Essentially, stately prince chose not to go to restaurant (5)

I believe the answer is:

atein

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'chose not to go to restaurant' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'essentially stately prince' is the wordplay.
'essentially' says to take the centre.
'prince' becomes 'in' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The centre of 'stately' is 'ate'.
'ate'+'in'='ATEIN'

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.

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