La Mezzaluna — Restaurant in Princeton

My fiance and I are regulars at Mezzaluna, and it's easily our favorite place whenever we go downtown. The food is exquisite. The food is much like what you can get in Italy, as the new owner pays so much attention to ensuring you get an authentic experience. He only uses the BEST ingredients, and everything is home-made. One of the things we love about dining in Italy is the "courses" format, where you get a small antipasto, a small first course, second course, and then some dessert. We're not big fans of getting one big plate of something, digging our way through it. We've expressed this to the owner of Mezzaluna, and he has accommodated us and gone way beyond our expectations. We get the dishes that we want for antipasto, pasta and 2nd course, and he splits it for us in the kitchen to get the smaller "courses" experience, thus letting us taste different wonderful dishes that he offers with no extra charge. We've gotten so used to this special treatment that whenever we go someplace else, we try to explain the same thing to restaurants, but other restaurateurs look at us like we're weird.

They really are committed to making you experience the delight from true and authentic Italian dining. The specials are wonderful, but some of our favorites are the Duck Confit Salad (comes with goat cheese that goes perfectly with the salad), Rigatoni alla Vodka (sauce is wonderful, and we usually switch the pasta to home-made pappardelle), the lamb on the menu is delicious, and for dessert, we LOVE the warm and gooey chocolate souffle that comes with gelato. We usually get the home-made nocciola gelato that's so reminiscent of the classic gelato from Italy. The nocciola keeps getting better and better too everytime we have it, and it's served in a hard chocolate cup next to the souffle, that adds great texture to the cold ice cream and warm cake.

As I've said, we've been regulars there, and they never disappoint. the service is friendly and prompt, and if you're lucky, you even get some complimentary limoncello at the end of your meal, just like you do in Italy. My fiance proposed 2 weeks ago, and we went straight to Mezzaluna to celebrate. He had already set everything up with the servers and the owner, so our table was waiting for us, set up with flowers, champagne, and candles. It made our special night even more special, because we got the personal touch and service that you only get from a gem of a restaurant...

The hostess - perhaps an owner? - was lovely. Polite, sense of humor and in the short time our paths crossed, we shared a laugh. The waitress knew the specials without assistance and recited them confidently. The decor is modern, and linear, but charming in a sort of modern city sorta way. Lots of shiny metal and 90 degree angles. But not aseptic or cold at all. The food is nicely priced for a Witherspoon Street location. This is the street that is literally dotted with restaurants and as someone who has been to most of them at least once, and have left disappointed that I paid so much for so little, I was impressed with La Mezzaluna. The food is well-portioned, though the plating is meh. Really, the plating disappointed me, as it lacked vision in my view. The negative space on a plate is occupied by squirts of unnecessary drizzle - a balsamic something or other - I'm sure. Still, the food is tasty enough, but again, not marvelous. Marvelous, in their defense, is hard to achieve and while I know that if they're reading this, these words are likely being met with a scowl, they are nonetheless honest. The flavors are muted, and dull and that left the meal forgettable. They seem to have the right components, but flavors were simply not bold or pronounced.

I won't speculate as to the culprit - more salt, for example - but I will only add that more attention could be given to elevating the annunciation of the flavors and ideally, more negative space on the plate. Not every inch of the plate deserves to have something edible on it. Let's put more emphasis on the hero - the food - and less on the twisting lines of vinaigrette orbiting it. In general, I will be back.

The food was good, just not great. The prices however are great, along with our server and the atmosphere. I would also recommend that your staff pour our wine glasses when they are running low. It's a nuance on its own, but when its down, it sure does elevate the dining experience and leaves the diner remembering the sensitive attention to detail the restaurant applies to pleasing...

I visited this place with my friends and two dogs last Thursday 5/30/2024, and it was quite an experience. Initially, the service was terrible. They messed up our order and took a long time to bring everything out. However, we understood they were busy, and our waiter mentioned it was his first day, so we weren't upset about it at all.

The main issue arose when we tried to pay. We wanted to use Apple Pay, and I believe it was the owner or manager who was checking us out. He seemed very stressed. When he asked me to tap my phone, my cards were declined. I tried both cards, even though I had used them without any issues just before coming here.

The manager took my phone and tapped it himself, but the cards still didn't work. I asked him, "Does Apple Pay even work?" If he had said no, we could have used our friend's physical credit card. Instead, he insisted it should work and even demonstrated by swiping another table's physical card. I pointed out that wasn't Apple Pay, but he kept insisting it should work.

My friend then offered to try tapping her phone, but the manager seemed annoyed and spoke to us rudely. When she was about to tap her phone, he snapped "wait wait" in a nasty tone. This prompted my friend to comment on his attitude. The manager then accused us of cursing and called us children. We told him we weren't children, and he responded by saying he was the age of our father, which was ironic since even our father wouldn't treat us like that. For context, we're all 22 years old but look young.

The situation escalated further, and the manager eventually yelled , "I DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY, GET OUT." So, we left. I've been here before, and the food is pretty good, but after this experience, we won't be coming back ever. Also we went to halo pub right after and my Apple Pay worked perfectly fine there. Work on your customer service, all we wanted to do was...