Blue Hill at Stone Barns is a restaurant I’ve wanted to dine at and review since it featured in Season 1 of Chef’s Table on Netflix. It stands out from other top restaurants in the world in the way it promotes sustainable and profitable farming that breeds for flavour rather than yield.
Blue Hill is located within the beautiful grounds of the Stone Barns Agricultural Centre, about a 10 minute drive from Tarrytown in upstate New York.
I arrived about an hour early for my 3:30PM reservation and enjoyed exploring the farm and breathing the fresh air. It was an overcast day and the leaves were just starting to turn for Autumn.
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Blue Hill At Stone Barns Review
There were a number of greeters at the front of the restaurant who confirmed my booking and then settled me in at the bar whilst the table was prepared.
Here a duo of kombucha shots were delivered, along with a hot towel.
Within a few minutes the gentleman who would be leading the service this afternoon, Daniel, introduced himself and walked me to my table.
The restaurant proper is one large rectangular room and beautifully understated. My table was directly opposite the floral display in the centre of the room and I had a great view of the service flow.
It is worth mentioning at this point that Blue Hill at Stone Barns does not have a menu in the traditional sense. The staff at Blue Hill are known for being able to ‘read’ their guests and create an experience based on how they interact with their server and their response to the first few plates.
You’re asked about your dining preferences and whether there are any foods to avoid, after which the initial series of dishes are prepared. While you wait, you are given a booklet that shows which crops make up each season and where on the farm they are planted.
My dining experience consisted of 23 plates so rather than reviewing every single dish, I am going to limit this review to the 10 that really stood out.
VEGETABLES FROM THE FARM / FLOWER DELIVERY
The first series of dishes are super fresh raw vegetables and all tasted like concentrated versions of their normal selves.
The standout from this round was that tiny tomato on the far right of the wooden block. It was an incredibly tart tomato flavour bomb.
TOMATOES ON THE VINE / TOMATO PIZZA
The tomatoes were the early stars of this meal, with wonderfully fresh flavours in the tomatoes on the vine and again for the tomato pizza.
Surprisingly for a dish that was basically bread and sliced tomatoes, the flavour was sensational. Cold, tart sliced tomato on a warm bread base achieved umami.
CORN BURGER
This tiny corn slider had a wonderfully creamy and slightly smoky filling. Very enjoyable indeed and a great contract to the acidity of the previous two dishes.
LIVER AND CHOCOLATE
This is one of the classic Blue Hill dishes that combines a cube of liver with a slice of dark chocolate on each side and a sprinkle of salt on top.
Now I am by no means a fan of liver generally but this was an excellent combination. The creaminess of the liver contrasts with the bitterness of the chocolate, while the smoothness of the liver contrasts with the crackle of the chocolate as you chewed.
SUNFLOWER MARROW
The sunflower course is where the team began to explain how Chef Dan Barber uses the menu at Blue Hills to showcase how we can reduce food wastage.
Sunflower seeds are the end product that farmers sell, whilst the rest of the sunflower head and stalk are either thrown away or used as animal feed.
At Blue Hill they’ve repurposed the sunflower head as a puree ‘marrow’ and the stalk as the ‘bone’. It was a tasty dish from otherwise discarded ingredients and very interesting to see their creativity at work.
After this course, a selection of cutlery was delivered to the table. Up till this point, all the food was eaten by hand or using a specific implement for the sunflower dish.
CHICKEN MUSHROOM NUGGETS AND HABANERO HOT SAUCE
The mushrooms used for this dish are hand foraged in the Hudson Valley and have a remarkably similar texture to chicken, right down to the stringiness.
Deep fried in a salt and pepper batter, they were really tasty and I could easily have enjoyed another dish of these.
They are served with three dipping sauces, the habanero ‘hot’ sauce is notable as having been bred to remove all the heat from the pepper.
NY-150 POTATO AND CLAM CHOWDER
The potatoes used in this dish were bred for their creaminess. It’s quite remarkable how the creamy potato flavour comes through in this chowder, and is another example of how Blue Hill does things differently by cultivating specific ingredients to make their menu possible.
BEET FURTER, BEET KETCHUP PEPPER MUSTARD WITH FERMENTED CUCUMBER RELISH
At some point during the meal, each table is taken on an excursion to another part of the farm.
My excursion was outside to the impressive barbeque that is in operation 24/7. According to the chef, this is the third version of the barbeque and had to be purpose built since the first two didn’t last under the constant heat.
Even in the middle of winter this barbeque is kept going whilst being surrounded by snow.
Understanding the ecological impact of meat, another angle in the sustainable food movement is reducing the amount of meat consumed without losing flavour.
Enter the beet furter, a sausage that is 60% beetroot and yet every bit as delicious as a meat-only sausage (or emulsified high fat offal tube, if you will).
The beet furter is served on what appears to be a standard hotdog bun, but one that is made from Barber wheat. Dan Barber, the Executive Chef at Blue Hills, worked with farmers to cultivate a strain of wheat for flavour. It had a wonderful depth of flavour that normal bread just doesn’t.
WHOLE BARDER WHEAT LEVAIN WITH BLUE HILL FARM BUTTER
Finally, we had a slice of Barber wheat sourdough with butter from two cows, one who is a pure dairy cow and another that was a mix of dairy and cattle.
The bread was again incredibly flavoursome and both butters rich, creamy and delicious.
BLUE HILL AT STONE BARNS MENU
At the end of the meal, Daniel presented me with a neatly printed menu of the dishes I had enjoyed. Below is the full list of the 23 dishes that made up the experience.
How To Book A Table At Blue Hill At Stone Barns
Reservations open two months to the calendar day in advance, via Exploretock.The date and local time (in our case Australian Eastern Daylight) when the next reservations open are helpfully included below the search box.
When I booked for October, all the tables were snapped up within a few minutes of being released so if you have a specific date it would be beneficial to set a reminder.
How To Get To Blue Hill At Stone Barns
Trains for Tarrytown depart from the iconic Grand Central Station and the journey takes about an hour.
Uber is available from Tarrytown Station to Blue Hill At Stone Barns takes about 10 minutes and my ride cost US$10.
How Much Does It Cost To Dine At Blue Hill At Stone Barns
The total cost of dining at Blue Hill At Stone Barns is US$361.54 per person.
A 20% administrative fee is added to the base price of US$278 in lieu of tipping. It’s also worth noting that all bookings are pre-paid via credit card.
How Many Michelin Stars Does Blue Hill At Stone Barns Have?
Blue Hill At Stone Barns was awarded two Michelin Stars in the 2020 New York Guide, the first time restaurants outside New York City were included.
The announcement was made in October 2019, shortly after my visit, and Blue Hill more than lives up to the billing.
Summary
Blue Hill At Stone Barns delivered a great dining experience in the traditional Michelin sense of service and ambience, but have also managed to seamlessly weave their farm to table ethos into the menu to educate their guests.
It’s quite a different experience to Le Bernardin so it was a real treat to be able to enjoy both on this trip.
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