gb25's Profile
Fiori in Great Barrington (Ma) Lots of hype - any of it genuine?
My wife and I ate from Fiori's bar menu a few times this summer and really liked it. (We actually had the deconstructed lasagna from the regular menu; not lasagna, as I understand the dish, but very, very tasty anyway.) Their bartender, Jesse, is also an excellent mixologist. I definitely recommend it.
Chow-worthy takeout options -- Great Barrington MA
I have not had Camille's market take out food. But I have used their homemade sausage for pasta and it is excellent. The owner, Frank, provides excellent customer service. I'm sure you'll be happy with them.
Friday night in Great Barrington without a reservation?
I agree that Cafe Adam is an excellent choice. Their service--sluggish in the past--has improved and their food is very good. I highly recommend it. I also agree that Rouge is an excellent choice. Eat where you can choose from the "tapas" menu. Really good, real good prices, and an excellent pour with wine by the glass. My wife and I love both of these places. We also really liked Fiori this summer. Fiori's bartender, Jesse, makes great cocktails with housemade infusions and the bar menu is very good.
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Cafe Adam
325 Stockbridge Rd Ste 4, Great Barrington, MA 01230
Stockbridge area places for lunch
20 Railroad Street in Great Barrington has very good burgers, and the town has a neat downtown area.
Napa closing? The Brickhouse closing? 20RR too? GREAT BARRINGTON
I am not surprised Napa is closed. While the food was fine and atmosphere could be very good with the bar buzz (we had a great time eating there once when it was jazz night), the service was consistently bad to terrible. One time, we got there 30 minutes before closing and they essentially ignored us, so we left and went to Pearl's. The manager called to apologize the next day (he was not there the night before), but service remained crummy. I am puzzled that, as much as in invested in restaurants, ownership and management can't seem to get service right at some of them. Napa has a great location (and its view down railroad street is great), so I hope a good replacement restaurant comes into the spot.
restaurants near Hancock (Jiminy Peak) with 7 y.o., parents and grandparents
Recommend Mission Bar and Tapas in Pittsfield, although not with the kiddies.
Help us with ideas for one overnight trip - 2 hour radius from Hartford
Not crazy about Chez Nous, although it gets good reviews here. Because of that, we have given it second chances, but have never been impressed. Just okay food in nice setting. For a romantic dinner, I recommend Old Inn on the Green if you're going to be in the Berkshires. My wife and I love Rouge, and in particular the well-priced and extensive tapas menu available in the bar, but don't think it is a very romantic place for an anniversary dinner.
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Chez Nous
150 Main St, Lee, MA 01238
Help us with ideas for one overnight trip - 2 hour radius from Hartford
Strongly second the White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport. My wife and I went there for our anniversary a couple of years ago and loved it. It also looks like a great place to stay.
Birthday dinner in Lenox
I also recommend Frankies. It is a bit overpriced, but so are the Berkshires in general (one of the owners, a very nice young lady, spoke with me this summer and confirmed what I already knew: the summer months of July and August are the bulk of their business). The food is very good, Southern Italian. We recommended it to my inlaws, who loved it. I would think it is a good place for family celebration, albeit not a stuffy one. On nice weather days, sitting on the front porch is great. We spend the summers in GB and I wish they had an outpost out there (along with one from Mission Bar and
Tapas).
Olio, West Stockbridge -- new and good!
On a Tuesday a few weeks ago on our way back from Albany my wife and I stopped by Rouge, only to see it is closed on Tuesdays. So we made our way to Olio, in the space where the old Village Oven used to be. The food was good to very good. The service by a young waitress was not polished, but very friendly so we did not mind it at all (better by far lack of polish than rudeness). The male manager/owner(?) took the time to chat with us about the good wine we had by the glass and the female owner was extremely friendly and even knew some of the restauranteurs back home in the Coral Gables, Florida area. Very nice experience and a good complement to Rouge.
Anything open in the old Pearl spot?
Unfortunately, nothing has opened at the old Pearl's spot and the building is for sale. Perhaps it was too much to ask that anyone open a new restaurant in a seasonal town given the state of the economy last fall. I was told by the owner of a restaurant in Lenox that one of her friends had looked into taking on the space, but that the rent was prohibitive. I am hoping that something opens by next summer, which, of course, is the profit-driver for restaurants in the Berks. The former owner had managed to turn Pearl's around last summer and it had become my wife's and my favorite restaurant in GB, but his tragic death put an end to that venture. As for Napa--which is the restaurant located in the old Union Bar & Grill space--the reviews are consistent with my experiences there: decent to good food in a pleasant atmosphere (particularly when they had jazz nights last summer) but slow to terrible service. In fact, I just read a new review on Yelp that makes that same point. It is a shame that they cannot get their customer service down anywhere near where it should be and I hope they read enough reviews to get the message. After last summer's poor service on a couple of occassions (including one time when we got there 30 minutes before closing and were essentially told we weren't welcome so close to closing time, and no manager was available; we ended up going to the bar at Pearl's and got great treatment) we haven't gone back this summer. Maybe we will next summer, but not if the service continues to get panned.
