For the second time we were lucky enough to have dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in lovely Pocantico Hills, NY in Westchester County. Jeff, Dana, Alan and I had been talking about going back since the first night we ate there. It took two years and almost seven months, but this past weekend we made it.
The restaurant is set among a gorgeous collection of stone buildings located on an expansive, working farm right outside Tarrytown, NY (thirty miles north of the city). Along with it's sister farm, Blue Hill in Great Barrington, Massachusetts the restaurant sources all of it's ingredients from these two and a collection of other local farms to offer a true farm-to-table experience.
There are no menus at Blue Hill...just a list of the season's fresh ingredients that will be presented to you to showcase the day's harvest. Though this trip they did give us the cutest little book (printed on recycled paper) called Field & Pasture, a four season journal. It lists many of the fruits, vegetables and proteins harvested in each month of the year from the farm, field, pasture, greenhouse, forest and cellar.
Our reservation (nearly impossible to get) was early - 5:30pm. We were promptly seated upon arrival in the same exact table we ate at in November of 2009. There were already three or four other tables seated as we got settled. Only two decisions needed to be made...how many courses would the table be opting for and would we be selecting wines by the bottle or going with the restaurant's pairings? The first one was easy enough; of the five, eight or twelve farmer's feast choices, we decided on eight. And after a quick conversation with Matthew, our waiter, we ordered by the bottle. Though we don't know what the wines by the glass would have been, knowing that there would be six whites and one red, we though it better to go with bottles so we could do a champagne, a white and a red.
The bottle to start off the evening was one Alan selected - a
Cedric Bouchard NV 'Roses de Jeane' Brut Blanc de Noirs. A terrific champagne that our attentive server recommended we drink out of white wine glasses to help showcase it's complexity and full body. I really loved this wine and it went so nicely with the first six starter dishes.
So no menu to jog my memory, I'm relying heavily on the pictures we took to try and recollect the evening's bounty of food. It doesn't take long from the point you are seated and go over any dietary restrictions to the first courses coming to the table. The restaurant, much to our delight, does half a dozen fresh bites first and then starts your eight courses. Here are the fresh bites:
This one is called the fence. Four vegetables for each person it included a baby carrot, asparagus, ficoide glacial (it's a french name for a micro-green that is also referred to as crystalline iceplant) and Easter egg radish. To try and describe the flavor in each of these mildly seasoned, incredibly fresh vegetables is an undertaking my limited vocabulary is not up for. But let it be said here - you'll never encounter anything this unique or this fantastic in a bite of veggie on a stick. Just out of this world.
Other one bites: artichoke puree with parsnip foam shooter.
Whole radish with sweet pea & asparagus dip. Fresh but in general, radish doesn't have a ton of flavor to begin with.
House made sweet potato chips with the best goat cheese I think I've ever had from Pleasantville, NY. Really fantastic.
Warm asparagus tips wrapped in pancetta and coated with sesame seeds. Incredible!
Sweet pea "burgers" on a sesame bun. Chilled and very sweet...good but not my favorite.
Birch cookies with cream filling. Different - you could really get that sense of where root beer gets its flavor from.
And then on to our eight course dinner. First up, the charchuterie platter with mixed greens, peas, speck and asparagus for three of us and for Dana, a gorgeous presentation of beets, micro greens and strawberries.
Our next course was a fresh ricotta cheese (not pictured) made from the dairy of the resident cows. It was served with challa brioche with cracked black pepper and a spread that I just can not remember. The ricotta was amazing - so fresh and warm; fabulous!
Somewhere in this time frame we ordered the next bottle of wine. Wanting a white Burgundy, Alan and Jeff consulted with the sommelier to come up with the 2008 Jean Marc Vincent Auxey-Duresses "Les Hautes" White Burgundy. A spectacular wine with bright acidity, oak aroma and light butter on the finish.
Next up was a split course. For Alan and I, a simple noodle dish made from the immature eggs. For Jeff & Dana, shitake mushrooms. The noodles were crazy good; the mushroom dish was pretty but not a hit with the McIntires.
Continuing with the egg theme, Alan and I were served fresh eggs collected that morning from young laying hens on the property. They brought over some to show us how much smaller the eggs are from hens that are just starting to lay. In a few weeks these chickens will be laying about five eggs a week that are the typical size we see in grocery stores. For these first few days and weeks, they are very small with a very thick shell and a bright yellow yolk. They were served with chicken hearts. I have run out of ways of complimenting these dishes...it was perfection, really.
At the same time, Jeff had the most talked about dish of the evening...the parsnip steak. Creamy, warm with a dense center akin to a potato but a taste all it's own, this was killer. It resulted in a trip back to Stone Barns the next day for the Farm Market to see if parsnips could be bought and taken home. Sadly, these were the last of the parsnip crop for the year. Come late winter next year, you betcha these will be purchased and grilled!
By now the evening hours were blending into each other, having already enjoyed so much wonderful food and exciting wines. I'm not sure when it happened, but the third bottle of wine appeared at some point. Again consulting with a very knowledgeable and attentive sommelier, Alan and he selected a red Burgundy. This was the 1996 Michel Lafarge Volnay "Clos du Chateau des Ducs" 1er Cru Red Burgundy. A wine that wasn't on the list it, it had fruit flavors of raspberry, tart cherry with a maturity and softening of the tannins. Really nice wine - great compliment to the savory dishes.
Our fifth course was fish - halibut to be precise. Served with carrot puree and sweet peas. The fish was perfectly cooked, flaky and moist. The fish, not altogether unusual, didn't have a ton of flavor by itself but the peas were fantastic - with all ingredients put together it was a very nice course.
Our sixth and final savory course was meat. Beef for Dana & Jeff, pork for Alan & I. The beef was medium-rare and melt in your mouth tender. The pork served three ways in a loin, belly and bacon style was so wonderful I didn't remember to take the picture until I was more than halfway through devouring it. They raise tamworth pigs right on premise and the freshness shows. Succulent and super flavorful, this was an excellent dish.
To wrap up the evening were two dessert courses - of which I swapped out one of mine for a cheese course instead. Featuring fresh berries, cream, pears and ice cream, they were light and well blended. A nice cap to a memorable evening.
All in all, this was a fantastic dining experience. The wait staff was organized and efficient; all the dishes were explained with some having a lot of detail (like the eggs and the ricotta cheese). The sommelier is at the top of his game and even remembered the four of us from the first time we were there. The flow and pace of the evening was well balanced. Four hours flew by and I never felt tired, rushed or uncomfortable. The ambiance is quaint yet very sophisticated with all of the special touches to remind the patron that this a restaurant with a purpose...for example, every course is served on a variation of a natural or earthen ware vessel of some kind. No fancy white china to be found in keeping with it's farm roots.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns remains one of our top dining locations with an almost perfect score. I looked back and saw I rated it as a 98 when the four of us were there on November 9th, 2009. In some ways this time was better with the only detraction being something that can't be helped; we didn't have the awe of that first time experience when discovering something so different and new.
Zagat: 28-28-28
Jenn's Rating: 98
Extra Notes: we were so happy with the dinner that we went back the following afternoon to the Farm Market they run every weekend in the summer. While there weren't many vegetables to take home that day (more than 50% of the harvest is still going to the restaurants at this point in the season), we did walk away with bacon, hot dogs, spare ribs and fresh eggs.
