setting the table
Just a moment
We opened Gather & Grain in 2019 because we were tired of cooking food we didn't recognize. Five years in, the answer is still the same: cook what's here, treat the people who grew it like collaborators, feed the room.
When we left New York City in 2017, we didn't have a plan so much as we had an instinct. Lena had been on the line at Chez Panisse and Blue Hill at Stone Barns; Cole had spent six years at the front of house at Eleven Madison Park. We were good at our jobs and tired in a way that wasn't about hours. We wanted to cook for people we'd know by name. We wanted to source from people we'd shake hands with. We wanted, mostly, to slow down enough to do one thing well.
“A restaurant is just a long argument with the season. We're lucky to live in a season worth arguing with.”
Two years before opening, they spent a year cooking pop-ups in Hudson Valley breweries and renting from local farmers.
Bought a 1903 dairy barn outside Rhinebeck and spent eight months stripping it back to studs, together with their dads.
Forty-eight seats, twelve dishes, one dishwasher (Cole). Sold out the first weekend. Sold out every weekend since.
The New York Times calls Gather & Grain "one of the most quietly excellent restaurants in the Hudson Valley this decade."
Lena trained at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and cooked the line at Chez Panisse before coming home to the Hudson Valley. She designs the menu around what's at the farm gate.
Cole spent six years at the front of house at Eleven Madison Park. He runs the dining room, builds the wine list, and knows every regular's name within two visits.
Mateo runs the hearth. Trained in Catalonia, obsessed with smoke, fermentation, and the art of doing one thing perfectly.
Iris built our wood-fired bread program. Her sourdough has its own following on Instagram. She also makes every dessert.
Some of the people who actually feed you. We're lucky to know them, and you should too.
Pasture-raised lamb, heritage pork, organic vegetables. Three generations of farmers, two greenhouses, one philosophy: slower is better.
Glass-bottle milk, cultured butter, crème fraîche from a single Holstein herd. We use their butter on every plate of bread.
Stone-milled flours from heritage grains. Powers our sourdough, our polenta, our pasta. One mill, one miller.
Maitake, lion's mane, oyster, chestnut. Whatever Henry has in flush is what's on the plate this week.
...and a dozen more. The full sourcing list is on the back of every menu.
If the tomatoes aren't ripe in November, we won't put them on the plate. There's a reason root vegetables exist.
We cook generous, honest plates. If you want six tiny dots of foam, we'll point you to a wonderful place an hour south.
Your table is yours for the evening. We turn fewer covers than we could. The room feels better that way.