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Elements
Elements occupies the upstairs floor of a converted nineteenth-century townhouse at 66 Witherspoon Street in downtown Princeton, three blocks north of the Nassau Hall arch and directly opposite the Princeton Public Library. Chef-owner Scott Anderson — a multi-time James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic and a quietly influential figure in the New Jersey fine-dining scene — opened the restaurant in 2008 and moved it to its current upstairs space in 2015. The dining room seats forty across two linked rooms with hardwood floors, pale walls, a partially open kitchen, and a chef's counter that takes six guests directly above the pass. The downstairs floor of the same building houses Mistral, Anderson's sister small-plates concept.
The Perch at the Peacock Inn
The Perch occupies the principal dining room of the Peacock Inn — a restored 1775 Georgian-Victorian building at 20 Bayard Lane, five blocks west of Princeton's Nassau Hall arch and directly across from the historic Marquand Park. The Peacock Inn is the only boutique hotel in central Princeton itself, with sixteen guest rooms above the dining floor; the Perch is its destination restaurant, opened in 2012 and led since by chef Manuel Perez, a Le Bernardin alum who trained for several years under Eric Ripert in Manhattan before moving south to Princeton. The dining room seats about sixty across the main salon, a smaller library room that takes private parties, and a covered side terrace that opens for the New Jersey shoulder seasons. The interior — restored Victorian woodwork, low-hanging chandeliers, peacock-print wallpaper, and a working hearth in the main room — is the most photogenic dining setting in town.
Mistral
Mistral occupies the downstairs floor of 66 Witherspoon Street in Princeton — directly beneath Elements, in the same converted townhouse, opened in 2013 by Scott Anderson and his long-time business partner Joe Mooney as the more flexible counterpart to the upstairs tasting room. The dining room runs about seventy covers across a main floor with hardwood, exposed-brick walls, a long zinc-top bar at the front taking walk-in dining, and a smaller back room that handles private parties of up to fourteen. The lighting is warm-amber, the music is at a deliberate background level that protects conversation, and the kitchen is partially open along the back wall with a four-seat counter directly above the pass.
Agricola Eatery
Agricola Eatery has occupied 11 Witherspoon Street in downtown Princeton since 2013 — a corner storefront two blocks north of Nassau Hall, directly opposite the Princeton Library. The name is Latin for farmer and the project's working premise is genuinely farm-to-table: the restaurant is supplied year-round by Great Road Farm in nearby Skillman, an organic eighty-acre property owned and operated by the same hospitality group as Agricola itself, alongside a roster of other central-New-Jersey farms that the menu credits by name. The dining room runs about a hundred and forty covers across the main floor (hardwood, exposed brick, an open wood-fired oven at the back, generously spaced four-tops); a long communal table down the centre of the room that takes walk-in dining for up to sixteen; a smaller back room that handles private parties; and a sidewalk terrace that opens from April through October.
Witherspoon Grill
Witherspoon Grill occupies a freestanding building at 57 Witherspoon Street in downtown Princeton — the corner of Witherspoon and Paul Robeson Place, directly across from the Princeton Public Library and three blocks north of Nassau Hall. The room opened in 2007 as the central-New-Jersey flagship of the Stephen Distler hospitality group, and has been the senior Princeton steakhouse for nearly two decades. The dining room runs about a hundred and sixty covers across the main floor (hardwood, dark-wood banquettes, framed black-and-white Princeton historic photography, a wood-fired hearth set into the back wall); a long mahogany bar at the front taking walk-in dining; a private dining room called the Library that takes parties of up to thirty; and a sidewalk terrace that opens for the warmer months.