Poncatino Hills, NY: 630 Bedford Rd - (914) 366-9600
Price: Break the Bank
Rating (1-10): 10
I think the most appropriate word to describe Blue Hill at Stone Barns is ‘idyllic.’ It says something when, even after waiting on your reservation for two months
at an already hyped restaurant, it utterly blows you away. If you have the opportunity and a bit of a budget, go - and make it an all-day affair. You’ll enjoy fresh varieties of food you never knew existed, presented delicately, playfully, and tastefully. You’ll learn about what you’re eating and where it comes from. You’ll be coddled by an army of smiling, earnest, and comfortably formal staff. You’ll see where everything comes from as you stroll the sprawling countryside before or after your meal. For a day, you’ll feel like a Rockefeller.
Of course, Blue Hill at Stone Barns has the unfair advantage of being situated on a picturesque upstate Rockefeller upstate. For a chef, for a restaurant, I could not imagine a more ideal setup: a fully functional farm to source natural, seasonal, and ridiculously local food, well-financed backers, a campus of beautifully preserved old stone structures, and a food-aware clientele. But they seem to have found the perfect chef for this set up: Dan Barber, who has become something of a hero within the local, natural food movement. Chef Barber splits his time between his restaurant in the Village and this restaurant and despite his rising national celebrity, he’s actually here, in the kitchen.
True to its mission, all parts of Blue Hill at Stone Barns work in rhythm with nature, a restaurant within a broader ecosystem. No wonder Chef Barber is so admired in the eat fresh, eat local Alice Waters movement. You don’t need signs telling you it’s “All Natural” or “100% Organic” or “Certified Free Range.”
That’s all a given. The restaurant fits so seamlessly into the farm, and follows and maximizes the environment it’s in. Somehow, being here brings a calm over you, some kind of Update New York Zen.
There are many wonderful restaurants in NYC with the same food philosophy as Stone Barns, but you just can’t get a truly living-off-the-land kind of experience in the Village, not even at Blue Hill’s NYC outpost itself. One server offered to go pick tea leaves to make tea for a nearby table. Kind of says it all.
It’s almost intimidating to walk into a place with such a depth of knowledge about the production and preparations of food and ingredients (in fact, it’s a learning institution than runs tours and educational programs for children and various groups). But it’s not in a snobby way, it’s just what they do and love.
For brunch, Blue Hill offers a tasting menu of several courses that aren’t laid out on the menu. Instead, the server asks some questions to gauge your preferences, eating restrictions, and adventurousness. And then the menu shifts, so what one table gets will probably differ from what the next table gets. It’s flexible, personable, and fun.Our first dish was a roasted eggplant broth mixed with various wild mushrooms, a deeply yellow, creamy poached egg, and a type of spinach. The mushrooms are the main feature – large, earthy chunks in a savory, slightly acidic yellow broth.
Next up, freshwater, smoked eel in a Manhattan-style chowder with miniature cubed vegetables – carrot, celery, garlic, potato, maybe more, in a bright orange tomato broth. The veggies are crunchy and slightly sweet, and the eel, which is caught in northeastern streams, is a bit tough because at this time the eel are spawning, working hard, getting tougher. It’s a smoky, gamey, and oddly appealing.
A pork plate followed, with braised pork belly glistening with fat, pork sausage that reminds you how meat is supposed to taste, roasted mini apple (who knew?), apple puree, pork jus, and fresh collard green leaves. This is a pork lover’s dream but – and this is a small matter - a tad too much sweetness from the apple. On the next plate sat a fat chunk of braised lamb’s neck with jus, a squash blossom, and an assortment of shell beans – rich, salty almost corned beef flavor, layered with fat. The dish is wonderful to look at. But our (only) criticism was the choice of fat-laden braised meat dishes in two consecutive courses, which is a bit heavy.For dessert, we got three plates for two people: a play on strawberry shortcake with mini strawberries, citrus, cream between two blinis, and vanilla bean ice cream and yogurt on the side; pumpkin and chocolate cake with a righteous piece of pumpkin, and ice cream; and an apple dessert layered with meringue and ginger ice cream on the side. This is some of the best dessert I’ve ever had with elements that blend beautifully together. The strawberry and the apple desserts were my favorites.
We enjoyed the meal along with several cups of tasty Brazilian bean coffee over the course of three swift but careless, leisurely hours. Blue Hill service is impeccable and friendly, and it seems like the staff flash a warm smile whenever they pass by your table. They clearly love the food and the mission here, and are happy to discuss the backstory of where it all came from, who is responsible for cultivating it, etc. It’s ‘you can do no wrong,’ bend over backwards, ‘no request is unreasonable’ kind of service. Their attention to detail and conversational manner add to a brand of hospitality befitting of the atmosphere. (And one thing I noticed – no ice in the water! Ice often makes water too cold and also clumsy to drink. Here, they don’t pour ice in your glass, a novel, smart idea.)
The entire estate is tastefully decorated with clean lines and modern furnishings while retaining the rustic outdoor feel. We sat in a banquette that looks out across the rest of the dining room which is surrounded by windows that stream in sunlight and surrounding scenery. The dining room features high ceilings, exposed buttresses, and great people watching as well as food spying on other tables. It’s comfortable and classy, clean and efficient. You want to be here. All told: the cost per person was $77. By any standard, this is more than fair.After our meal, we took a kitchen tour, saw the herb garden, and the wandered surprisingly freely around the grounds and adjacent state park. You want to see where the pork comes from? Go check out the pigs. Beef? Cows. Arugula? Greenhouse. Chicken? Chickens. Honey? Bee farm. You get the idea.
Maybe it's the whole idea of going to Stone Barns and being in this setting that predisposes a visitor to being utterly taken by this place. That may be why I walked away with almost no thought to how it could have been better. One thing is clear: Chef Barber’s life is not bad. During our post-meal exploration of the Stone Barns grounds, he jogged by us down a winding path with fall foliage colors in the background – probably catching a breath of fresh air before heading back to his culinary playground to plan what items to showcase at dinner. You should really see it for yourself.
