By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
An ambitious new restaurant for Princeton?
It’s elementary. Or rather, it’s elements.
Construction is moving ahead at the corner of Leigh Avenue and Route 206 on the new building that will house elements, a high-end eatery that will showcase New American cuisine.
”We are looking to open mid- to late-September,” said Executive Chef Scott Anderson, speaking from the site.
The restaurant’s New American designation, “gives me license to cook whatever I want,” said Mr. Anderson, who was most recently the chef at the Ryland Inn in Whitehouse prior to its closing. He has also cooked at several Princeton and area restaurants, including Nova Terra and Mediterra, part of the TerraMomo group of restaurants, Les Copains and the Lawrenceville Inn.
”I’m very seafood oriented,” Mr. Anderson said, but beyond that he did not divulge his culinary plans for the new restaurant, beyond saying he planned to continue utilizing fresh, local ingredients as he has at other restaurants he has been affiliated with.
Mr. Anderson is self-taught as a chef. His epiphany about wanting to enter the kitchen professionally came when he was a college student. “I was basically cooking my way through college at Rutgers, and I realized that I’d rather go to work instead of going to class,” he said.
Mr. Anderson said Craig Shelton, chef-proprietor at the Ryland Inn, was probably one of his biggest influences. He also named Chicago-based chef Charlie Trotter.
A resident of Lawrence, Mr. Anderson was born in New Jersey, but “I grew up in Japan so a lot of my ideals are Japanese,” he said. He spent seven years in Japan as a youth when his father, who worked for IBM, was stationed there.
This background does not mean he intends to serve Japanese food, which he doesn’t, but translates itself into “the art of food,” the minimalist culinary aesthetics, and the strong work ethic associated with Japanese restaurants, he said. “It is mostly their minimalist approach to their food and their gardens, and everything they do,” in Japan that will influence him, and what he does at elements, Mr. Anderson said.
The restaurant is being designed by a Richmond, Va.-based architect and will showcase natural elements in keeping with its name, incorporating “a lot of stone, a lot of wood, glass, just the natural stuff,” according to Mr. Anderson.
”It is going to be quite minimal in terms of décor,” he said.
The restaurant will have the ability to seat 78 patrons for lunch and dinner. The owner and developer of elements is Stephen Distler, a former investment banker who is also founding chairman of The Bank of Princeton, the year-old community bank.
A block away from the elements construction is the site of the future headquarters of The Bank of Princeton, at Birch Avenue and Route 206, which is also being constructed at present and is scheduled to open in December. Mr. Distler owns both sites. He originally proposed to open a jazz club at the Birch Avenue site, the former home of Mike’s Tavern, but withdrew the proposal in the face of neighborhood opposition.
