With tempting flavors from around the globe, home-like ambience and service so personal, it’s no wonder customers return again and again.
By: Faith Bahadurian
I’m convinced that Chambers Walk Café owners Mario and
Laura Mangone have somehow peered inside my mind to compose their menus, which
are full of my favorite foods and flavors, right down to the house-made desserts.
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Chambers Walk Cafe |
Now in business for 20 years, the Mangones, both Culinary Institute of America graduates, started off in Princeton and named their fledgling business after the tiny lane between Witherspoon Street and Palmer Square where it was situated. The little café was popular, but with increasing demands for catering, the owners moved to a larger facility in Trenton in 1990 to focus on that. In 2001, they relocated once again to Lawrenceville’s bustling Main Street, where the Mangones now have both a café and catering business.
The owners’ vision is apparent in every aspect of the café, the ambience and service so personal that it draws back devoted patrons again and again. The warm brick and sleek wood interior, divided into two rooms, feels like a home I could love, with simply framed artwork on the walls and excellent lighting from fixtures that I covet. Although it’s not practical in a restaurant, at home I would add an Oriental rug or two to the wood floor to soften the noise a bit when the place fills up.
The night of my visit, a friend and I were promptly seated when we arrived for our reservation. The wine we’d brought was properly handled, and a basket of bread and saucer of olive oil were set on the table. Little packets of butter were also quickly produced upon our request. There were two kinds of bread our server told us about, one a sourdough and the other more of a country loaf. While the former lacked sourdough flavor, the latter was ideal, a slightly chewy crust with an airy interior.
The menu at Chambers Walk is manageably small, with bold flavors from around the globe that beg to be tasted. There are a couple of soups of the day plus six or so appetizers and salads. There are eight entrées in addition to nightly specials, and five desserts. Pastas are offered in full and half portions, and there is also the option of the Bistro Basics menu, where pure comfort food, like mac-and-cheese and pulled pork, takes over at gentle prices.
New Jersey littleneck clams ($11) were sweet and fresh, although their minted-tomato broth was more of a sauce that somewhat overwhelmed the mint flavor, but not the lusty smoked bacon that this dish also contained. Caramelized mission fig and Asiago tart ($10) was delicious, served with a lightly dressed tangle of arugula selvetica, the variety that looks more saw-toothed than lobed.
We shared a Caesar salad ($8) with anchovy butter focaccia croutons. Very fresh romaine lettuce and lemony house-made dressing were good, although I would have enjoyed a touch more of that anchovy flavor, which is nowadays played down in most Caesar salads.
We enjoyed both our entrées. Filet of beef ($29) over sweet potato purée was topped with sweet-sour cipollini onions and, in place of the usual spinach, fat juicy asparagus. The very generous portion of beef was tender and cooked rare just as ordered.
Skate wing, another New Jersey fish, was prepared in classic piccata style, slightly dressed up, in a very attractive presentation. Two tender pieces of skate were sautéed with stem-on caper berries, artichokes, pine nuts and Pinot Grigio. The piquant buttery sauce was delicious, and for my friend, a promising introduction to a fish she’d never tried.
This is one of the few restaurants where the desserts ($7) are truly tempting to me, each one crafted with care. I love chocolate and cherries, so delicious Morello cherry and flourless chocolate cake semifreddo (half frozen) was a no-brainer. I also love and seldom find anymore baked Alaska, so the Chambers Walk version with its base of spice cake and caramel gelato was another must-have, although my friend thought the flavor of the spice cake a bit strong for the delicacy of the other ingredients.
The service, exemplary up to this point, lagged as the restaurant filled to nearly overflowing. But our waitress was so apologetic about a delay in getting dessert that she refused to charge us for them. We lingered over good decaf coffee and wondered how we’d missed visiting this place before.
There were many more dishes I would have liked to try on a return visit. The fall menu includes all kinds of new temptations. Chianti gnocchi with wild mushrooms, double-boned pork chop, veal short ribs, Griggstown Farm chicken cacciatore, pistachio cake and apple-cardamom bread pudding… oh my!