There’s a small hotel, reopened with that wishing well ---inspiration for the eponymous Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart song featured in the 1953 movie, “Pal Joey” starring Frank Sinatra.
A nod to the original space expands beyond the well—to the iron railing, the wine cave and the outdoor fountain. A new take on the “Old World Garden” imbues the space with simple, spacious elegance, recalling the “glamour days” when celebrities like Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and their friends from the Algonquin Round Table punctuated the air with witticisms like Parker’s oft-quoted quatrain, “I like to have a martini, two at the very most --After three I'm under the table, After four, I'm under my host.” In the spirit of discipline, discretion, and safety, I had 2 Fig Sours, thus managing to both stay above the table and drive my wife home.
Locals, like us, are excited about the rejuvenated and exquisitely renovated Stockton Inn. At the time of this writing, only the outdoor patio bar and indoor casual dining space, The Dog and Deer Tavern, are open. Later this fall, The Finch, an upscale Italian restaurant will open along with the hotel's nine rooms. Our dinner last night was close to perfection. We started with cocktails on the patio from the outdoor bar, featuring an artful array of signature drinks, masterfully mixed. From our table, I highly recommend the brioche pull-apart rolls, the East Coast oysters, the Campanelle pasta, the mussels and the bucatini and clams.
There’s a certain magic to this place, and I don’t just say this because Stockton is my hometown— where I attended the now-defunct three-room schoolhouse, canoed in the Delaware River, and one cold and snowy night in the 1970's, was bundled up on my Radio Flyer sled and walked to dinner at the Stockton Inn by my Mom and Dad. I say it because this is a charming, cozy, stylish establishment that succeeds in capturing the spirit of the old, and the exuberance of the new—a fine tribute to Brandy and Mabel, the real dog and deer who hung out at the bar with the locals back in the day.
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