Koeniger hasn't yet hit his 100-day mark, but already he's changing the paradigm in Princeton.
It's easy to overwhelm sea scallops, Chef Crawford Koeniger accedes that. Just add butter, in fact, and the intrinsic sweetness of the fresh scallop has been muddled.
At Koeniger's Agricola, the sea scallops ($29) arrive amid a selection of dynamic summer vegetables. You're thinking it's too much.
But Koeniger knows a few things about not overwhelming scallops.
The broth for this dish begins with a fish stock, fortified with aromatics -- lemon verbena, ginger. He adds summer vegetables, a basil pistou. And golden enoki mushrooms from Shibumi Farm, which offer some musky umami, but which are light mushrooms, more tropical tasting. It's still summer, no one wants a weighed-down stock, no one wants to eat dinner and then curl into a blanket. Those foods are foods for when it gets colder.
Agricola, which opened to great fanfare in 2013, has a new chef. (The restaurant is a renovation and repurposing of the famous and historic space that was Lahiere's, a longtime fine-dining spot in downtown Princeton.) The fresh energy remains. The Agricola philosophy remains, and most certainly, the direct relationship to the farm remains. Even the flatbreads remain on the menu.
But the food is quite different. Previously, Agricola, before, with its farm-to-table offerings, felt pristine and pious. Koeniger's Agricola feels seductive and alluring. In fact, Koeniger's flatbread is with soppressata, comte cheese and baby arugula, and it just melts on the tongue, sweet and warm like brandy.
Koeniger came to Agricola via Eno Terra in Kingston, a restaurant with a reputation for farm-fresh ingredients, but which also knew how to take those ingredients and coax even more flavor from them. It's one thing to own a race car, it's quite another to know how to drive it like a pro. Koeniger is a pro.
Tomatoes with buratta ($13) are a perfect counterbalance of tang and summer sweetness, what you dream of in February. And not long for the menu. "As soon as the tomatoes are done, it's going to leave."
Duck sausage ($15) is outstanding, remarkably light and with a nearly cloudlike texture. It's made in house from duck legs, gently flavored, with a balance of spices, a riff off Chinese five spice. Then it's rocked with a dynamic plum mustarda.
A fat piece of New Jersey tilefish ($26) is extraordinary, sweet and meaty, made even more unctuous by a smoky tomato jam. This is how Koeniger seduces. Alongside is a giant piece of fennel, such a playful choice, the fennel looking more like a sea creature than the sea creature. The fennel is prepared with some honey and thyme, softened slightly in a sous vide bath, then seared. Fennel bulbs are tricky, and the tomato jam takes four or five generations of steps.
Lancaster chicken ($24) may be the most delicate chicken you've had. The meat is moist, milky, the skin crisp. Another winner.
Desserts disappointed. The chocolate mousse ($9) the peach rum cake ($9) and the pound cake ($9) each seemed to be trying too hard, and were not so much a celebration of seasonal ingredients as a complication.
The abrupt departure of the previous chef, Josh Thomsen, surprised the industry, coming at the same time as the restaurant released a cookbook collection of signature recipes. Koeniger says simply that Thomsen was offered an attractive position in Florida.
Koeniger will tell you his work as a chef is a labor of love. But he'll also remind you that love is a word too vague and all-encompassing to describe what he means. That as a chef, he's seeking that sign of delight, that involuntary tell.
Koeniger will also insist that his staff deserves credit, the farmer Steve Tomlinson, the managers, Chris Ilias, Daniel Brunina, Fito Belteton and Mitresh Saraiya. A chef is only as good as his team.
Koeniger hasn't yet hit his 100-day mark, but already he's changing the paradigm in Princeton.
IF YOU GO
Agricola
11 Witherspoon St.,
Princeton
(609) 921-2798