Del Posto

I had only ever walked into the space in daylight, before they even served lunch. It is a cavernous dining room with marble and wide balconies and lush carpet where the tables are. By night, the glow of candles and table side sconces turns the room into a giant Deco-era piano bar (and yes, there is a piano, under the stairs).

Del Posto offers two menus, both price fixed. We chose the lesser of the two, five courses, which has more flexibility; the seven course menu is set in its courses and does not allow for guests to choose their food from the larger menu.

Prosecco arrived within moments. I didn't complain, even though I had already downed a near perfect white peach bellini at the bar. Next, a trio of amuse bouche: gougeres with mortadella; sticky saffron risotto balls; and a clarified chicken broth striated with egg yolk. Then, crusty bread and whipped lardo, an Italianophile's dream spread.

Our 1996 Riserva Barbaresco had been aged in barrique, which I noted to the sommelier. "Do you prefer a more traditional style?" he asked me. I said yes. He told me he would make a note on my reservation so that the next time I have dinner they would serve me something less pronounced. The night was full of comparable attention to detail.

I let the server steer me towards a beef tartare with porcini mushrooms and shaved parmesan when she told me that the kitchen could not produce the goose liver special without almonds (I'm allergic). Her selection won me over, full of crunch and salt and smooth edges. Then came the first of our two pasta courses, a pasta called caramelle, which looked like cellophane-wrapped candy and oozed with gorgonzola and black truffles. A whole wheat spaghetti came with chunks of mirepoix and shaved bonito flakes. The pastas are the star of the whole Del Posto show.

But my lamb--a mixture of leg, t-bone, and other gamier parts--was not to be outdone. Cloaked in a perfect puttanesca, it was the ultimate combination of unctuous fat and tender meat. I still had room for dessert, a butterscotch semi-freddo with candied melon. Every portion served was modest, preventing the post-meal guilt so often associated with four star dining. There was even room to enjoy the final glorious moments of our meal, served in a box grater: a caramel in edible paper, a tiny ice cream bon bon on a lollipop stick, a chocolate truffle, two pieces of candied fruit, and a golf ball-sized beignet filled with citrus cream.

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Del Posto

85 10th Avenue

New York, NY 10011

212.497.8090

Farm To Table

My family and I were supposed to visit Blue Hill at Stone Barns on Saturday night for my sister's birthday, but inclement weather relegated us to a pot-luck dinner in my bedroom instead. Luckily, the incredibly generous and accommodating staff of BHSB allowed us to switch our reservation to Sunday instead, and even pretended not to hate us when we showed up a half-hour late (we literally got stuck behind a bulldozer).

Blue Hill at Stone Barns can probably be credited for bringing California "farm-to-table" cuisine to metropolitan New York, even though the restaurant is in Westchester. Their sister restaurant, in the west village, sources most of its food from the Westchester working farm, and both spots have been doing so for some years now, starting well before local restauranteurs touted the virtues of heirloom tomatoes. So there.

As is customary at Stone Barns, we began the evening with a bit of local produce. Winter may be ending, but root vegetables still abound. Our amuse bouche began with baby carrots and bok-choy, both lightly salted. Next came deep-fried salsify and proscuitto, a tiny shredded vegetable tart, caramelized onion bread with whipped lardo and cottage cheese and butter and carrot salt, roasted beet sliders, chilled carrot soup, and a plate of coppa and speck. We opted for the five course menu rather than the eight course ordeal, the first of which was a lovely beet salad--red and golden--atop pine nut butter and served with greenhouse greens.

To underscore how much Stone Barns caters to the whims and wishes of its guests, I point to our wine selection. My father no longer drinks, which left only two adults, one of whom was driving. We didn't want to invest in a bottle and we don't really share similar wine tastes. My stepmother told Thomas, the Stone Barns Wine Director, that she prefers buttery chardonnays, like Kistler's "Les Noistieres." Presto: a bottle of the wine appeared at her side, with the friendly invitation to drink as much as she liked. That hundred-dollar bottle of wine cost us a mere $25.

As for me, I allowed Thomas to serve whatever he saw fit. That meant a 1989 Ehrhard riesling from the Rheingau, followed by a ribolla from Movia (a Slovenian cult wine), and a 1998 Brunello di Montalcino. With dessert? A 1979 Pedro Ximenez Sherry. All this for--you guessed it--another $25.

But back to the food. Beets gone, waiters arrived with round glass pyrex dishes containing one large Maine sea scallop and a cream broth with fennel, celery, octopus, mussel, and rock shrimp, a superior take on chowder. Our egg course, enjoyed by four of us, was an egg-circulator egg in a broth of mushroom and broccoli. One stab to the egg yielded orange runny yolk. Before the course, our server had brought to us a glass basket of different colored eggs from the farm's hens, some of which gleamed green and blue, the color specific to breed.

My father hates eggs, so he had salt-baked rutabaga instead, kind of like the best sweet potato you've ever had. Entrees were slabs of pink Berkshire pork, brined in something sweet, like cider, and served with more of that tender baby bok-choy.

Dessert arrived in waves. First, honey with tofu and bergamot; next, chocolate mousse with apricot jam and frozen raspberry cream; finally, moist carrot cake with fromage foam, cream cheese, and vanilla ice-cream. They put a candle in my sister's cake and brought petit fours of chocolate, yogurt marshmallow, and sesame candy. Stone Barns remains one of the most worthwhile meals in New York.

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Blue Hill at Stone Barns

630 Bedford Road

Pocantico Hills, NY 10591

914.366.9606