TenBerke designed the new dining hall at Yeh College of Princeton University. (Photo by Chris Cooper)

How College Dining Has Evolved

By Wendy Greenberg

Chef Michael Gattis has the same philosophy whether he is introducing kale to Princeton elementary school students or working as executive chef at Princeton University’s Rockefeller College and Mathey College dining halls: “Our mission is to tie in what is going on here at Princeton (University), and that’s education. We have that gift to be able to do that through food,” he noted in a 2018 Dining Services strategic plan.

As a volunteer for Garden State on Your Plate, Gattis helps educate young students to be open to new tastes, comparing raw and cooked vegetables drizzled with lemon, salt, and pepper. “We are starting a healthy dialogue at an elementary school level,” he said of the 15-year-old program, which brings fresh produce to school cafeterias at lunchtime.

At Princeton University, Gattis is part of a team that not only provides students and faculty with a variety of healthy food choices, but supports students eating better to live better lives.

This fall, Princeton first-year students may miss meals from home, but Princeton Campus Dining is providing a full menu of choices including some that may be from their families’ cultural traditions. While upperclass students may choose the venerable eating clubs, the students who eat in the residential dining halls are finding that those spaces are far from what they used to be.

Nadeem Siddiqui. (Photo by Denise Applewhite/Princeton University)

Campus Dining embraces the same philosophy as the University as a whole, and it is what brought Nadeem Siddiqui, who has led many college dining teams, to the position of assistant vice president of Campus Dining two years ago.

“We complement the University’s core values,” he said in his office. “By focusing on how we can support and enhance the student experience, we ask ourselves: How do we make students’ lives easier so they can focus on their studies, build a community, and conduct their research? Our dining program is designed to align with Princeton’s mission of service to humanity by creating an environment where students can thrive and contribute meaningfully to society.”

Dining is also about bringing people together, he said, and “it is exciting to see different communities breaking bread.” He is also committed to sustainability, and food contributing to well-being.

Sophisticated Tastes

Students come to campus with sophisticated taste buds, Siddiqui said in a 2022 interview in Food Service Director magazine. His goal, the article noted, is to give them an authentic experience: “If you’re making a curry, make it real, not just with yellow color on it. Authenticity is extremely, extremely important to this generation,” he said. As such, he said recently, the University is moving to all scratch cooking, working to eliminate processed food.

How does Orange Cumin Roast Chicken sound? How about Organic Tofu and Peppers with basmati rice; Curried Coconut Pasta with chickpeas, tomatoes, and spinach (vegan); a panini bar; sweet potato fries; coffees; spa waters; juices; and multiple varieties of cookies? All of that and more was available with one ID card swipe on a typical day in July, not even a time when the campus was at full capacity.

An April 9, 2024, an Honor Society magazine article titled “Evolution of College Meal Plans: A Decade of Transformation” states that, “Over the past decade, college meal plans have undergone a significant evolution, driven by changing student preferences, dietary trends, and demands for sustainability and diversity.”

The challenge is to feed so many, while keeping all that in mind. Princeton Campus Dining, which does not subcontract to a large food service like many colleges, fed 674,384 meals last fall, and 624,747 last spring, for a total of 1,299,131 (not including catering, concessions, retail sales, or Reunions). The offerings include food that is safe for allergens, along with vegan, vegetarian, kosher, and halal choices. For example, at Yeh and New College West, which opened in September 2022 with 500 seats, the menu one evening had Thai Chicken Curry for dinner, but a Thai Chickpea Curry as a vegetarian alternative.

During Reunions, with more than 200 events in three-and-a-half days, and 38,830 guests, more than 44,000 catered meals are served (plated, buffet, cookout, etc.), according to Campus Dining. For Class Day at commencement, think 5,000 box lunches prepared and distributed. And add to that commencement receptions for about 6,000-8,000 guests.

The Campus Bakeshop

But let’s talk dessert. Roughly 94 percent of all bakery items at the University are made from scratch right on campus, in a campus bakeshop beneath the Rockefeller College and Mathey College dining halls. The seven-person team, led by Executive Pastry Chef Michael S. DiLiberto, starts the day around 2:30 a.m., baking into the early afternoon.

DiLiberto has been working in bakeries around the Trenton area steadily since he was 14. He spent years as a pastry chef, wedding cake decorator, baker, and bakery manager, and went to culinary school while also working fulltime in a bakery. He graduated with pastry arts and hotel restaurant management degrees.

