A 12 months after closing, the Bedford Post Tavern is again — and this time there is a new look, a brand new chef and, naturally, a brand new menu.
The restaurant, which in the meanwhile is open for dinner solely, opened June 7.
What’s modified
The format is among the many largest modifications. What was a personal eating room to the left of the restaurant is now the principle attraction full with chocolate velvet cubicles, a medley of wooden, marble and mosaic tables, café curtains, a brand new bar and an outside terrace on the facet. There’s additionally outside eating in entrance with a view of the property’s lush greenery and riot of colourful hydrangeas.
In whole, counting the 2 alfresco spots, the restaurant seats 140.
The area, a part of an outdated inn which dates to 1762, nonetheless has a casually elegant nation vibe (the excessive ceilings assist), however there’s now an airier, timeless look highlighted by mild woods, summary art work and many pure colours that resemble the outside. The objective, stated Visitor Expertise Supervisor Sunny Harum, was to create a décor that resembled nature. “We needed it to seem like all the things inside grew organically from the woods and trails that encompass the property,” she stated.
That features hanging lamps within the shapes of leaves, mini lights within the bar space that seem like mushrooms, sconces within the form of slugs and ivory-colored paper flowers.
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The theme extends to the bar space, which is seen upon entry and likewise from the eating room due to a cut-out window that makes all of it really feel like one large room. Additionally added: cozy cushioned half cubicles for seating. And within the nook with candles mild on the mantle: a gasoline hearth. A bigger gasoline hearth sits majestically on the finish of the principle eating room.
What previously had been The Farmhouse is now the Tavern’s personal occasion area, accommodating as much as 126. The room additionally has a extra minimalist, airier look due to new beams the place two pillars was. And, like its counterpart, there is a gasoline hearth and a naturally impartial coloration palette, with plenty of handpainted fowl illustrations from the 1800s, to maintain in step with the historical past of the inn.
All artwork within the eating areas are on the market, together with summary work from famed artist Robert Motherwell who handed away in 1991 and who lived close by.
What concerning the menu?
Simply as essential because the décor changes is the addition of Chef Sam Mason who, just like the cooks who’ve headed the kitchens right here earlier than, has fairly the spectacular pedigree (the earlier chef was Roxanne Spruance, a former Meals Community “Chopped” winner who’s now heading Wren of the Woods opening subsequent spring in Armonk).
Mason’s popularity is an ice cream provocateur — he is the founding father of OddFellows, a small-batch ice cream firm which has grown to a number of worldwide areas. He is additionally a previous James Beard nominee and the previous pastry chef of the molecular gastronomy New American Manhattan restaurant iwd-50. And he owned the short-lived Tailor restaurant within the metropolis.
Coming from what he describes as a “fussy background,” he was excited to do “unfussy” in Bedford. “It is tavern fare,” he stated. “We wish to supply one thing for the native demographic that is snug.”
His approachable approach means “while you see it on a plate, you recognize precisely what it’s.”
The Nyack resident’s focus can be on native and seasonal components. “I cease at farmers market on daily basis,” he stated.
On the day this reporter met him, it was at Rochambeau Farm in Mount Kisco, however beforehand it had been Snow Hill Farm in North Salem and Hilltop Hanover Farm in Yorktown Heights (the place he is by the way doing a farmhouse dinner later this summer season).
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Amongst his dishes proving widespread up to now: Popovers with strawberry butter; a caramelized onion tart with goat cheese and arugula and seared salmon with fennel salad, peas, mint, fingerling potatoes and herbed buttermilk however he stated the menu will proceed to evolve primarily based on suggestions from the neighborhood.
Different entrees — the menu is pretty quick and simple — embrace grilled branzino with tahini, spinach and silk chili; roast hen with inexperienced olives, lemon caper butter and watercress; hanger steak and “Katonah Pasta Garganelli,” with zucchini, squash, tomato and pine nuts.
Appetizers embrace a Deep Roots Farm crudité; summer season vegetable salad; seared pork stomach and an entire uncooked bar with oysters, shrimp cocktail, salmon ceviche and tuna crudo.
Story continues after gallery.
Wait there’s extra— to eat!
The property additionally options the lately opened (as of June 19) Bedford Post Barn, operated by Daybreak and Jason Bowman, who personal BreadsNBakes in Pound Ridge. The 60-seat café, with an informal rustic look, is open for breakfast and lunch with an outside eating space set beneath a cover of coated greenery and fairy lights that make you are feeling such as you’re on trip.
Choices on that menu, which is open seven days per week from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., embrace French toast, pastries, oatmeal, quite a lot of salads, soup and a burger along with a number of drinks together with wine, beer, cocktails and low.
As with the Tavern, the Barn additionally options work from native artists, on this case from Jonny Cournoyer whose brushwork options the historic hamlets of Westchester and surrounding panorama. And there is a hearth — although this one is wood-burning.
Each the Tavern and the Barn are a part of the 1700s-era farmstead that is been reinvented right into a Relais & Chateaux property — with a luxurious inn and yoga studio — that was based (and nonetheless owned) by Actor Richard Gere. The 2 eateries function beneath the Sunday Hospitality umbrella, a Brooklyn-based restaurant group that operates El Quijote, Foyer Bar and Café Chelsea in The Resort Chelsea in Manhattan, Sunday in Brooklyn in Williamsburg, Rule of Thirds in Brooklyn and Sunday in Brooklyn in London.
For those who go
Handle: 954 Previous Publish Street, Bedford, 914-292-9516, bedfordposttavern.com.
Hours: 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday; to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Good to know: Brunch is coming. Prolonged hours to come back, as in dinner will ultimately be accessible on Monday and Tuesday.
Mark your calendar: The restaurant will host a barbecue with hamburgers, sizzling canine, lobster rolls, corn and ice cream sandwiches on July 4 with garden video games from 4 p.m. to eight p.m.
Jeanne Muchnick covers meals and eating. Click on here for her most up-to-date articles and observe her newest eating adventures on Instagram @jeannemuchnick or through the lohudfood newsletter.