Delaware and Hudson

I recently dined at Delaware and Hudson, a restaurant on the Michelin list for 2015,with my friends Keegan and Denise. I’ve known Keegan since we were both in high school; we both grew up in central Illinois (he grew up in Bloomington, I was 45 minutes away in Champaign) and competed against each other on the speech team! We saw each other every Saturday morning and I even asked Keegan to drive to Champaign for one of my high school dances (if I had the photo, I would post it!) Anyway, Keegan and I have stayed in touch and he now lives in Los Angeles but comes to New York every couple of weeks for work. He also knows my friend, Denise, because they’ve worked together in the past so we planned to have dinner and go to a show at the Knitting Factory afterwards.

Michelin has a lot of Brooklyn restaurants on their list, mostly on their one-star list. Delaware and Hudson is a long rectangular restaurant that seats 38 and serves homey American food with influences from the Pennsylvania Dutch. There’s only one menu for dinner, so there were very few choices you need to make before they bring food to the table. On the evening we were there, they served us lots of small plates –

Freshly made warm pretzel rolls with fresh butter and pickled vegetables:

Chicken liver with green apple jelly and toast points:

Very rich and dense chestnut soup with freshly grated nutmeg:

Scallops with kohlrabi slaw:

The green tomato pie that Pete Wells spoke highly of:

Potatoes with a cheesy sauce:

All of the appetizers and finger foods were okay but none of them wowed me. I really enjoyed the pretzel rolls and warm butter, but was not a huge fan of any of the others. It seemed like we were at a potluck and everyone just brought their favorite dish; there wasn’t anything that brought them together or made sense as to why they were being served together.

For our first course, we had the ricotta dumplings with swiss chard and pickled walnuts:

These are homemade and very good, although a little too soggy and without enough bite.

For our main courses, we all ordered different things and shared. Staring with the pork belly with parsnips:

The vegetarian roasted porcini mushrooms with parsnip puree, green beans and crispy shallots:

And the pan roasted cod with leeks and mushrooms:

My favorite was the porcini mushrooms with the parsnip puree; it didn’t make me miss meat and potatoes at all and tasted very meaty to me.

For dessert, we all received the panna cotta with local honey and roasted pears:

And a final dessert plate with chocolates, macarons, and pate de fruit:

We had a really fun time at dinner (and at the show afterwards) and it was really nice to enjoy a meal with both Keegan and Denise:

While I enjoyed the meal, I would have preferred to order a la carte because I probably would not have tried all of the appetizers or even the entrees. It felt like I was in the chef’s home, not in a restaurant, and I think if anything, it should be a notable Bib gourmand, not a Michelin 1-star restaurant.