Orange Hill Restaurant, Newburgh, NY — Restaurant in Town of Newburgh

I travel for a living, which is a luxury that allows for me to explore many eateries and fine dining establishments. I recently stopped by Orange Hill on my way through the area, and my impressionn of here is that this place deserves it's rating as a fine dining restaurant IF you've never left Newburgh.

Yes I know, it's listed as an American Restaurant, which would be fine if it was, but there's a very big identity crisis going on here.

Let's start with the building. While the outside leaves much to be desired, the interior is very nice and things are set up to look and feel rather like a fine dining establishment, or it's at least doing is best to look like one. The tables are set up just as welcoming as you'd expect, white cloth and proper glasses and all. Even the staff have a professional look like you'd see in one. But that's where this experience kind of ends.

The staff: they're all dressed in manners of how they should be, though it was with to tell if they have a specific wardrobe that is uniform across the attire, or if they're just give "black dress pants, black dress shirt" as a goal and sent off in to the world to find it. But, that's not more of a nitpick than an issue. While staff is quick to be attentive, there's no going over the menu, no suggesting wines that pair well with a chosen meal, or anything of the like. To add insult to injury, at the end of the meal, I asked for things to be boxed up, only to have the server return with the check and lost puppy dog eyes when I asked "where are the boxes with my food you took?" When told he threw them away, I wasn't offered a replacement or a minor discount in return. Just the check, and that's final.

To be fair, I wasn't even that upset because of the food. Ok, maybe a little miffed, but that's only because the swordfish was the only good part of the meal. I had a Beet Salad, Creamed Spinach, and Pan-Seared Swordfish. The creamed spinach itself very much tasted like the kind I get from Bird's Eye or Viola in the frozen food section, albeit swimming in much more cream. I question if the spinach was actually even fresh. The Beet Salad was decent, but even for a salad, seemed to lack flavor or anything exciting to make it really stand out. The Pan Seared Swordfish was good and well cooked, and tartar sauce on it was tasty enough. The.. Roasted? Stewed? Not sure what the were veggies were good but not great, which I believe considered of eggplant, squash, and mushrooms. It also came with ONE tiny florette of cauliflower, and one of broccoli. The potatoes? Simple chopped up fried tiny potato squares you'd get at a Denny's with a $12 meal Grand Slam Breakfast. Needless to say, between barely any flavor and par or less ingredients, the food here leaves a lot to be desired and falls quite short of the vibe or image it's going for.

I left her rather confused and less than whelmed about it all. Perhaps they will improve and maybe I'll be back if I'm ever down this way again, but the chance there...

My parents have been raving about orange hill for a while, so we decided to take them out this past weekend for their Brunch Buffet. This review is going to focus on the buffet, and not the rest of their services.

First off, the location is quite lovely, and the restaurant is well decorated, leading to a great atmosphere. However, the tables in the front of the restaurant by the windows are substantially worse than the main dining room. You're by the kitchen, so you hear and smell everything -- including grill cleaning, which happened at least once during our brunch, giving us an unpleasant odor of smoke and cleaners while we were trying to eat.

The selection of the buffet was respectable, and most everything was freshly made. Having a waffle, omelette, and meat station is a great touch. Some pretty egregious failures on the menu: the fried chicken. They tasted like unseasoned, frozen nugget; not even a tender or boneless wing. This needs to improve dramatically, as it was worse than flavorless-- the skin was dissolving into mush and tasted watery.

Overall the rest of the food quality was good. Not great-- I actually had to double take the verify we were in fact at a restaurant and not in one of the surrounding airport hotels having a breakfast buffet. A little more variety and attention to detail would've elevated this experience a bit more so it didn't feel like a hotel lobby buffet.

The cost of the drinks was astronomical. Only the coffee was appropriately priced at $1.50 a cup, but cocktails were 15-20 each, and juices started at $5 for watery concentrates. Instead of offering a full bar, focus on brunch specials (Bellini, Mimosa, Bloody Mary), and either bring the price down or include one with the cost of the buffet.

Finally, the service wasn't great at all. When making the reservation, we had requested the main dining room, and while I understand capacity issues, it would've been nice to get a disclaimer. Further, when taking drink orders, our waiter was highly inattentive, had us repeating coffee orders several times when asking for basic things like milk and sugar, and overall made us feel rushed instead of welcome. We were actually short changed when paying with cash and had to advocate for our bill to get correct change back. Overall, we didn't get a general feeling of hospitality during this service.

I'd like to go back and try their standard services as the food does look significantly better, but honestly the brunch felt very out of place, under thought, and poorly executed. I will not be returning for...

Holy smokes! This place was such a great and pleasant surprise. It was a rainy day when my wife and I went to this place and I wasn't ready for a "fancy dinner" but i do like Indian food so thought I'd give it a try. Even though I wasn't ready for a "nice" meal out this place totally won me over by the end.

First: The Service Absolute top notch service. They were very pleasant servers and we felt at ease and comfortable the whole time.

Second: Ambiance This location is definitely on par for a "date night" out with your loved one(s). The decor is very classy and tables are set with a full set of flatware, cloth napkins and white table cloths. They also had ample space to respect social distancing guidelines. They have a wonderful selection of music the whole time which gave a great feeling the whole time we were there

Third: THE FOOD Saving best for last... Just to say this place absolutely nails the whole "eating with your eyes" everything we ordered was plated so beautifully and that made it all the more an even more exquisite experience.

We had a few appetizers. Started with the warmed dinner rolls they serve with whipped butter. Next was the steamed mussels which were drenched in this amazing sauce. Very tender also, we weren't fighting the mussels haha. My wife ordered the mushroom bisque and the crab cakes for her dinner. The bisque was creamy and savory. The crab cakes were perfectly browned, perfect crunch to the outside, and creamy delicious inside of crab stuff. I ordered the Tikka Masala. OMG that's the best I've ever had! And that's saying alot Bc I've eaten at some great places in NY City which is tough competition. The Tikka was so savory and the meat so tender. Vegetables were perfectly steamed and the rice perfectly cooked.

For dessert we enjoyed the creme brulee. It had three flavors and all were very rich and perfectly browned also!

Lastly the drinks, we were able to take advantage of happy hour and I got 2 beers, my wife: the orange Spritz. Great selection of drinks!

Through and through this was one of the best meals I've eaten in the Hudson valley. What a great surprise we've found. And it didn't even break the bank for all that goodness we enjoyed! Obviously we'll be going back to enjoy more of their heavenly selection...