Road Trip Westchester to West Stockbridge MA: Any Must Stop and Eat Places Along the Way?
Actually, John Andrews gets some very good reviews, but also gets a significant number of poor reviews (way more than an excellent or even good restaurant should receive). I fall in the latter category. My wife and I have tried it several times and have never found it to be all that special and the last couple of years actually found it to be mediocre. Check out their reviews on this site and others for a look at the diverse views.
Barrington Brewery and Restaurant-- a below average bar with bad food
I've eaten there a couple of times. Nothing has been terrible food-wise, but it has been very mediocre. And the service (including the manager or owner, who seated us once and was generally curt and rude) was not good. I agree no reason to go to this place.
VIVA
My wife and I went for the first time at the end of last summer and enjoyed it very much. I am Cuban and have gone to quite a few tapas bars in Miami and NYC. While Viva falls short of those, it provides a perfectly good tapas bar experience. We limited ourselves to the tapas menu, which went well with the reasonably priced Spanish wines. I have not tried Brix, which gets great reviews, or Mission Bar and Tapas, to compare. I definitely recommend a visit.
Looking for a great "special occasion" restaurant in the Great Barrington area
Old Inn on the Green is beautiful, particularly in the winter and the food is good. I second kayemtee's comments on John Andrews (despite a good number of visits, reality has never risen to the comments on the foodie websites, but that's just the experience of my wife and me). I do not second her recommendation of Chez Nous, but again that's just my personal opinion. I really want to like the place and have given it a few chances, the last one this past summer. The food has never been more than average (except for pate) and often skimpy (a very small salad of purportedly heirloom tomatoes). Although more of a "hip" place, we like Rouge. We also like the Old Mill a good deal.
Tamales for Christmas around the Berkshires
Just a thought: I don't know if Chowhound facilitates these off-board contacts (but it sure makes sense not to have your email posted on here), but if it does not, I suggest you post an ad on Craigslist for Western Mass and then cowgirlinthesand can contacct you through that site without having to post email addresses. Hope this helps you two connect.
Going to Cafe Adam in Great Barrington ( finally! ) for the 1st time....?
My wife and I have enjoyed Cafe Adam several times, but only for lunch. The food is good (very good fries with the steak fritte) and fairly priced (upper end for lunch). The porch is nice on nice days, but the inside is just okay. For some reason, it strikes us as a lunch spot, although I don't think that is a fair characterization (but probably due to the fact that if you're going to pay higher prices you're drawn to more upscale settings). My one complaint has been very slow service more than once. I do recommend it highly for lunch and would try it for dinner, also.
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Cafe Adam
325 Stockbridge Rd Ste 4, Great Barrington, MA 01230
SF Hounds seek advice-Lenox and surrounds
Finally tried Cafe Lucia last night and was very disappointed. The server was courteous and good. The food was mediocre and overpriced--even by Lenox standards. My wife had the ceasar salad. Typical salad in a very small portion for $11. There is absolutely no excuse for charging this much for a run-of-the-mill, small portion of ceasar salad. I had the soup of the day, tomato. Again, it was fine, if a bit watery--but also overpriced at $9 for a small bowl. My wife had the pasta with the eggplant. The three, fried pieces of eggplant were good. The pasta in acidic tomato sauce was not--but it was overpriced at $24. I had the sausage and penne. You guessed it--mediocre (with little sausage--the menu on their website saying the dish has 3 sausage links is old) and overpriced at $24. We spend summers in the Berkshires and live in Miami the rest of the year, which is to say that we're used to high restaurant prices. But the combination of exorbitant prices and mediocre food here is simply unacceptable. We will not return.
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Cafe Lucia
80 Church St., Lenox, MA 01240
Great Barrington MA
Is there any news as to what will happen to Pearl's (or, at least, the location)?
Where can my wife and I go to a "dress up" dinner, in the Berkshires ?
