The Café at Rosemont

With fresh organic food and old-fashioned charm in a country setting, this former general store in Rosemont is like a character in a play you come to know and love.

By: Antoinette Buckley

   NESTLED amid the winding country roads of Hunterdon County sits the Café at Rosemont. Creaky wooden steps up the front porch befit the quaint-yet-functional general-store setting found within. In fact, the 1865 building was originally a general store and the dwelling of its owner.
   Today, the owner of the Café, Lola Wycoff, still lives adjacent to the restaurant in the part of the house that has become apartments. Her restaurant was originally located in Lambertville. Several years ago she moved the Cafe to Rosemont and adopted the general-store theme in honor of the house’s history. Her loyal customers followed, and she picked up some new ones along the way. The Café is a local favorite and somewhat of an artists’ hangout, attracting a diverse and progressive clientele.
   The walls are lined with green shelving filled with mostly organic products from hand lotion to jam, serving more as a visual display than profit maker. Pottery and artwork by local artists are also among the inventory.
   The most endearing area of the dining space is in the back, where the kitchen stores its cookbooks, old-fashioned glass mixing bowls and an array of well-loved casserole dishes and bakeware. We were seated at a back table, internally known as "the library," where a cookbook was casually left on the table. During our visit, a staff member came out of the kitchen and politely excused herself while she reached around us to retrieve their trusty old mixing bowl.
   A menu that flaunts only the freshest ingredients nurtures the Café’s wholesome image. The main menu is compact and changes seasonally, leaving plenty of room to make use of seasonal produce. It is a pleasure to be faced with simple-yet-innovative preparations that span the nations.
   Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights sport a traditional à la carte dinner menu. Entrées range between $16 and $22, and appetizers between $3.75 and $8.50. On Thursdays, pasta dishes seem to take precedence and are offered in two sizes: small for about $9 and large for about $16. Wednesday is international night, featuring food from a different country every week. Most recently, the restaurant has featured Mexico, Switzerland and Indonesia. Sunday is bargain night, offering something of a prix fix menu that groups appetizers and entrées together for a combined price of $12, $15 or $18.

		Creaky wooden steps up the front porch (left) of the Café at Rosemont befit the quaint- yet-functional general-store setting found within. The walls are lined with green shelving filled with mostly organic products (below). Pottery and artwork by local artists are among the inventory.
Staff photos by Frank Wojciechowski

   Lola Wycoff shares the cooking with three other chefs. The Sunday evening we visited, Chef Say Pukovitch was on duty. Her menu was laden with local late- summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and corn. Her cooking style showed off food that was unencumbered by salt and complicated flavors.
   Panzanella, a tomato and bread salad similar to the one my grandmother used to make, called out my name. Cubes of Italian bread and sweet red tomatoes were tossed with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and basil. A white square plate was the perfect backdrop for a dish that couldn’t be simpler and yet, so delicious.
   Presentations are no fuss. A square serving of corn custard was cut out of a baking dish and presented on the plate alongside a single slice of tomato. That was all the aesthetics needed. The light and luscious corn custard was enough to impress all on its own. Kernels of fresh and slightly crunchy corn were baked into a smooth and airy whip of a custard that had just enough body.
   The appetizers set up our palettes for fresh and vibrant flavors. Against that, the pasta with tuna puttanesca was jarring with its thick tomato sauce studded with capers, small chunks of tuna and green olives abundantly ladled over bow-tie pasta. The dish was sluggish and overshadowed by more heat than I find comfortable in a dish like this.
   The grilled duck with brandied peach sauce looked compartmentalized on the plate. A stilted arrangement of duck, rice, crisp green beans and fruit compote each staked their own territory. As each yielded to the other, however, the dish began to come alive. The charred skin of the duck left me on the fence. I couldn’t decide if it was a distraction or an interesting contrast to the flavorful meat within. The silky, sweet compote that accompanied was bursting with fresh peaches, raspberries and white raisins. It was the perfect link between the meat and rice.
   Homemade desserts ($6) are displayed in a deli case toward the front of the restaurant. A quick look after dinner reveals one of the restaurant’s strengths. Desserts are all made on the premises. Even though butterscotch pudding seemed most fitting for this place and maintains quite a following here, I couldn’t resist a piece of the lemon cheesecake. This cheesecake got right down to business, bypassing the extra-creamy element and keeping up its momentum with an undertone of lemon. The double chocolate shortbread wavered between a cookie and a cake, creating an unsettling texture that could be overlooked due to a rich chocolate sauce baked into the center.
   Like a character you come to know and love in a good play, the Café at Rosemont begins to develop itself in one visit. A gorgeous country setting, a little removed from any high-activity town, is your introduction to a neighborhood restaurant where the décor is a hodgepodge of well-loved stuff. Rustic wooden tables are accompanied by mismatched chairs. Decorative salt and pepper shakers are never with their proper mate. And the service is cordial, but slow; fitting for the honest, interesting and fresh food that comes out of the kitchen.
For directions to The Café at Rosemont, click here.