Agricola, Princeton, NJ: A Restaurant Review
Agricola is a pace setting, industrial, chic style restaurant serving a well executed, healthy menu
Agricola: Restaurant Highlights
Fare: New American
Price: Expensive
Food Quality: Excellent, serves a well executed, and artfully presented menu using sustainable farrms and purveyors that provide antibiotic-free, hormone free ingredients
Service: The wait staff is attentive, friendly, with a good knowledge of the menu and drink selections.
Ambiance: Attractive, trendy, industrial chic style, setting
Overall Rating: 3 Stars - one of the best restaurants in Central Jersey
Note: Four star Rating System from 1/2 Star = poor to Four stars = Best in Class
Value: Good
Noise Level: Moderate -High
Dress: Casual
Recommended For: Diners who enjoy excellent fresh, farm to table food with an option for communal dining, in a rustic trendy setting.
Not Recommended For: Diners who prefer more traditional dining and a less chic ambiance.
Recommended dishes: When available,
Braised Lamb Shank with white corn grits, spinach, apricot red pepper relish, harissa cacciatore ragouti; The Grilled Faroe Island Salmon with LoRé cavatelli, baby carrots, tender peas, spinach & lemon dill beurre blanc; and the Larson Farm Prime Short Rib fresh corn polenta, haricot vert, cherry tomatoes, red wine demi, salsa
Liquor: Full service vibrant bar with a good selection of wines.
Restaurant Review
Agricola is one of the best Central Jersey restaurants. It sets the pace as a trendy, industrial chic style restaurant serving healthy food using fresh farm to table local ingredients sourced from Certified organic farms.
Agricola is owned and operated by Jim Nawn with the kitchen run by Executive Chef Alex Spitale. Chef Spitale received his formal culinary training at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and prior to becoming the Executive at Agricola served as chef de cuisine at the famed Bernards Inn; and the Cargot Brasserie in Princeton.
Chef Alex is deeply committed to working with local farmers in sourcing fresh, farm-to-table ingredients . He oversees the kitchen that serves a well executed, artfully presented , seasonal menu.
The seasonal ingredients are locally sourced from sustainable farms and purveyors that provide antibiotic-free, hormone free ingredients
The seasonal menu is printed with a description of what produce to expect from the farm during each season. Food is fresh with the freezer only used for storing ice cream.
The restaurant's 200 seats are comfortably spaced apart in six areas with an attractive, casual, farmhouse, chic ambiance. The areas include the bar, the parlor, the kitchen, the family room,the root cellar, and the the courtyard.
The "kitchen" area is a room next to the kitchen with a view of the cooks in action. The kitchen is also viewable from the sidewalk though a window with passersby looking in at the cooks at work.
The dining areas are rustic, trendy, with exposed brick walls, rough pickled beams, tile floors, wood ceilings, wooden benches, industrial lighting, and pegs on the wall for hanging jackets
The vibrant bar is set with a background of ceiling high glass shelves and a casual dining area with large windows that look out onto Witherspoon St.
There is communal table dining, and seating for 16 at the bar and 22 more at the high tables, It tends to get noisy and crowded with people standing and waiting for their table in the dining room to become available. For quiet conversation, ask to be seated in the root cellar or the parlor room
Some of the tables have quaint backless, metal tractor seats that can be uncomfortable for seating, especially during a long dinner. For more comfortable dining, ask to be seated in the family room
During the warmer months there is outdoor dining in the small courtyard.
The dining patrons tend to be mostly 25 +.
Parking is available on the street and in nearby municipal lots.
(updated November 2023)
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