Blue Hill at Stone Barns: Tarrytown NY

Located at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture – a working four-season farm and educational facility approximately 30 miles north of New York City – co-owner and executive chef Dan Barber’s goal is to evoke a consciousness about the effect of everyday food choices.

Using all of the farm’s bounty, he not only sources produce locally from the Hudson Valley, but is pushing his own boundaries by growing and cross-pollinating plants to create experimental cultivars.

There is no printed menu at Blue Hill, instead, there is a multi-taste menu called ‘Grazing, Pecking, Rooting’ offering guests as many courses as they want. Ingredients are as fresh as can be and don’t compete with ostentatious sauces or spices. Barber has a unique skill in bringing out the very essence of each element on the plate. Dishes are served informally yet ceremoniously, with table theatrics that form part of the restaurant’s educational mission. Before a fish course, for instance, you might be shown a video of its catch.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is more than just a restaurant of world-class standard but an ecosystem that creates a direct link between the earth, the kitchen and the diner.