Chef Michael DiLiberto. (Photography by Jeffrey E. Tryon)

(Photo courtesy of Princeton University)

During an early morning summer visit to the bakeshop, two bakers were rolling out a dough for cranberry bars, an assistant was packing brownies and apple squares, and DiLiberto was developing the week’s production menus. They included such delectables as chocolate chip cookies with potato chips inside, chocolate crumb cake, maple bacon cookies, tiramisu cake (soaked with coffee syrup, iced with tiramisu crème, and topped with Cacao powder and chocolate shavings), and Oreo cheesecake bars. Wednesdays are heavy on producing vegan items, including vegan sugar cookies, vegan blueberry bars, cherry vegan bars, vegan crumb cake, and new items including a vegan zucchini bread, made with coconut milk and egg replacement.

Vegan items are now the top request, and 25 percent of the residential menus. “We used to do three or four items,” said DiLiberto. “Now it’s 15-20 items.”

Witherspoon’s Café is the retail bakeshop hub, with two dessert cases. For catering, the bakeshop does plated desserts (some 20-30 items to choose from), and bakes fresh dinner rolls and bread for presidential events. The staff also makes birthday cakes for students and staff, as well as wedding and retirement cakes.

Mostly, the bakers make cookies, more than 34,000 a year. A cookie depositor makes 3,500 per hour, sending 200 pounds of cookie dough through the machine. In all, the bakeshop, which is celebrating 100 years in its location, makes more than 5,000 items per day, and is even busier during Reunions Weekend.

Despite the production level, “No one knows we’re here,” said DiLiberto, who became executive pastry chef two years ago. In a bit of marketing, the bakeshop now has a logo for its shirts and a corresponding label on its packaging.

Noticeable Changes

As Campus Dining evolves, students have taken note of the changes. In the March 2024 Princeton Alumni Weekly, an article by Rachel Brooks ’25, was headlined, “As Princeton Grows, So Do Campus Dining Choices.”

“University members can select from a dizzying display of options: to the right, an East Asian bar with Kung Pao meats and seafood, Korean barbeque, and daily dumplings. Straight ahead, a grille area known for its onion rings and steakhouse fries. There’s a salad and panini station, a fruit bar, and an assortment of breads that rivals the old Panera on Nassau Street,” notes the article. A student goes on to describe how there is oat milk, almond milk, and chocolate almond milk, where none of these options were available a few years ago.

And a May 22, 2023, Princeton Alumni Weekly article by Alexandra Bertilsson ’26, stated that “Since the spring of 2022, Campus Dining has been working closely with chefs and local producers to bring more culinary diversity to Princeton’s dining halls.”

Recent events have included a tasting with Walter Whitewater, a Native American chef, and Lois Ellen Frank, a Native American foods historian, to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. There was also an open forum and plated culinary experience for Black History Month with Valerie Erwin ’79, a Philadelphia chef and social activist.

How It Works

Princeton has seven residential dining halls, in addition to Graduate College and Center for Jewish Life, as well as the Food Gallery at Frist and other sales points. More than 350 staff members including some 20 chefs have worked together to serve some 1.4 million meals in 2022-2023, according to Campus Dining.

This is all accomplished “with solid systems in place and clear, concise, communication,” said Gattis. “It begins with knowledgeable and experienced chefs to lead the culinary brigade, knowledgeable and experienced front-of-house managers to lead the service and operational needs, and many key workers behind the scenes making this all happen.”

Chef Michael Gattis. (Photography by Jeffrey E. Tryon)

Gattis meets with the culinary team before each meal to discuss production. Prep is done at least one day ahead to be prepared for the volume of meals. Front-of-house staff, he said, “huddle before each meal to go over the service and discuss any information the staff needs.” Gattis, executive chef at the Rockefeller-Mathey dining halls for 17 years, said he went to college for media arts but loved working in restaurants, and graduated from culinary school in 1984.

“Every chef begins with creating menus and recipes that are put in our operating system, which links everything together (there are more than 6,000 recipes in the system),” said Gattis. “From there they forecast anticipated sales. This generates amounts of food to order per recipe. Chefs place food orders daily for recipes and production.

“Storekeepers get a receiving report which tells them what vendor and amounts of goods are being delivered that day. They receive the goods, check weights, pricing, and quality. A production report is generated from the system — it tells the storekeepers what supplies to gather, put on the cart, and send to the cooks to prepare the meal for that period.”

This is done for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The production report also generates all the recipes for the day’s meals. The menus are linked to the Campus Dining interactive web page, and students and staff can see what is being served that day.

(Photo courtesy of Princeton University)

Today, in the college dining world, buzzwords like “functional nutrition,” which is a holistic approach to diet and wellness, and “targeted options” — food geared to individual preferences — are embraced nationally, as well as at Princeton University.

But at Princeton, there is a difference. “We always ask, ‘Is this the right thing to do for our students?’” Siddiqui said. One example: he found out that this generation was so busy they didn’t have time to eat lunch or get back to their residential college dining area, so Campus Dining expanded the late meal program lunch hours to 4 p.m.

“We are always thinking how can we do it better, for the students’ lifestyle and experience. It’s not a job, it’s a mission.”