Guinness Cake at The Village TeaRoom Restaurant & Bake Shop in New Paltz
The Village TeaRoom Restaurant & Bake Shop in New Paltz has been participating in Hudson Valley Restaurant Week (HVRW) for seven years now, and owner Agnes Devereux’s menu for this fall’s event offers a choice from among four appetizers: parsnip-and-apple soup, a local mesclun salad, a warm salad of winter squashes, hazelnuts and goat cheese (Nettle Meadow Fromage Blanc) or pan-seared polenta squares with wild mushroom ragout and roasted garlic cream. The four entrées are a pan-seared salmon with roasted squash, a cider-braised pork shoulder (Northwind Farms), organic spaghetti with cauliflower pesto and Barat cheese (Sprout Creek) and a peach applejack-glazed brisket with pickled peaches and braised mustard greens. Dessert options are a quince-and-dried-cranberry bread pudding or a sticky figgy pudding.
Terrapin in Rhinebeck
At the HVRW kickoff at Millbrook Vineyards and Winery, there were vendors from Keegan Ales to Harney & Sons Fine Teas to Acorn Hill Farms goat cheese. Rib-sticking food was perfect for under a tent on a crisp fall day; it was a joy to sample a lush, tender venison stew brought by Peter Kelly and an exquisite foie gras canapé with mostarda di Cremona created by Hudson Valley Foie Gras chef Jenny Chamberlain and much more. Chefs brought pies to showcase, both savory and sweet, and it was an opportunity to schmooze with chefs, stomp and press down grapes and tour the inner workings of the winery.
The roster of restaurants for this fall’s event includes six in Ulster County: the Village Tearoom and A Tavola, both in New Paltz; the Ship Lantern Inn in Milton; the new Duo Bistro in Kingston; the Would in Highland; and the Tavern at Diamond Mills in Saugerties. Restaurants across the river include Brasserie 292 in Poughkeepsie, Terrapin in Rhinebeck, Mexicali Blue in Wappingers Falls and Bocuse, the new French restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.
Reservations are required at some eateries and recommended at most. You can contact the restaurants directly, or in some cases reserve via www.opentable.com. Diners are encouraged to considering tipping waitstaff based on the meal’s value, rather than the deeply discounted rate that they’re paying.
Find the current list at www.hudsonvalleyrestaurantweek.com. The site has a new feature that lets you sort by county or cuisine, and you can specify which days of the week are included, which meals (i.e. lunch and/or dinner) and even which are near Metro North stations. Some include links to their special Restaurant Week menus and usually at least to their website, so you can get a sense of the type of fare.
“The Hudson Valley…is the perfect host for the event,” said Crawshaw, “with dozens of world-class wineries and distilleries, the country’s foremost cooking school, a rich network of farms, award-wining cheesemakers and some of the top chefs in America…Restaurant Week presents a true taste of the Hudson Valley.”
Read more about local cuisine and learn about new restaurants on Ulster Publishing’s DineHudsonValley.com or HudsonValleyAlmanacWeekly.com.
