Savory seasonal dishes to feature local beer, greens grown on restaurant rooftops, menus based on less waste, fall flavors and more
Complete List of Participating Restaurants is Now Live Online!
Fall Hudson Valley Restaurant Week (HVRW), kicks off November 2 to 15, and the anticipation already is building as the valley’s top chefs and restaurateurs prepare for the region’s ultimate culinary event. The list of 185 and counting participating restaurants is now live online. The list includes more than a dozen restaurants new to Restaurant Week. The two-week dining event offers consumers the chance to experience the bestrestaurants of the region at a fraction of the normal price point.
This season, the gastronomic bar has been set high, and some hot, new culinary trends are adding to the buzz. The traditional “local harvest” focus of the two-week fall event is being bolstered this year by renewed emphasis on “nose-to-tail” dishes, hyper-local sourcing, the explosion of local craft brewing and the influx of big-city restaurateurs.
“Restaurant Week is always exciting, and this fall’s event offers even more,” says HVRW Founder and Valley Table magazine Publisher, Janet Crawshaw. “Many of our top chefs will be capitalizing on the latest innovative dining trends. We’re looking for a lot of seasonal, local items–we’ve already heard from many chefs who are using new local beer in creative ways in their dishes. It’s all very exciting.”
It’s no surprise that the Hudson Valley has been at the forefront of the farm-to-table movement; the region’s burgeoning agricultural economy means that there is an almost endless supply of local ingredients firing the chefs’ imaginations. Many Restaurant Week menus will feature innovative use of the Valley’s bounty. Expect to sample an abundance of colorful dishes featuring pumpkins, squash, apples and cauliflower, as well as local pork, chicken and duck.
Dishes like roasted pork belly with sweet potato purée and apple kim chi (Shadows on the Hudson, Poughkeepsie) and Hudson Valley Foie Gras and beef cheek agniolotti (X20, Yonkers) appeal to an elevated palate. Locally rooted dishes featured on menus across the region now openly tout their provenance: Migliorelli Farm parsnip purée; Crown Maple glazed Brussels sprouts; Catskill Mountain brook trout.
Some restaurants have gone beyond sourcing local ingredients and have joined the hot “grow-your-own” trend. Union, in Haverstraw, maintains a thriving rooftop garden that supplies the restaurant with zucchini, tomato, pineapple sage, basil, cilantro, mint and more. The 40-acre Millstone Farm provides the majority of the fresh greens, organic fruits, vegetables, herbs, honey and eggs for its Henry’s at the Farm, in Milton. Purdy’s Farmer and the Fish, located in a 200-year-old farmhouse in North Salem, gets more than three quarters of all the vegetables and herbs used in the kitchen from its on-site terraced garden. Clock Tower Grill grows tomatoes, basil, parsley thyme, kale, carrots and more—literally right out its back door in Brewster.
The Hudson Valley also is at the forefront of one of the leading trends nationwide–the explosion of local craft beer. Many of the valley’s best restaurants have joined the “brew-your-own” trend or have partnered with a local brewery for local draughts at the bar–or they’re cooking up innovative dishes with the uber-local beers in the kitchen.
The Restaurant Week menu at Mill House Brewing Company, in Poughkeepsie, for example, will feature smoked pork tenderloin prepared with their own Pop’s Imperial Maple Pumpkin Ale, savory winter sausage, sweet potato purée and caramelized turnips. (The special, spiced ale was “back sweetened” after fermentation with Pop’s Maple Syrup, then let to rest for six months in barrels that were previously held HillRock Rye (Ancram). Downriver, Yonkers Brewery will feature Prosciutto-stuffed chicken with a honey blonde mushroom sauce (made with house-brewed Honey Blonde Ale and local honey). Chef Elena Angelides, of Daryl’s House Club in Pawling, will be cooking up her Peekskill Pork Chops Special–seared rosemary-seasoned pork chops with cherry peppers and onions deglazed with Peekskill Brewery’s Eastern Standard IPA. At Dan Rooney’s Sports Pub at Empire City Casino, they’ll be serving a half chicken with pumpkin spätzle made with Defiant Headless Pumpkin Ale from The Defiant Brewing Company in Pearl River.
“Because of its agricultural resources, the Hudson Valley has become a magnet for big-city/big-name chefs, as well as young restaurateurs eager to put their personal stamp on the farm-to-table movement,” Crawshaw notes.
Home to The Culinary Institute of America, the Hudson Valley is a hotbed of culinary talent. More and more New York City chefs, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Michael Psilakis, Mario Batali and Michael White, have come upriver to open restaurants closer to the farms, expanding the array of dining options.
Hudson Valley Restaurant Week was launched nearly a decade ago by the Valley Table to showcase the Valley’s vibrant dining scene and also to help reinforce relationships among the chefs and local farmers, winemakers, brewers, distillers, artisanal producers and purveyors. Spanning 114 miles across six New York State counties, it is geographically one of the largest Restaurant Week events in the nation. During the event, which runs from November 2 to 15, diners can enjoy a three-course lunch for $20.95, or a three-course dinner for $29.95 (tax, drinks ad gratuity not included).
