Table Talk with Jeremy Wayne: Apiary at The Scarsdale Public Library is the bee’s knees

I was late to the party when I recently rejoined the Scarsdale Public Library, nearly two years after it reopened following its 10-year, $21 million renovation plan and implementation. Not only was I in for an exceptional cultural joy, but the library ”“ with its state-of-the-art design and impressive inventory ”“ offers another treat too, a culinary one. 

That”™s to say, a superb café, which operates as an outlet of the Apiary café in Larchmont. At the library, the ground-floor eatery, which you must pass through on entering in order to reach the books, is a bright space with large windows overlooking the library garden and front parking lot.   

With seating arranged at a right-angle along two walls ”“ but without actual tables, other than one long “high” table ”“ the space can feel a little bare and exposed. But no matter, it”™s clean and comfortable. Imagine a small, business-class lounge in a provincial airport with a self-regulating hush and you will get the picture. 

Over the course of several visits I”™ve tried breakfast dishes with eggs cooked to order, fresh and imaginative salads and exceptionally good sandwiches. My favorites among them include the breakfast burrito (eggs with black beans); an arugula salad (with raw cow”™s-milk cheese from upstate New York, endive and dried cherries); and a brie and fig jam panino on first-class sourdough. I should also mention the umami-rich soba noodle salad with sesame, the schmakhaft German potato salad with bacon and the nicely “hot” turkey chili. I could go on. The coffee, from Coffee Labs Roasters in Tarrytown, is excellent.  

The dishes are prepped each morning up in the original Apiary café in Larchmont and driven over to the library to be finished off before being served ”“ grilled, chilled or otherwise ”“ by Apiary at The Scarsdale Public Library manager Eddie, who runs the show as a one-man-band. It does mean waiting a few minutes if orders are in ahead of yours. 

The café is a boon to students working at the library, to people working from home who fancy a change of scene, and to locals generally, as well as, I imagine, to library staff.  There is nowhere else like it between Hartsdale and downtown Scarsdale. I even know of two couples who come in for a regular bridge game, although the slightly odd seating arrangements (for bridge) and also having to keep your voice down would hardly, I think, be conducive to a relaxed game. 

Interested to see what the Apiary mothership in Larchmont was like, I took a ride over there. The first thing I noticed was that, on a Friday lunchtime in mid-August, the village was all but deserted, the French-American Larchmonters doubtless having upped sticks and flown off to Brittany or the Côte d”™Azur for the duration of the month. (Something of an irony, since Larchmont was once a summer resort itself.) 

That said, one of the café”™s three tables was taken when I arrived, so I was not entirely alone, and Apiary founder Joerg Zehe, a French Culinary Institute graduate — who did not know me or that I  was coming in, since I usually dine anonymously ”“ welcomed me like a long-lost friend. 

 The Larchmont menu is even longer than the one at the Scarsdale Public Library, with additions like turkey confit hash or avocado toast with smoked salmon for breakfast and fishcakes and panko-crusted chicken cutlets for lunch. Zehe invited me to try some watermelon gazpacho, which was a special of the day ”“ less punchy than a fully-fledged gazpacho, it nevertheless had great balance and a nice touch of heat ”“ and I enjoyed another special, tender brisket in a brioche bun, a dish that he told me will soon be available at the library, too. He doesn”™t make his own breads or croissants, because he doesn”™t need to. Baked goods come from the Balthazar Bakery in Manhattan. You can”™t say fairer than that.  

When I told Zehe how much I enjoyed the library café and asked him if he planned more openings, in libraries or in other venues, he said he did not rule it out. He mentioned that Apiary already has a successful catering arm and that while he has been approached by several interested parties, including a shopping mall in Stamford, an ideal brick-and-mortar third venue has not yet presented itself.  

Unlike Apiary at The Scarsdale Public Library, with its clean lines and ample seating, the eight-year-old original Apiary is showing age. The decoration, such as it is, comprises a couple of walls of white subway tiles, a pair of milk churns, a naïf painting of a man with a dog and three large menu blackboards. Tchotchkes take up a good deal of the counter space and the front door and street window are covered in stickers and signs. Music is courtesy of an R&B radio station. The clutter is a pity, though, because Apiary has some of the best food and fairest prices in what is known as the Larchmont Alfresco area, incorporating Larchmont and Chatsworth Avenues. 

In my not-so-humble but I hope practical opinion, doing a “Marie Kondo” on the place, namely clearing everything out and starting again with a clean slate, could make a very good but older café as appealing as its newer offspring. 

Apiary at The Scarsdale Public Library is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, with slightly shorter hours on weekends. The library venue also offers curbside pickup. For more on this and Apiary in Larchmont, visit apiarylarchmont.com