Cathryn's — Restaurant in Town of Philipstown

We were looking for a restaurant to host my father in law's 80th surprise birthday party. My wife chose this one, unfortunately, as it was a disaster from the beginning. She left many messages for the owner, Cathryn, to call her back to make the arrangements. But Cathryn wouldn't call her back. It caused so much anxiety as my wife and her sister had 25 guests coming and they were left in a state of limbo. Do we need to find another location or not? We didn't know. Repeatedly, over the course of several months, (my wife likes to plan and be proactive-especially with a surprise party), Cathryn was incredibly unprofessional. Finally, when my wife was bringing the decorations in on the big day, Cathryn screams at her, "How dare you come into my restaurant and start rearranging things.... Who's going to move that table back!!!???" Of course, the table had been left for us to use. Her incredibly asinine and borderline psychotic approach was dispensed in full force in front of my daughter, whose mouth was agape that someone would speak to her mother that way. She looked like she wanted to cry.

When I walked over, Cathryn again yelled very loudly at me, "Who's going to move that table back!!??" Keep in mind, I had NEVER spoken to this woman in my life and had no idea what she was talking about. Cathryn went on to snap at me, saying, "She called me 17 times and is micromanaging everything" (an extreme exaggeration) as well as hurling some other insults about my wife's handling of the party planning. It was all I could do not to hit her. Did she really think I would be okay with her hurling vile insults about my wife? I responded that maybe if she had returned at least one of my wife's calls, we wouldn't have had to call her back so much. She must have picked up on the anger in my voice because she slinked away.

The food was good and, I have to say, the service was very good. The staff seemed to go out of their way to make up for their boss's nastiness; every person we came into contact with on the staff seemed truly embarrassed by their boss's attitude, and they looked quite experienced at having to defend her insufferable behavior. Judging by other reviews, the owner is just a nasty, miserable person and I would strongly recommend to anyone considering this place as a venue or simply an eatery, to avoid it at all costs. Choose the Riverview instead, their staff is polite and accommodating, and their food...

First the good: the food! Oysters were fresh and briny. I had the quail with prosciutto and foie gras which was quite good, my dining companion had the venison which we both found to be a tad overcooked (ordered rare and it came medium) and under-seasoned but overall not bad.

Now to the bad: we were greeted promptly by Cathryn and promised a table shortly. After twenty minutes (and seeing three other couples seated) we asked when we would be seated and were told that they had forgotten about us, but we would be seated next. This should have been a portent of things to come.

We were seated and were given dinner menus. A few minutes later I asked for some water since no one had poured us any. Several minutes after that I asked if I could have a wine menu, as we'd only been given food menus. With no one else to visit the table for ten minutes after that (bearing in mind that we arrived at the restaurant at 7:15 and it was now 8:20) I asked if we could have some bread.

We placed our order and ordered a bottle of wine. Our server, Elizabeth, came back to ask about the temperature we wanted the venison cooked. In the meantime, three people asked if we wanted a cocktail. I told them we just wanted the bottle of wine we'd ordered. Elizabeth finally came back ten minutes later with the wine, which was the wrong bottle. She assured me that it was the right bottle of barbera d'alba based on the bin number I gave her, however I had ordered a barbera d'asti. We sent her back to get the correct bottle, which she did. It ended up being a really sub-par bottle which I should have rejected (super high acidity unbalanced, etc), but didn't (yes, my fault on this one), as I really wanted to move forward and have a great experience. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

Elizabeth came back to quiz me on why I chose east coast versus west coast oysters because she "just started here" and "I don't know anything about this".

Once the food finally arrived we felt a bit better about our experience, but the initial hour of bad service left a bad taste in our mouths'. While the subsequent food was good, we both left agreeing that while the food in Cold Springs can be delicious, the service surrounding it leaves much to be desired. Next time we'll come to town for the beauty and the quaint shops then head...

10/20/2024

It's interesting that the most recent review had the same exact experience as I did.

Two tables that were seated after us got bread baskets and their water before we did. In fact, we didn't get the TAP water and coke that we ordered until AFTER we got our food. It was obvious that the people in the town were racist and the food was as tasteless as they were.

If you're a person of color, don't bother coming here or stepping foot in this town. You'll be happier and so will the people who live and work here.

Here is my experience here broken down by time:

12:34 PM - Seated 12:38 PM - Drinks order was taken (tap water and coke) 12:43 PM - Food order was taken (2 dishes, 1 soup) 12:48 PM - Bread came out with olive oil, bread was cold (not room temperature - COLD.) Also, I noticed that we received 3 pcs of bread as a table of 3. Looked over at the table next to us and they received 5 pieces (table of 2)... 1:09 PM (35 minutes after being seated) - Food was served (Pizza Margherita, Soup of the day, Fusilli Integrali as Funghi Selvatica) 1:16 PM (42 minutes after being seated) - Tap water came out. 1:18 PM - My coke came out 1:31 PM - Received the check

I don't know why I tipped 20% to be honest. Both the service and the food were extremely disappointing. The pasta was the worst pasta I ever had. It was cooked al dente which is fine, but had no flavor whatsoever. The pizza margherita tasted like someone watched a youtube video on how to make pizza a year ago and then tried making it from memory. Also, who makes pizza margherita without basil? That's just weird. The field greens were good though.

The only reason I'm giving the food 2 stars instead of 1 is because my mom enjoyed her soup. Oh yeah, and they charged $9 for the soup instead of $8 like it says on the menu. Posted the menu and receipt to this review.

And just as a disclaimer, I couldn't care less if a small restaurant takes a long time to bring out food when they're as busy as they were yesterday. My main issue other than the food being bad was how our table was treated...