A Manhattan Chef Heads Upstate. A Country Tavern Follows.
The New York Times
Clare de Boer, who won accolades at King, is branching out with Stissing House, in a former Hudson Valley inn.
PINE PLAINS, N.Y. — It’s a fantasy many New Yorkers share: Move upstate, restore an old house, escape the noise of the city. But Clare de Boer, who will open her first solo restaurant, Stissing House, on Thursday, knows this isn’t some romantic endeavor.
“It’s cute until you sign the dotted line,” she said on a recent Friday in the sitting room, formerly a wood shed, of her tavern in this Hudson Valley town. The walls of the 6,000-square-foot space were still being painted. One of the fireplaces wasn’t working earlier that day. A conventional oven hadn’t yet been installed, and the pastry chef, Suzanne Nelson, was getting worried.
But there was good news: The pheasant dish Ms. de Boer was testing, roasted in the open kitchen’s wood-fired hearth with juniper and vermouth, was outrageously delicious.
