Since it was launched in 2004, Latour, the flagship restaurant of the Crystal Springs Resort in Sussex County, has received minor facelifts. After service this Sunday, October 21, the top-floor space, with its floor-to-ceiling view of sunsets over the Kittatinny ridge, will shut down for a complete redesign. A reopening is anticipated in mid-December.
In the interim, executive chef Aishling Stevens and chef de cuisine Matt Laurich will present a series of dinners, Thursday through Sunday, in the baronial dining room of Latour’s award-winning wine cellar. Each week a four-course $115 meal (with choices in each course) will be paired with wines from a single winery. (See list below.)
For the cutting-edge quality of its food, its polished service and posh ambience, Latour has earned a place on NJM’s Top 25 list every year since 2008, including the expansion to a Top 30 this year. In July, Latour was named to Wine Enthusiast’s Restaurant Hall of Fame.
So why a complete redesign now?
The most pressing need was to provide Latour patrons with direct access to the restrooms rather than having to walk through an adjoining event space to reach them. But beyond that, “If you wait until you need to do it, then you do it under duress,” says Christopher Mulvihill, chief marketing officer of Crystal Springs and son of the resort’s founder, the late Gene Mulvihill. “It’s been a good year, we have a new executive chef and Latour is an evolution, and evolution is never complete.”
The project was conceived and directed by Robby Younes, the resort’s 38-year-old chief operating officer and director of wine. The 500-square-foot expansion of the existing space will allow for a dramatic entry through double glass doors, instead of into a dark corridor, when emerging from the elevator.
It also creates room for a narrow high-top table with 12 seats at which diners can, if they wish, enjoy a prelude to their meal, consisting of wine, cocktails, mocktails and exotic tidbits from around the world.
These include, according to Younes, snails and blue lobster from France, farmed Osetra Gueldenstaedtii caviar from Belgium, Nordic shrimp from Quebec, langoustines from New Zealand, cuttlefish and iberico ham from Spain, and octopus from Morocco.
For all the globalism of what’s being called the sommelier table, many of the materials of the new dining room are local. These include, according to Younes, wall panels of bark retrieved from trees felled by Hurricane Sandy; tables handmade by local craftsmen from local woods; and local stone tiles.
As Younes puts it, “We plan to bring the outside in.”
There are also not-so-local touches. Among these, he says, are 200 recessed ceiling lights; refurbished early 20th Century European wall sconces; custom-made chairs with caribou leather backing; and handmade carpet from Spain.
The new tables will be slightly larger than the existing ones “to allow more room for glassware and also for arms.”
The number of seats will increase from 36 to 42, not counting the 12 seats at the new sommelier table.
The design was created by the Manhattan firm Incorporated Architecture & Design, noted for its 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge Park, residential towers and design of museum galleries.
“I am always striving for perfection, but perfection is always beyond,” Younes says. “I want Latour to be great. But the day that Latour is truly great is the day I retire. And I’m not ready to retire.”
The Wine Cellar Dinners:
November 1-4: Husic Vineyards, Napa Valley (Frank and Julie Husic will attend on November 3)
November 8-11: Alba Vineyard in Milford
November 15-18: Far Niente Winery, Napa Valley
November 22-25: Château de Beaucastel, France’s Rhone Valley
November 29-December 2: Unionville Vineyards in Ringoes