From left: Tarry Lodge’s mosaic in the restaurant’s entrance; co-owner Mario Batali; Tarry Lodge’s osso buco, a traditional,
19th-century Northern Italian dish believed to have been invented in a farmhouse or a Milanese neighborhood restaurant.
People were clamoring for tables when Mario Batali opened Tarry Lodge,
a pizzeria-restaurant, in Port Chester, N. Y., a few years back.
With a greatest-hits menu of rich pappardelle Bolognese, juicy
pan-seared pork chops and a truffle-guanciale-soft egg pizza
with a charred, airy crust, it’s no wonder. My fellow suburbanites and I could not believe our luck. In Westchester, just north
of New York City, we already had one of the best restaurants in
the world: Blue Hill at Stone Barns, with elegant, farm-to-table
dining from celebrity chef Dan Barber. Now we could dine at
another Manhattan-quality restaurant without leaving our
own backyard? When Jean-Georges Vongerichten announced
he was planning a restaurant in a turn-of-the-20th-century
inn not 20 miles away, well, we were over the moon.
Cities up and down the East Coast are experiencing a similar exodus to the suburbs, with superstar chefs like Philadelphia’s Marc Vetri, Washington D.C.’s José Andrés and Boston’s
Michael Schlow heading out on highways and train lines to
open in small towns, even shopping malls, bringing sophisticated city cuisine with them.
“It’s the last frontier,” says Andy Nusser, the chef-partner
with Batali at Tarry Lodge and also at Casa Mono in Manhattan.
Since Tarry Lodge, we in Westchester have added two
more well-known city chefs to our suburban roster, each with
a Michelin star to his name: Shea Gallante, chef-owner at the
former Ciano in Manhattan, opened Italian Kitchen in his
hometown of Ardsley, N. Y., and Michael Psilakis, chef-owner
of Kefi and Fishtag in Manhattan, opened MP Taverna, a modern Greek restaurant, on the Hudson River in Irvington, N. Y.
I’m starting to think this is more than just luck.
Knowing Your Audience
Suburban restaurants have had a bad rap for decades: a culinary wasteland of casual chains and strip-mall pizzerias. Sure,
there were exceptions—like Blue Ginger, which Ming Tsai
opened in Wellesley, Mass., in 1998—but for the most part,
bedroom communities from D.C. to Boston have had one or
two special-occasion restaurants and a slew of mediocre spots
suitable only for a weeknight out with the kids.
But today more and more suburban restaurants are serving
stellar food, sometimes prepared by chefs you might recognize
from TV.
“As these neighborhoods become more appealing and
offer a higher quality of experience, the tastes in food have
become more sophisticated,” says Rob Wilder, a partner
with chef Andrés in ThinkFoodGroup, a restaurant group
that includes Jaleo, a tapas restaurant with locations in
Arlington, Va., Bethesda, Md., Las Vegas and Washington,
D. C. “And these areas have become really viable alternatives
to being downtown.”
That’s part of it. It’s easy to learn about food anywhere—
magazines, newspapers, television, online, even on our
phones—so people don’t need to have experienced big city
dining to appreciate haute cuisine.
Jonathan Benno, the chef at Lincoln Ristorante in Manhattan, moved last year to Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester,
where he’s grateful to have found restaurants the likes of Tarry
Lodge and Italian Kitchen.
