Ninety Acres in Somerset County, NJ - thoughts?

This placed turned up when I was looking into potential places to eat. Sounds good, but would love a first hand review! (I searched the site and only found one brief reference to the place.)

I’ve never been and I don’t know anyone who has. There are over 300 reviews on open table.

Paul - You know at least 4 people who have been there, you just don’t know they have been there.

Chris - I went about a month ago and was pretty impressed. Branson’s influence is obvious from the magnitude and detail put into the facilities. Big bucks, nice design, gets an A+ for setting.

I went by myself (should have invited Paul), so I sat at the bar and ate dinner. Drank by the glass, started with a decent grower Champagne, moved on to an '04 Hermitage Blanc, followed with an '07 Riesling and then back to Champagne. The bottle list is extensive, but it was nice to see a lot of by the glass offerings and from good vintages too. I had been eating a lot of red meat recently so decided to go all fish/seafood. Started with really nice oysters, decent but not the best hamachi next and finished with a superb piece of wild king salmon. Everything was well plated, good-sized portions and tasty. I liked Felton’s cooking a lot when he was at Pluckemin Inn, and I liked it even better here. Probably not as fancy as it was at PI, but I think the emphasis here is more fresh and simple. Plus it is a much bigger place so keeping it simple works better in this environment. Would not consider it a romantic place (although the cougars were roaming the bar area), as it is very lively with lots of big parties. I saw very few 2 tops, but I would gladly go back with just my wife.

Regards,

Jon

Jon, I should have guessed some of you guys out in that area had been. It was not on my radar as I mostly avoid restaurants in NJ that don’t let me bring my own.

Paul,

I agree, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a good list of by the glass wines. If I can’t bring my own, I will drink by the glass if the food is good enough to warrant so and it was.

Regards,

Jon

Thanks for the report, Jon.

Didn’t feel like bumping so am editing to add, I just read that Richard Branson owns the property.

We went last night with a table of four and went with the Bring Me Food menu option with wine pairing. Seven courses, starting with cured cucumbers, to house made cured ham, poached egg with wild mushrooms, to a red snapper, then venison, cheese course, and then desert. Overall service was excellent as was the quality of the food/presentation. Wine list prices looked to be 3x/4x which made the wine pairing at a $50 supplement worth it. The pours for our table were generous, with almost a full bottle poured each time, six different pours. Even with a 5:30 seating we did not finish till 8:45, place was crowded early and when we left.

Ninety Acres is a beautiful place and we live close by so we’ve tried it a number of times but we tend to prefer the Pluckemin Inn for a whole host of reasons. Last year, with another couple, we went to a wine tasting at Ninety Acres and we knew something was amiss when there weren’t any wine glasses on the table when we sat down for dinner! Needless to say it went downhill from there.