This casual Lawrenceville café spews personality while catering to the town’s ‘7,000 food critics.’
By: Antoinette Buckley
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Fedora Café |
In recent years Lawrenceville has become a contender in towns that have an attractive restaurant scene. Snuggled amid upper echelon places like Acacia, Chambers Walk, the Lawrenceville Inn and Vidalia, you’ll find Fedora Café walking to the beat of a different drummer.
The entrée price range maxes out at $14.99. It has become the grab-a-quick-bite place, the family’s comfort zone, the college student’s reprieve and the teen hangout. Fedora has been filling a void in town for seven years. The place pumps with energy throughout the day and night.
Fedora is owned and operated by sister/brother team Nicole and Chris Curtis. Judging by the way things run, both are committed to this restaurant and the community. Fedora has always maintained a hard-working, youthful staff. The prerequisite for getting the job must be a vivacious personality. The staff’s dress code consists of relaxed jeans and Fedora T-shirts that have flippant phrases on the back: "Have it your way… someplace else" or "Lawrenceville, N.J., Population: 7,000 food critics." These "collector’s items" are sold for about $12 each.
Plush chairs and sofa seating augment intimately spaced tables with accompanying metal chairs. The décor is celestial meets a cup of joe. Stars and moons are scattered against a midnight blue backdrop while wall sconces and light fixtures are shaped like oversized coffee mugs complete with a stationary stirring spoon. Within that framework, Fedora offers a full lunch menu that you order at the counter and bring to a table of your choice.
At 5 p.m. Fedora turns into a full service restaurant with a dinner menu selections are cooked in the exposed kitchen. On Sundays it becomes a breakfast place. On Wednesday evenings it’s a spot to hear live music performed by local artists. Fedora can even be an ice cream shop if you wish milk shakes and ice cream sundaes are among the offerings. And kids’ eyes will widen as they spot fun sticks of chocolate-covered marshmallows in the dessert case, to be eaten only after the PBJ without crust ($2.99). An extensive dessert repertoire accompanies a long list of souped-up coffee drinks and chai tea, an ensemble that is perhaps the backbone of the restaurant.
The food is not four-star material; it has strengths and weaknesses. The dinner menu (occasionally a better read than it is a bite) is arranged with a sense of humor, including fun little nuggets that help to characterize the selection. Hearty bowls of soup, salads and warm panini sandwiches from the lunch menu are highlights. Having lunch items available during dinner hours allows for an optimal range of choices.
The Mexican dip sampler ($8.99) from the dinner menu comes with guacamole, a roasted tomato and cilantro salsa that needs more chunk, and a black bean salsa that becomes the star of the trio by default. Almost anything wrapped in puff pastry is a sure thing. Such is true of the asparagus bundles ($8.99). They are a shoo-in, swaddled in puff pastry, seasoned with Asiago cheese and served with honey mustard dressing presented on a zebra-striped plate.
Also from the dinner menu, fish and chips ($9.99) are "finger licking good." It’s a top notch, bare bones version done with a crispy coating around hefty pieces of cod, complete with hearty steak fries, coleslaw, malt vinegar and Fedora’s signature fried pickle. Ms. Lydia Part 7 ($10.99), inspired by a loyal customer named Lydia, is a bit more of an invention. Fedora’s homemade pizza shell is spread thick (thin would be better) with a creamy herb dressing that is too garlicky and topped with a pile of bright greens, flavorful chicken, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers and a side of garlic pesto dressing. I love the whimsical concept.
The pasta section of the menu allows you to dream up your own dish for an all-you-can-eat price that starts at $10.99. Portions are big across the board, so I can’t imagine there are too many requests for a pasta refill. I chose penne pasta with chicken, spinach and artichokes in a blush sauce (marinara with cream). The artichokes were the jewels of the dish, adding spark to a humdrum sauce that incorporated a few too many chunks of red onion. Other glitches included tiny, inconsequential chicken pieces and spinach that seemed thrown in as an afterthought. Sometimes going simple feels just right. I melt with one bite of warm panini sandwich No. 19 ($6.99) melding three ingredients brie, sun-dried tomatoes and spinach.
Desserts are works of art and tantalize the eyes both behind the glass of the dessert case and dressed up on your plate. The Ooey Gooey ($4.50) houses a warm chocolate center inside a deep chocolate cake, punctuated with a chocolate wafer, chocolate sauce and a vital scoop of vanilla ice cream served as an option. The ice cream breaks up the intensity of the chocolate and adds more fluidity to the plate. Banana cheesecake wrap ($5.50) is a fried tortilla wrapped around cheesecake filling. It is accompanied by chocolate and caramel sauces as well as vanilla ice cream. The banana flavor is faint, but that didn’t prevent me from enjoying every bite. The tortilla is a tasty, toothsome touch.
As if Fedora doesn’t have enough going on, all desserts are made in-house. What more could anyone ask of such a place? The thing I admire most about Fedora is the confidence and personality it spews. It is true to itself and accommodating to customers. Fedora offers something valuable to locals who don’t always want to go upscale. Fedora is a neighborhood place that fits a need. A packed house, bustling with activity all day long, is the best measure of success.