This article was also published in the Financial Times.
As we bustled down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to catch the 4.35 pm train from Grand Central Station to Tarrytown up the Hudson Valley, I had no idea that the Rockefeller name would feature quite so prominently throughout our evening.
Initially, on our right was the imposing Rockefeller Centre while at the end of the half hour train journey followed by a ten minute taxi ride out into the country that looked magnificent in the late autumn sunshine was Stone Barns, an 88 acre farm that has been one of the Rockefeller homes since the early 20th century.
Today, it is a ‘Center for Food and Agriculture’, having been revived over the past 20 years by the late Peggy Rockefeller and it is also home to Blue Hill, a café and restaurant run by the modest Dan Barber, a long time believer in sustainable agriculture, who continues to run his original Blue Hill restaurant in the West Village in Manhattan.
In fact, it was this downtown restaurant that was the meeting place for Barber and David Rockefeller who ate there while contemplating how best to put the growing amount of increasingly top quality produce to sensible, commercial effect (the farm’s produce is not certified organic but as they know everything that their farmers put into the soil they are confident that it is). Two years ago Blue Hill at Stone Barns was born in a partnership that sees the restaurant pay a rent and for the cost of the produce from the Centre which remains a not-for-profit organisation.
I learnt from Phillipe Gouze, Blue Hill’s experienced restaurant manager that of their current customers over 60% come from nearby Westchester County, 25% from New York and the small balance from out of the state. This is a pity as in the late afternoon and early evening this combination of well manicured farmland, half an acre of extensively planted and beautifully maintained greenhouses and a farmhouse built from the local blue stone in the style of a Normandy farmyard are truly memorable for any visitor from further afield. So too was the sight of a turkey sitting calmly on a fence as we waited somewhat less calmly at 9.00pm for our taxi back to the station.
Aside from all the salads, herbs and vegetables the farm also produces its own chickens for eggs and meat; Berkshire pigs that roam wild in the woods; lamb, pork and the aforementioned turkeys as well as an abundance of fruit which features prominently on their excellent dessert menu.
With a shop selling far more than just the farm’s produce there is an obvious comparison between Blue Hill and British counterparts such as Daylesford and The Leaping Hare at Wyken in Suffolk but this farming set up is far more genteel. There is little chance of getting any mud on your shoes even between the area that is used for valet parking and the steps that lead down to the greenhouses.
And while the semi-circular roof of the dining room is vaguely barn-like, the bar area and the restaurant itself are extremely comfortable with some striking features. In the centre of the room is a beautifully crafted, vast, wooden table which must hold the world record for the longest service table complete with all the requisite drawers and on top of which stands a magnificent broad vase of spreading autumn flowers. At the far end, above the entrance and exit to the kitchen, is a broad canvas of a fecund country field.
But having gone to all this trouble and expense Barber and his team have been let down badly on the lighting, one of the two fundamentals of good restaurant design (the other is the state of the lavatories). Americans seem to equate dark eating spaces with sophistication but here this sentiment has been taken to extremes and no sensible use made of the steel beams that support the ceiling to make the diner’s experience comfortable. I watched with some sympathy as one woman held the table candle up to read her menu and then with great envy as another pulled a small torch out of her handbag to peruse hers.
Which is a shame as the menu makes for exciting reading. On one side is the US$75 dinner menu with a couple of choices at each course and on the left a list of dishes that can be slotted in at any stage. Having adjusted our eyesight and made our choices, we looked forward to a stimulating evening.
That, unfortunately, it did not live up to expectations seems to me because the kitchen is trying too hard. Before our first course materialised three different ameuses bouches appeared which were certainly one too many. As we progressed to a pasta dish that was severely undercooked even for someone who likes it al dente and a risotto that was far too watery I kept wondering why the kitchen just did not concentrate on transforming the excellent ingredients it has right outside its window.
Certainly, when it does so, the kitchen leaves a much more distinctive and positive impression. The lamb I ate there, with a pungent aubergine puree, was undoubtedly the most flavourful I had ever eaten in the US while the salad leaves in the first courses and the fruit in the desserts were exemplary.
These are the assets that should be accentuated not the frippery that is, in my opinion, becoming increasingly commonplace. But Blue Hill at Stone Barns is definitely worth a visit. However stunning it is in the autumn it is, I was reliably informed, even more beautiful in the spring.
Back in Manhattan we were to benefit from the magnanimity of another benefactor, albeit one on a smaller scale from the Rockefellers. Roy Welland is the extraordinary wine collector who has put his wine cellar into Cru restaurant in partnership with Robert Bohr, whose roles encompass business partner, leader of a team of extremely knowledgeable sommeliers and overseer of a cellar that incorporates 20,000 bottles on site, a further 70,000 in New Jersey and yet another 20,000 in bond.
Despite being married to a wine writer I would be the first to admit that a wine list does not a great restaurant make but there several other features that contributed to what was our best meal in the city. The lighting is good, as are the acoustics, and there is adequate space between the two tables all of which give Cru a comfortable, clubby feel. And there was the extra, albeit short lived pleasure of sitting between two tables which had ordered the white truffle tasting menu with the ensuing heady aromas on either side.
The brown, leather-bound wine lists (one for reds, the other for whites) contain some extraordinary, generously priced gems and Shea Gallante and his kitchen team deliver equally memorable food. Blue fin tuna with ponzu dressing; saffron tagliolini; a veal tenderloin with Savoy cabbage and a distinctive range of sorbets and ice creams, including corn, buttermilk and more white truffle, made for a stunning evening. As did the appearance of an empty taxi at the traffic lights outside despite the torrential rain.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns, 630 Bedford Road, Pocantino Hills, New York 10591. tel 914-366 9600 www.bluehillfarm.com
Blue Hill, 75 Washington Place, 212-539 1776, www.bluehillnyc.com
Cru, 24 Fifth Avenue, 212-529 1700, www.cru-nyc.com