Binnekill Tavern — Restaurant in Town of Middletown

We made a reservation for 4 adults and 2 kids. We were shown a table in the bar area. When my wife mentioned this issue to a server/hostess, we were told “well people just came in”, to which my wife said “that’s why we made a reservation”. Okay, we can look past that.

Chris was our waiter, and he is also a bartender and all around good guy. He was amazing desiring our service.

My wife ordered the pork belly appetizer and mussel appetizer as her entree. The pork belly looked good, but it was small. The mussels....let me start by saying that when one orders mussels, you are taking a risk that you may get a couple sandy ones. Unfortunately, 7-10 of hers were extremely sandy. In fact, the mussels were served in a white wine, garlic butter, and Aleppo pepper broth, and while the broth in the other 3 portions at the table was this beautiful hue of orange, my wife’s was darker due to the sand. I tried a couple and the amount of sand/grit just turned me off. The dish was inedible.*

My father in law had the mussels as an app, and the duck special. First, his mussels were fine, although he didn’t have much broth to go with the homemade crostini served with the dish. The duck...he asked for it medium rare (the way duck should be), unfortunately, it came out medium/medium well. There were some medium rare pieces but most were overcooked. The duck had some amazing flavor though!

I ordered pan fried oysters and a braised lamb shank special. The pan fried oysters were a HUGE disappointment. First, they only came 5 to an order...not even a half dozen. Second, they were TINY! The problem with tiny pan friend oysters? They get really tough. Plus it wasn’t really filling at all. They were set on top of black beans (that were uncooked), and it had lettuce chiffonaded under the oyster (which was mentioned in the food description) but it didn’t do anything for the dish. It was a waste.

The lamb shank, this thing was HUGE! It was described as being braised with tomato and rosemary, and while I did get a hint of rosemary, the tomato flavor was not there. In fact, there wasn’t any of the braising liquid served with the shank. It was served on top of some grits with rainbow carrots. There were a couple carrot rounds on my plate, but that was it. The dish was good, the lamb super tender and moist, a wee bit under seasoned, but not awful. I probably won’t order it again.

Another party of 7 were seated on the other side of the wall, and they complained about the service to their server, a dirty blonde woman (the same one who gave us issues regarding tables and seating earlier), who said “yup, people keep coming in I’m the only server down here, and who would think it would be busy?” Well....it’s a Friday night, in a skiing area, between Christmas and New Years....what do you expect?!? This is also the model employee who screamed through the restaurant saying “I’ve got a party of three, put those tables together!” And other such nonsense. While people were eating! She needs a course in professionalism.

The restaurant had probably 30-40 tables which is too much for 1 or 2 servers. Management needs to hire more people!! Especially during winter/Christmas break.

*We did inform Chris about the sandy mussels. He said he would talk to the kitchen and see what could be done. He got so busy with his other tables, no alternatives were offered to my wife, although the dish was taken off the bill. Not really what we were looking for since my wife didn’t have anything to eat but 3 pieces of pork belly.

I said earlier that Chris was a great server...and he was, unfortunately, he not only had to bartend, he also had 4 or 5 other tables ranging from our 6 top to parties of 2-4. He was overworked. He did not check on us after our food was delivered, which was because he was too busy! We ran out of water, we needed more wine, none of these requests would be filled. There were other runners/assistants running around but they ignored us and others.

Great job by Chris, but there needs to be improvements to...

First off, I was so happy to hear that the Binnekill Restaurant was going to reopen. I and my wife frequently dined in the restaurant when it was previously owned by Walter and Jackie. I was even more happy when I read the press release that the new owners were going to include some of the favorites that Walter had on the menu. While I normally do not go to a new restaurant until they have been open for a couple of weeks to give them sometime to shake out the bugs. We decided that we were going to give them a shot a week after they opened. I made the reservation using open table without any problems. When we arrived at the date and time of our reservation we warmly greeted and taken to our table. The first two things we noticed is the lack of lighting, We all like subtle lighting during dinner. This was way lower then that to the point you could not read the menu. The next thing the peaceful quite dining experience we were used to was gone. The new owners removed the partition walls and the carpet off the floor. The noise level was defining so forget the idea of a quiet and romantic dinner as a mater of fact forget about talking to anyone since you can’t hear anything over the noise of the other people trying to talk to each other. The waitress stops at our table and welcomes us and leaves a menu. After looking at the menu it becomes quickly apparent that most of the items on the Binnekill Taverns website are not on the menu. Getting over this the short ribs sounded good. When the waitress returned we asked if they had a drink menu and she promptly brought us one. The wine menu was bizarre it listed wines such as Chardonnay with a price but did list what the brand of the wine. I brazenly ordered a 40 dollar of Chardonnay not knowing if it would be made by Barefoot or Kendal Jackson. We proceed to place our meal order I order the cauliflower soup and the short ribs; my wife orders the smoked trout salad and the Margreteville Duck. The waitress leaves and quickly returns and said they are out of the short ribs. I look at the menu again and decide to go with the skillet chicken. The waitress returns with a bottle of wine opens it pours the wine in both mine and my wife’s glass sets the bottle on the table and leaves. I guess that the normal process of showing the bottle label, pouring a sample pour and putting the wine in a chiller at the table was not going to happen. One of the staff members comes over and talks about the lack of lighting and states that they have ordered diffusers for the lights, so this will be improved and apologizes. Our appetizers come out my soup was just OK and my wife’s salad was bland. Were more hopeful the main course will be better. The main course took forever and the same staff member that told us about the lighting told us our meal would be out shortly on two different occasions and apologized for the delay. My wife truly enjoyed the Duck. The chicken in my meal was overcooked to the point of being dry and almost inedible. This was disappointing since the reduction sauce; Brussel sprouts and bacon were incredible. I decided to continue eating as long as you took a fork full of the chicken with the other ingredients it was barely edible. The waitress returns after we finish and ask if we would like dessert. Me and my wife order the desert just to complete the experience. My wife ordered the warm chocolate bombe cake and I order the ricotta cheese cake a coffee with a sambuca. The desserts come out my cheese cake is good my wife said hers was dry and not very good. The coffee is good but the sambuca come out in a rock bottom glass without 3 coffee beans. Bottom line the place needs time to mature and get there act polished and perfected. A meal for two that was upwards of 150 dollars you would expect better an overall better fine dining experience. We will revisit the Binnekill Tavern in a couple of months to see if they have improved. Sorry for the wordy but...

Honestly, it’s very nice place and the food was delicious. However, I am rating this restaurant one star because of the experience. As someone who has worked in the hospitality business and as a bartender for years, friendly staff and a positive atmosphere is what can make or break any establishment. My party and I had made a reservation hours prior and even chose to have a later reservation so that the restaurant didn’t have the stress of accommodating us. Upon arriving, our table was not ready and the bartender/manager could not give us an answer on when it would be ready. It was about 8PM and we were all hungry so naturally we asked about the delay and were expecting to be told “it should be ready any minute now” (as most customers would). Instead, the bartender/manager was sensitive enough to take this to heart and backlash on our group for the entire evening. Not only did he have a horrible attitude but he was slamming drinks (even broke a few glasses which is pathetic), and continued to berate his own staff members from across the restaurant by yelling/pointing in their faces and continuously pointing back at our table. This would make anyone incredibly uncomfortable and frustrated and thus ruined the experience for not only us but for those around us as well. As I said, for someone who’s worked in the business it’s your job to accommodate and bite your tongue in situations where customers are being assertive. They reserved a table at a certain time and they should be seated within a few minutes of that time! Having an attitude towards us was appalling and incredibly...