Given your criteria that "ALL patrons be dressed up," and assuming you mean jackets for men, your choices will be few in the Berkshires (but, in truth, most everywhere except NYC also, since casual dress rules). But if you don't want to go to the Whetleigh or Blantyre, I don't see why you couldn't have a romantic dinner somewhere such as Old Inn on the Green, which is particularly nice in the fall when the weather cools off. Incidentally, if you go to restaurant.com, you'll find that you can purchase a $25 coupon for $10 (although it cannot be used on Saturday night). The food is good to very good(although, as with the rest of the Berkshires, not great) and the atmosphere is nice.
SF Hounds seek advice-Lenox and surrounds
I've never tried Cafe Lucia, although intend to based on good reviews. Alta is fine, but not exceptional by any means, so I would suggest it for lunch over dinner.
Sad to say, bad service at John Andrews, Egremont, MA
My wife and I have been to JA several times over the last few years (generally over the summer, but at least once during the holidays), although not the summer of '09. The service has never been bad, but it has never been good enough to live up to the type of restaurant JA purports to be. More importantly, the food has never lived up to the billing. One memorable example of this was a new riff on a lobster cassoulet everyone on here raved about, but which I found bland, lacking much lobster and, thus, overpriced. Nor do I buy the "summer is not a good indicator" argument; summer is the prime season in the Berkshires and other restaurants manage to pull it off without rude service. Maybe it is the Karma thing, as suggested above. But maybe JA is just not as great a restaurant as some of the reviews on here would have you believe.
Best Dinners in Berkshires
My (subjective, of course) opinions on your line up: Alta is fine, but not great. Cafe Adam is good, you can talk there and I prefer to Alta. Unfortunately, never been to Brix, but want to try given the consistently high reviews (we spend the summers in GB and don't get up as far as Pittsfield very often). My wife and I love Old Mill. Allium is fairly good and worth a shot. For some reason, I am not at all enamored of Chez Nous, as are a lot of others here. They have a very good pate. But the other stuff I've had has been poor to okay. This summer I had an incredibly overpriced "heirloom tomato" salad. Since our party was ordering numerous courses, we told the waitress we were going to split the salad. When I got what I thought was my half, I was surprised to learn it was the entire salad, yet to be split. Not only that, the tomatoes were small and, at least in my view, not even heirloom. Others had the crabcakes as appetizers. They are more filling than crab and consist of a creamy consistency. I'm a crabcake fanatic, and these were not even close to what I consider a great crabcake. The Southfield Store is great for lunch on nice day. Rubi's is where I love to go read the paper and have their great coffee and baguette in the mornings. Also like Once Upon a Table, although I prefer setting for lunch over dinner. I also have been consistently disappointed by John Andrews. The Old Inn on the Green is good, and very romantic. This past summer my wife and I rediscovered Pearl's. It had take a real downturn and its new owner/operator really turned it around, both at the bar and in the dining room. Unfortunately, he was killed in an automobile accident at the very end of summer and I do not know how the restaurant has done since then; maybe others have a view. We enjoyed the food at Napa this summer, particularly when they had the Jazz trio playing. But the service was consistenly poor and, until they fix it, do not recommend it for dinner. My wife and I tried Viva and liked the tapas there, as well. Lastly, we also like Rouge in West Stockbridge, including their extensive "tapas" selection at bar (to go with their generous wine pours).
Berkshire Trip Report
Although I feel that Rouge's rules are somewhat of a nuisance, my wife and I are fans. Their bar menu is diverse and well priced and based on a recent visit the wine pour on a by-the-glass basis was the most generous we've received. Overall, I recommend Rouge.
Recommendations for Chapel Hill
As I mentioned in my post that started this thread, I was familiar with Crooks Corners from trips to Chapel Hill on business. I first tried Crooks Corner in the mid-90's and fell in love with its shrimp and grits (my local business associate took me there and, although skeptical at first--I like shrimp and I like grits, but shrimp AND grits?--I ordered it and ended going back the following day for a repeat). Since then I've had it at many places (Bobby Flay's Bar Americaine in NYC and Emeril Lagasse's Nola in New Orleans, for example) and have even made it myself and, while god, none lived up to the one at Crook's. But when I took my son to Chapel Hill on the college tour back in '07, the dish was disappointing. I'm happy to report, though, that I just went back earlier this month, this time for Sunday brunch. Everything was good, but the shrimp and grits were outstanding and just like I remember them. I definitely recommend Crook's. Unfortunately, we tried Elaines and were very disappointed. Overpriced with small portions (and that's a statement made relative to restaurants in its category). Tried Bin 54 and liked it and my son has insisted on Angus Barn when I visit and have liked it as well (for what it is, in any event).
