happy hour at the Harvest
Moon Brewery/Café in New Brunswick, and then enjoy
a performance by the orchestra at the State Theatre in
a premium seat for only $25. Those who present their “Rhapsody” ticket
at the brewery are invited to enjoy complimentary appetizers
and discount drinks.
“The inspiration was to get the younger crowd to
the symphony,” explains Geoff Anderson, marketing
manager at the NJSO. “There’s always a lot
of gray hair in the audience, and it’s scary to look
out and realize that there are no young people here!”
The upcoming April 10th “Rhapsody in Brew” will
feature Emanuel Ax on piano, and Asher Fisch as conductor.
The happy hour will begin at 6 pm, and the concert at 8
pm.
You must be 21 to 39 for the “Rhapsody” discount
tickets, but everyone is welcome (njsymphony.org/rhapsody;
800-255-3476).
— Jennifer L. Nelson
MUSIC MAKERS: Singer-songwriter and
violinist Valerie Vigoda from Grove Lily, top
left, and singer-songwriter Kevin So. Music
director, Neeme Järvi, right, conducting.
