By Pat Tanner
Sammy, we hardly knew ye. In early July the Peacock Inn’s owner, Barry Sussman, announced that Sam Byrne, an Irish chef who has worked in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe and New York City, would take over the executive chef position at the inn’s fine-dining restaurant. That post had been held by Manuel Perez since 2010. Perez departed in June to work in Manhattan for star chef David Bouley.
But within a week of Sussman’s announcement that Byrne was to take over, the relationship was severed. At press time, Sussman had not named a successor.
Lillipies moving into Princeton Shopping Ctr.
For the first time since she founded her baking company in 2007, Jen Carson will have her own space in which to bake and sell the award-winning mini-pies and other full-size sweet and savory baked goods that locals seek out at several Princeton eateries and area farmers markets.
Carson has signed on to lease the 2,000-square foot space in the Princeton Shopping Center that last housed Incredible Me!, the children’s clothing boutique. “The goal always was to be a neighborhood bakery. The shopping center is perfect for that,” she says of what will be her first brick-and-mortar location.
Until now, Carson has rented space, including a convection oven, in a time-share catering kitchen at the Princeton North Shopping Center in Montgomery. Over the years, she has gained a following for her two-inch little pies (tagged by her then-young son as LiLLiPiEs) at area farmers markets (Princeton, West Windsor, Forrestal Village) and at Small World Coffee, Bon Appétit Fine Foods, Tina Cucina Catering, and Tico’s Eatery.
But this graduate of the International Culinary Center in New York City says after she went to bread school, she wanted to build a facility in Princeton in which to do long-fermented sourdough breads. She was also inspired by a visit to San Francisco’s famed Tartine Bakery.
Because sourdough starter uses ambient yeasts to ferment, hers will, she says, be “Princeton sourdough, not San Francisco sourdough.”
Over the years, Carson’s repertoire expanded not only to cakes, cookies, granola and granola bars, and donuts, but also brioche, focaccia, sourdough pretzels, and sourdough English muffins. In May, her pies were named among the top ten in the U.S. by Food Network.
No date is set for the opening of the new space, which will include a small- to medium-size retail shop and some table seating. She’ll also add sandwiches and drinks. Like Jammin’ Crepes, another locally owned business that gained a following at farmers markets and then opened its own eatery (on Nassau Street in late 2014), Jen Carson plans to maintain a presence at the farmers markets.
“I’d be sad to leave. We’ve made a lot of friends there — both the farmers and the wider community,” she says.
Jersey chain Turning Point Restaurant opens in Mercer Mall
Mercer Mall has welcomed several new casual chain restaurants into its mix in recent months, among them Bonefish Grill and Outback Steakhouse. But it was Turning Point that grabbed my attention, for two reasons: it serves only breakfast and lunch—closing each day at 3 p.m.—and it is an independent operation whose 11 restaurants, all with the same menu and interior décor, are located in New Jersey.
Pam & Kirk Ruoff of Monmouth Beach established the first Turning Point in Little Silver in 1998, with several more Shore locations following in quick succession. These days, outlets are as far-flung as Hoboken, Westfield, and Cherry Hill.
The entire menu is available all day, including breakfast’s pancakes, waffles, French toast, omelettes, and specialty egg dishes such as huevos rancheros and four kinds of eggs Benedict: classic, Big Easy, lobster, and Marsala. The owners pride themselves on the freshness of their ingredients and on having friendly, responsive servers. A recent breakfast excursion bore out these claims.
The lunch menu features soups, salads, and sandwiches (including the Seaside Jersey Club: turkey, bacon, tomato, Swiss on toasted multigrain), as well as a quinoa bowl and two quesadillas. The Mercer Mall restaurant has one-hundred seats at tables, low-back booths, and a coffee bar. These are spread among a warren of airy, light-filled rooms that feature a fieldstone fireplace, skylight, pale sky-blue walls, and masses of white wainscoting, thick crown molding, and columns. Artwork includes blown-up photos specific to Princeton, such as rowers on Lake Carnegie.
Pat Tanner blogs at dinewithpat.com. She is a long-time food writer and restaurant critic based in Princeton. Born and raised in Newark, she is one of seven children in a food-obsessed Italian-American family.
