Good food knows no boundaries
Three restaurants in Fairfield County recently found their way into the list of eateries in the Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, and not by accident.
Elm Street Oyster House, Ten Twenty Post and Greenwich Tavern were the three Connecticut restaurants that raised a few eyebrows when taking their place beside the 137 New York restaurants.
The restaurant week featured menus offering prix-fixe lunches for $20 and dinners for $28.
Bill Kay, a member of the Pearl Restaurant Group and co-owner of Elm Street Oyster House in Greenwich and Ten Twenty Post in Darien, said when they first decided to be in the Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, it was a “”˜what”™s there to lose”™ kind of choice.”
PearlӪs Westchester restaurants, The Rye Grill & Bar, RubyӪs Oyster Bar & Bistro, Taphouse, Lexington Square Caf̩ and MorganӪs Fish House, were all already part of the restaurant week.
“With five of our restaurants in Westchester, they were going to be in it this year anyway,” said Kay. “We were talking and I said, ”˜What the heck, why don”™t we get in on it, too?”™”
Kay said the busy oyster house has been even more so during the restaurant week.
“It”™s been a great way to get people to come up from Westchester, to come across the border a bit,” said Kay. “It lets them know we are here.”
Kay said the oyster bar is always busy and that the regulars were generally disinterested in the restaurant week specials, but until March 28 (beginning March 15) it was there for those who coming for the first time.
“It has undoubtedly made us much busier,” said Kay. “People have definitely been coming across the border. And now they will think of us when they”™re in Connecticut.”
The only other restaurant in Fairfield County was the Greenwich Tavern in Old Greenwich. The story of why it would join the restaurant week was identical; the owner also has a restaurant in Port Chester, Sonora Restaurant. Chef and owner Rafael Palomino said he knows how people”™s minds work when it comes to trying new restaurants, the very opportunity afforded and encouraged by restaurant weeks.
“They want to try something new,” said Palomino. “They will come to Greenwich and if the food is good they”™ll come again.”
Kay and Palomino said they will both be looking to join restaurants weeks in neighboring areas in the future and can be counted on to appear in the roll call of the 2011 Hudson Valley Restaurant Week.
Janet Crawshaw, publisher of The Valley Table magazine and the organizer of Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, said organizers were happy to have the Fairfield three join the in the food celebration.
“We thought it was pretty cool,” said Crawshaw. “It was great for them to be bale to piggyback onto Hudson Valley Restaurant Week. It is a good thing; it”™s all about spreading the word about good food up this way.”
Crawshaw said she had never before heard from Connecticut for inclusion in the restaurant week but has heard from New York City restaurants, which she turned down.
“It does show that restaurants definitely realize the benefit form a restaurant week,” said Crawshaw.