The Cookery — Restaurant in Town of Greenburgh

My first thought after this meal was over was that this place absolutely has five-star potential - it has a super interesting brunch menu, a competitive price point and hard-working staff. It's not quite at the level it needs to be overall, but it's tantalizingly close. I stopped by with one of my chums this past Saturday for brunch at the midway point of our Croton Aqueduct hike. Very interesting interior, with a few random eclectic items like the wild boar head on the wall that I obviously had to take a photo of to accompany this review. Would love to know the back story of that creature.

I was a big fan of the brunch prix fixe menu - for $40, you get three courses (an app, entree and dessert), PLUS a boozy brunch cocktail. Really not bad. We both ended up getting a second cocktail in addition to the inclusive one, and we noticed quite a few nearby patrons did the same as well. Win-win for the restaurant, and a rare moment in this inflationary environment where you're getting some legit bang for your buck.

I went with the fresh mozzarella app, the radiatore/lamb bolognese entree and the chocolate polenta dessert, along with their bellini, which was more apple cider than peach. Loved the bellini - very unique twist on a classic. The mozzarella was sensational, probably one of the top two or three I've had. It's a little tough to eat without looking like a barbarian, but the toasted bread it came with was surprisingly easy to chew/consume with the mozzy. The obvious direct comp for North Jerseyers is Porta, which has a very similar dish at all three of its locations - this one is better. The radiatore was the low point for me - palate preference-wise, the pasta was a little too al dente, and I was not a big fan of the sauce, which was mostly strands/chunks of tomato versus an actual sauce to help moisten the dish. The lamb chunks were very good though; it's spicy, flavorful and tender. I honestly wasn't even sure what polenta was, but when the waitress told me it was basically a bowl of s'mores, I was in. Normal s'mores for me loses its novelty pretty quickly, usually after three or four bites. It's safe to say that this held my attention throughout. Delicious and after three decent courses, the perfect portion size.

The service was pretty hit or miss - it was clearly a very busy time of day for them and it wasn't unusual to see an employee hurriedly dashing from one section of the room to another; the wait times we did experience clearly were not the result of a waitress goofing off on her phone or anything. But when we sat down, we were told that multiple people would be assisting with our meal, which was a little eyebrow-raising but not necessarily a red flag or anything. But because the assigned individual literally changed constantly, there were a few miscommunications that could have been avoided. For instance, one person told us at the beginning to be sure we knew what we wanted for the app and entrée (not the dessert yet) when the next person stopped by. That next person asked for all three of our selections. It wasn't a huge deal, but this is something that wouldn't have happened if we'd had one assigned, consistent staffer. The service was very good early on, but unfortunately steadily declined thereafter. The apps were out almost immediately, within five minutes. The entrees took significantly longer (though in their defense, five minutes is a tough bar to reach), as did the dessert, but then it took another 25 minutes to get the check. With numerous people assigned to us at random parts of the meal, it was almost impossible for everyone to remember their roles. I think they just overthought and overcomplicated their system, and they'd be much better off assigning one waiter or waitress to a particular group of tables.

A lot of the food was really good with some creative twists. The potential is here, but The Cookery needs to remember that the intangibles...

WAY over salted and raw, uncooked branzino entree. Clearly the chef takes no pride in his work and they don’t seem to care to make it right. See below.

Octopus appetizer was the only good dish we had. The escarole Caesar salad had literally 1 anchovy. The dish was basically good but since my wife and I split the dish it was noted that once I served her a portion with an anchovy I then couldn’t find another for me. Whatever, we let that pass and are still excited for what’s coming next.

Then the casarecce with funghi arrived and when they say to salt the pasta water like the sea they do not mean to salt the entire dish like the Dead Sea! We had waited quite a while for this so I was hesitating to send it back but it was just inedible. The waiter asked us to choose another pasta so we ordered the cauliflower ravioli and wouldn’t you know it, the salt shaker had fallen into this dish also! But we just didn’t have the heart to say anything so we swallowed it down and just assured ourselves they were going to turn it up on the entrees.

This is where the chef really showed his true colors. Out comes the branzino for my pregnant wife and the pork sandwich special for me. She takes a bite from the outer edge and is pleased then flips the top half over and the inside of the fish is not undercooked, it’s TOTALLY RAW! I don’t see how a chef with any level of dignity can serve this dog food. We told the waiter to just take it off the bill, please don’t try to “refire it”.

The food was obviously not tasted before served. The Cookery had come highly recommended to us by friends but it seems this place had its day, used to be good when the owner, chef, and front house staff cared but now they’re just riding the wave of past success. Now they’ll just turn out whatever. I would be embarrassed to work here. Our waiter was also bartender tonight and seemed to care but was also busy with other stuff. But nobody else seemed to be really paying attention. This was not marginal mistakes. This was grossly over salted food and absolutely no attention to the fish entree.

My pork sandwich was ok but also over salted and light on the broccoli rabe.

Our waiter told us he “took care of the fish entree”. Well thank you for not charging us for a raw entree that my wife took one bite of and then went without anything because we’ve lost our patience with you all. Then he asks us if we’ve left room for dessert. Really? You guys aren’t going to comp us at least a dessert after all this ridiculousness?? No, no thank you. We’ll just take the bill and run far...

Came here yesterday (6/24/24),

I will speak of the good:

Great ambiance, the waitress we had was very attentive and focused which is always a plus.

We were seated near the bar, for appetizers, we ordered the meatballs and octopus, for the main course we ordered the white lasagna and the pork osso buco.

The appetizers were amazing and I must say that the flavors of the octopus really blew my mind. There is nothing better than the flavors being perfectly balanced to the point where your pallet goes crazy. As a Chef, I love being surprised with flavor, and this took my breath away. Smokey, sweet and beyond tasteful. It left me trying to figure out each ingredient.

The meat balls were perfectly made, with the right amount of sauce. Nothing better than being able to taste the meal when it's not over powered by sauce.

I highly recommend those two appetizers.

The (Not So) Bad:

Well, we had reservations that we made weeks ago, when we got there there were only two options, one was a seat close to the bathroom, and the other was by the bar. We sat by the bar, which wasn't that bad, but not easy for someone to sit at (High Bar Stool seats) when they have a dress on.

They had no diet soda at all, not even in cans. When dinner arrived, the white lasagna looked as if it was over cooked. Now, with that said, I don't know if that is how it's supposed to be, but it was definitely over cooked and hard to cut. What was able to be eaten was indeed tasty and flavorful, but it was hard to cut and chew the outer and bottom layers of the lasagna.

The pork was very tender, but did not have any flavor, it surprisingly lacked and I was shocked. The white polenta was amazing, but it was a small amount that they gave, I would have expected slightly more than just a layer (bed) of it.

For dessert we had the rainbow cookie tray, which was a deconstructed version of cookies in a cake form served with sauce, ice cream and chocolate. It was different indeed, something that I will not order again as the ice cream serving were small, they melted right away. And I was expecting a strong Italian rainbow cookie taste which just wasn't there.

With that said, it was still a great experience, and I will definitely try it again for sure as I saw other options that I wanted to try. And we were able to see a table get a whole pig which was amazing as the pig had a crown on.

Would I recommend this place?...