SF hounds seeking great food in Lenox,MA area
Loved Pearls (again) in GB this summer and it became my wife and my favorite restaurant in town. Tragically, its young owner died in an automobile accident just a few weeks ago. It is reopened, but I don't know what it is like now. I would give it a shot, at least at the bar where it had a great bartender and very good bar food. Really like 20 Railroad in GB for pub food, especially burgers. We like Rouge a great deal, particularly the bar menu and the many "tapas," with a very generous pour on wine by the glass. Allium is good, also. Although my wife and I like Old Inn on the Green, I would recommend instead the Old Mill just south of GB. For lunch/dinners I would also recommend Cafe Adam (great fries). For breakfast or lunch on a beautiful day, go down to the Southfield Store, which I believe is owned by the folks at Old Inn. Lastly, if the foliage is good in Connecticut, I love The Woodland in Lakeville and it's a great drive there.
Rouge-West Stockbridge
Over the years my wife has loved Rouge, while I've just thought it was good but not exceptional and was bothered by their rules prohibiting the ordering from their tapas menu in the dining room, even if only as an appetizer course (I don't mean to start that debate up again; it is the subject of another thread). That being said, the restaurant has expanded and last week my wife and I went to the bar for a light meal and drinks (we had already been to Viva, which we liked, where we had sangria and tapas). We shared a burrata salad that was unexceptional. The burrata was very bland, even with a hearty dose of olive oil. However, we split a cheeseburger which we both agreed was very good. We each had a glass of wine and the servings were the largest either one of us had ever received when ordering by the glass. Service was fine and one of the owners (the wife) came over to check on us and was very friendly. The bar atmosphere was very lively. We will go back next summer, if not sooner when we visit over foliage weekend or the winter. I would recommend Rouge.
What's good in the Berkshires
Tragically, Jonathan Van Allen, the young man who recently purchased Pearl's (or was managing it while in the process of purchasing it, the media reports are unclear whether the sale had become final) died in an automobile accident last week. Although I did not know him, as my post above reflects, he had managed to turn Pearl's around and it had become my wife and my favorite restaurant in GB. In addition to the human loss, his passing will be a loss to the town's restaurant industry.
Southfield Store (New Marlborough, Great Barrington, Berkshires)
I do agree the policy is unfortunate. But I note that the place has relatively few tables. As with most policies, rigid observance leads to problems (although granting discretion to staff to deviate can be problematic). For example, if you were there after dinner rush and they could not reasonably expect the empty tables to fill up, they should have considered not enforcing the policy. Of course, if you came in at the beginning of the dinner hour, i can see why they would want to preserve the table for parties of more than one. In any event, these things do leave a bad taste. My wife and I love the Store for breakfast or lunch on a beautiful day, but have not been there for dinner. Incidentally, is it still owned by the folks at Old Inn on the Green? The website does not indicate so (and neither does Old Inn's, which I think used to) and instead has the story of how the owner bought it and renovated it.
Dinner in Great Barrington or Lenox?
The Old Inn on the Green has good (but imo not excellent) food and a neat atmosphere (no electrical lights, just candlelight). If you go when it is not busy, as was the case when my wife and I went early this summer, it can have a deserted feel to it. I prefer a livelier restaurant atmosphere, but that's a matter of subjective preference. John Andrews continues to get good reviews, although we are not as crazy about it as others obviously are. While we have not gone this summer, we've always found the food to be okay and the service less so. A nice, New England-type place near GB is the Old Mill. They don't take reservations for less than five (but you might be able to talk them into it for an annivesary dinner) but it is charming and the food and service reliably good. In town, as BerkshireTsarina noted, there is Pearl's and Allium, across the street from each other. We have frequented Pearl's this summer and can say that the new owner (who brought back the original chef) has turned the place around. It has a great, in-town location and the food and ambiance now match it. We like Allium also, particularly for drinks if they open up the front garage-door style window--if you can get the seats there for a cocktail, do so. Although we had a bad experience with service at Napa, on Main Street in GB (we got there 30 minutes before closing and they were less than thrilled we were there, so we went to Pearl's instead, and Napa's manager later apologized), we like the atmosphere and the food, particularly if it is a Friday night and they have live jazz. If you want to drive a little south, into Connecticut, we recommend Pastorale in Lakeville--charming atmosphere with good food. If you want to drive into Connecticut for lunch, we recommend the Woodland, also in Lakeville (it is also open for dinner). We've always really enjoyed the food there and the drive is very nice. We also like 20 Railroad Street in GB for its burgers. There are many more options, but these are some to get you started.
