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Quince jam in a poached pear playfully evokes sunny eggs in a dessert.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union<\/p>\n
Despite being so very full, I couldn\u2019t help but tempt just one more bite of the pear, fragrant and heady from a long bath in rosemary-infused white wine. Cleaved in two, its halves required one to first shatter the brul\u00e9e\u00a0of glassy sugar glazing its surface before spooning into its luscious interior. At the center of each was a sultry orange dollop of jammy quince, playfully suggesting two sunny eggs in a winking rendition of breakfast for dessert at The Feathers tavern, the restaurant of The Six Bells inn in Rosendale.<\/p>\n
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This clever effect was underscored by a milky pool of almond and mascarpone cream and a scatter of granola that had been roasted in honey and honeycomb sourced from the bees down the road, tended to by Pollinator Spirits in the Catskills. Our server was particularly excited to extol this latter fact, explaining how the use of the whole honeycomb by The Feathers\u2019 chef,\u00a0Larkin Young, renders a more complex, deeper honey flavor and chewier texture to what might otherwise be simply granola.<\/p>\n
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The Feathers at The Six Bells<\/p>\n
Address: 435 Main St., Rosendale Content and tucked cozily into a merlot-red velvet L-booth seat, I considered these merits of whole honey, feeling entirely like a particular storybook bear: \u201c\u2018Well,\u2019 said Pooh, \u2018what I like best,\u2019 and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn\u2019t know what it was called.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, at The Feathers, eating honey is a very (very) good thing to do\u00a0\u2014 and so is eating everything else on the menu.<\/p>\n In a dining landscape saturated with New American restaurants, Young deems his style of cooking Early American, taking a farm-to-table and ingredient-first approach to traditional, primarily Pennsylvania Dutch-inspired cooking. This subtle difference in culinary philosophy is felt: The menu, developed with consultation with Westerly Inn\u2019s Molly Levine, is comforting but never cloying, historical but not stodgy. It feels akin to other recent gestures toward country-living romanticism, particularly Clare de Boer\u2019s much-lauded Stissing House<\/a> in Pine Plains\u00a0\u2014 even the menu\u2019s typeface, a scratchy handwritten serif, is nearly identical.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Young\u2019s take is a tidy balance of familiarity and originality. To that end, he deploys potatoes abundantly, with distinction at every turn. As potato croquettes, they were velvety, subtly sweet and piping hot, encased in a crisp, barely there breading and punched up with a sprinkle of cured egg yolk shavings and chives. The tuber stole the show as mashed potatoes, an ostensible supporting act accompanying tender strips of flatiron steak, luxuriously cloaked in a uniquely fragrant, smoked-eggplant demiglace. Two roasted rounds of potatoes functioned as wholesome, fluffy palate cleansers for an unctuous spread of crispy duck breast and seared duck rillette in a rich jus. Each iteration of potato announced itself proudly as purposeful and unmissable.<\/p>\n Potato croquettes\u00a0are dusted by cured egg yolk and chives. The kitchen excels in all of its varied\u00a0preparations of potatoes.<\/p>\n Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union Duck breast is accompanied by duck rillettes atop potato rounds and garnished with endive and watercress.<\/p>\n Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union<\/p>\n Save for a fabulous-looking mushroom pot pie, there weren\u2019t many vegetarian entrees on the menu. This, however, was offset by a vegetable-forward selection of sides and starters sized to share.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n I can\u2019t remember the last time a salad dressing made as profound an impression on me as pear-balsamic vinaigrette did at The Feathers. Slightly tangy but with rounded depth, it clung to the undulating red oakleaf folds with miraculous precision, not a drop left to pool on the plate. Black Futsu, a rare Japanese squash variety, showcased the season\u2019s bounties beautifully when roasted in maple and tossed in spiced apple butter and a cinnamon-apple cider vinaigrette.\u00a0<\/p>\n A salad of red oakleaf lettuce boasts a remarkable pear-balsamic vinaigrette.<\/p>\n Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union Black\u00a0Futsu, an uncommon Japanese squash variety, is roasted in maple and tossed in spiced apple butter and a cinnamon-apple cider vinaigrette.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union<\/p>\n Like the food menu, the tavern\u2019s beverage offerings are focused, with beer and cider trending toward local selections from West Kill Brewing, Keegan Ales and Return Brewing. The wine list feels contemporary but classic, seeming to favor the siltier, mineral-forward terroirs of Italy, France, Austria and Oregon\u2019s Willamette Valley\u00a0\u2014 and for an establishment catering to millennial tastes and trends, there is surprisingly only one skin-contact (orange) wine.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The greater priority here seems to be the craft cocktails, which are developed seasonally by bartender Ryan Schoenau. While a more lively sprig of rosemary would have been preferred over the one we were served in the bouCharred Cherub, the drink itself proved lovely, its smokiness pairing perfectly with our meal. I also enjoyed mulled cider, which was spiced more than sweet.<\/p>\n Mulled cider, left, skews more spiced than sweet.\u00a0At right is the Charred Cherub cocktail.<\/p>\n Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union<\/p>\n Signature blue-and-white sponge-painted enamelware formed the not-so-blank canvas for each dish. Though attractive at first, or pretty to look at when empty, I found the look a bit busy after a while, distracting from Young\u2019s already festive plating. Still, I get the gambit: The Six Bells began, after all, as a home-goods shop in Brooklyn selling a particular vision of a simpler life\u00a0\u2014 Grandma Moses but sexy, toeing the line of trad-wife fantasy and laborless domesticity. It is a vision crafted meticulously by designer Adam Greco and Audrey Gelman, the latter a millennial tastemaker and founder of The Wing, a women-only workspace that collapsed<\/a> in a pandemic- and controversy-fueled whirlwind in 2021.<\/p>\n Part of me is embarrassed to admit how much I thoroughly enjoyed my time at The Six Bells, open for about six months. Decked in boughs of holly and ribbon for the holidays, its cozy-cottage aesthetics and old-world charms feel (and were) developed specifically to prey on sentimental millennials like myself, exhausted by the AI-driven detachment of the present and future, craving sensory pleasures. As Gelman told the New York Times over the summer for a feature story on the inn, \u201cPreserving things that feel human in a world where everything is becoming automated. \u2026 Creating anything analog today is like a stand of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n An escape into fantasy is all too tempting; Gelman makes good use of the moment.<\/p>\n Open since June, The Six Bells, an 11-room inn on Main Street in\u00a0Rosendale, was created by designer Adam Greco and\u00a0millennial tastemaker Audrey Gelman in a hotel building built in 1850. Its country tavern\/restaurant is called The Feathers.<\/p>\n Shannon Lee\/For the Times Union<\/p>\n
Prices: $14 to $16 starters and sides to share; $30 to $48 entrees; wine, $15 to $19 by the glass; cocktails, $17 to $20; beer and cider, $7 to $10
Hours:Dinner, 5 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday; brunch, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekends
Info: 845-658-2047 and thesixbellshotel.com\/restaurant<\/a>
Etc.: Hotel parking. ADA-accessible. Reservations recommended.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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