When it comes to New York City escapes, the Hamptons will always grab the headlines. But increasingly, hungry travelers are heading north, past the upward boundaries of Manhattan and the Bronx to the area loosely known as Upstate New York.
Don’t get too technical with the term: Some people will define it as anywhere north of Yonkers. For our purposes, it’s the expanse of countryside north of Manhattan that follows the boundaries of the Hudson River Valley. It lies north of Westchester and Rockland counties and south of the state’s capital, Albany, stretching east along the state border and west into the Catskill Mountains.
Stratospheric Hamptons real estate has priced out many New Yorkers. Instead, chefs such as Ryan Tate, who ran the kitchen at the notable Le Restaurant in TriBeCa, and restaurateur Taavo Somer, operator of perennially popular Freemans, have turned to small, charming towns like Hudson, Catskill, and Kingston, which offer more bang for the buck in the form of stunningly restored spaces and easy access to fresh and seasonal ingredients that are less expensive than they are in the Big Apple.
