 The Manor uses its on-stie vegetable and herb gardens to develop fresh, classical menu items. When Harry Knowles purchased West Orange, N.J.-based The Manor in 1956, his family had already been in the restaurant business for more than half a century. In fact, before migrating to the United States from Belgium in the early 20th century, the Knowles were involved in the European restaurant industry. “We’re on the sixth generation now,” his son, Vice President Wade Knowles, explains.
The U.S. portion of the story begins in 1906, when Annie E. Zulauf, Wade Knowles’ great grandmother, owned a restaurant in Clifton, New Jersey, called the Robin Hood Inn. “When my father [Harry] was young, he was a busboy in my great-grandmother’s restaurant,” Knowles says.
“He went off to WWII and was a fighter pilot. When he came back, he wanted to be a pilot, but all of the pilot jobs went to the bomber pilots because they were familiar with the bigger planes. So, he went back to his old job, the Robin Hood Inn, and became a waiter. That’s where he met my mother Doris – Annie’s granddaughter – who worked in the check room.”
In fact, Knowles was born in an apartment above the restaurant where his parents met. When he was eight years old, his father purchased a small existing restaurant, which he initially named The Bow and Arrow Manor. He expanded The Manor over the next 30 years, while opening several more restaurants including Pleasantdale Château, Ram’s Head Inn, Highlawn Pavilion and the Marriott Residence Inn at The Manor.
“We definitely have an haute cuisine, high-level kitchen,” he notes. “All of the restaurants are a bit different. However, The Manor maintains the format of a classical restaurant of years past, but updated with today’s cuisine.”
Classical Kitchen
“We’re very proud of our history and have been very active in the restaurant industry for years,” Knowles continues. “We believe in classical cuisine, still, but you have to be creative with it today and take advantage of items that are now available that weren’t years ago. These days, you can get anything overnight. We’ve seen a lot of Asian influences in spices and these things have changed the menu, but we stay committed to our classical kitchen format.”
Knowles describes the classical kitchen as an era around the 1950s when classically trained personnel were arriving from Germany, Italy and France, and finding employment in high-end restaurants in the United States, while still maintaining the training they had received abroad.
Perhaps due to the baby boom, restaurants were shifting to more of a family-oriented style during the time in which Harry Knowles took over The Manor.
However, the restaurant has always remained loyal to its classical roots, Knowles says.
“From the service end, years ago, we were getting everyone off the cruise ships. That has disappeared, which I miss,” he admits. “Those were interesting years, when you had the French, German, Italian and British cruise ships; we had a lot of fun with it. However, today the restaurant is still very international. We have people from more countries now than we ever had.”
In addition, “We have always traveled as a family to experience the flavors of other countries, and this has influenced our menu over the years,” Knowles notes. For instance, every four years, the family attends the Culinary Olympics in Germany.
In fact, Harry Knowles used to be quite active in the American Culinary Olympic team.
“That’s always been a great experience, especially from the standpoint of art or the ways in which the food is presented,” he says. “It’s always an eye-opener.” Keeping Fresh
“From a product standpoint, fresh has always been our thing,” Knowles asserts. “We’ve always had sizeable gardens for all of the restaurants. I picked that up from the waiters that came off the cruise ships when I was a little boy – the Italians love growing on their properties.”
So does the Knowles family. The Manor sits on 20 acres and boasts large vegetable and herb gardens, as well as its own orchards. “We’re able to vine-ripen everything,” Knowles says.
“Everything is available by air these days, but so much comes from a distance, that it’s often prematurely picked and artificially ripened. The advantage may be that you can have a varied menu, but you lose a lot from the standpoint of flavor. When you can grow something yourself and vine-ripen it to five minutes before it goes on somebody’s plate, that makes a huge difference in the flavor.”
At Pleasantdale Château, the family installed three lakes and brought in fishery experts, who spent a year introducing trout, bass and other breeds of freshwater fish. “Those types of things influence our menus,” Knowles notes.
Another feature that sets The Manor apart from other restaurants is the family’s longevity in the business, Knowles adds. “Restaurants can be extremely famous overnight and they’re gone the next year,” he says. “Things change quickly today because people are always looking for that hot new place down the block, but longevity is our uniqueness. We made it 50 years, so let’s keep doing the same thing. Classical is always new – that’s our philosophy.” |
