We went to celebrate Father's Day a week late as a group of 7 ranging from age 11 70. Â We had heard about this place for many years and were eager to try it because of Chef Novi's fantastic reputation. Â
The ambiance was beautiful: rustic, eclectic, wide board planks, intimate carved out spaced rooms.....all the things that made the atmosphere unusual and special.
The service was perfect: attentive, helpful, not overbearing. Â No problem taking a family photo, fielding questions from the peanut gallery or complaints from the 70 year old Father who was being honored. Â The Grandpa felt the bloody mary was too spicy so the server took it upon himself to have it removed from the bill. Â We loved the server's style and he appreciated our group's dynamics from the beginning. Â Many kudos to our young red haired server for being attentive, funny, and flexible.
The food: eclectic. Â The fish and meat were fantastic. Â Nice portion sizes, good and unusual side pairings......waffles with not sweet chocolate sauce for the steak?? It worked . Â We all made some eyes at each other for Grandma ordering carrot ribbon pasta with ricotta??? It was delicate and delicious with the bolognese sauce.
The duck sausage empenadas were fine. Â We make our own and have wonderful friends who own an Argentinian restaurant so we are spoiled in our expectations.
The desserts were thoughtful and delicious. Â The signature chocolate and olive oil cake were a hit amongst the 7 of us . Â It was not overly sweet and one the olive oil gave it an interesting texture and creaminess. The majority liked the blueberry tart.
We would recommend it for a special occasion given the limited menu and price. Â We would definitely go back. Â The 70 year old Matriarch has already called it for our next Father's day celebration. Â If that is not a ringing endorsement, then I do not know what is!
We recently spent four nights in the High Falls area.  We had nice meals at the Northern Spy, Beekman Arms, and Rock and Rye, but nothing came close to the Canal House.  We were delighted to hear that it had reopened since we had celebrated Thanksgiving with our family there many years ago.  I read a review complaining about the food and service, and I am wondering if we were eating at the same place?? John Novi, along with CIA staff,  has carefully chosen the best possible recipe of each menu category, such as the fabulous arugula salad served in a rice paper pastry with this "to die"  for cauliflower soufflé on the side.  The pasta and fish entrees were so delicious, and we also had a cheese course with slices of local cheeses as well as a cheese John has made himself. My sister found the foie gras to be better than she had in France!  As for the reviewer that complained about how long he waited on the soufflé, an experienced diner realizes that the soufflé order is placed early in the evening because of time to prepare.  This chocolate soufflé was the best that I have ever eaten.  We were pleasantly surprised with this remarkable meal that will long be remembered.  From the enchanting old inn to the interesting photos on the walls in the bar to the beautiful place settings, it is a delight.  It is a place locals and tourist should cherish.  It cost no more than any other good restaurant in the area. John deserves your support with his gallant undertaking and the area needs this exquisite restaurant.  Oh, and check out the candles sticks and the slate placemats and the antique half-moon canape dishes.......I could go on and on!
Review Source:Went for Easter. The building is fantastic. Check out the kitchen if you can.. I've never seen anything like it.
The food was not good. I wanted to like it so badly. But it was dish after dish of weird combinations and poor executions.The foie gras had a very strange texture and was completely overshadowed by the sogginess of the french toast. The brisket in the empanadas was mushy and tasteless. The soaked bagel in the lobster roe broth just didn't make any sense at all and was not pleasing. Then to serve it with clams with melted american cheese over them? I couldn't finish it. It was disgusting. There was nothing likable about the dish. The cheese plate was very nice actually. His maitake cheese was particularly delicious, and somehow the avocado even worked with the plate. But then it was served with focaccia (more like puffy pizza dough) with actual tomato sauce and pesto. The pesto.... great. But none of it made any sense together. Serious clashing going on. Why would I want to eat basically pizza at the same time as my cheese plate that has avocado, caramelized clementine, honey, etc? It's just weird. The desserts were great. And not that it normally matters to me, but the server was really kind but definitely nervous and borderline unprofessional.
Maybe this stuff made sense in the 70's. I don't know. But no matter how I tried to look at it, I just didn't "get" it. Cool place, bad food. Sorry Chef :(
My wife and I had a dinner here on Saturday, March 30th. I had been here before once long ago and was very thrilled with the place. This second time I was a shade less impressed but nonetheless satisfied.
We went with a prix fix menu for $85 each. It started with an hors d'oeuvre of salami, hummus, and a bugle chip (really!) with a little crouton covered in spiced chocolate. It was smartly served in a candle holder that looked it was meant for the task and fit in well with the antique-y and eclectic decor. I had then an appetizer of heart of escarole lemon-dressed in poppadum lentil bowl with cauliflower frittata. That was good enough for my wife to keep stealing bites of it. For my entree I had troutlings and clam bouillabaisse wit lobster, whitefish and spinach. That was a departure from my normally land-based carnivorous desires and I was glad to do it for I found I liked the smokey, delicaet taste of the trout. We had a cheese plate after that, made of all cheeses from Harpersfield, NY that were very delicious, then finally a dessert taster that had strawberries, chocolate cake, mousse and a few other things that I cannot recall that all tasted great nonetheless.
We were slightly disappointed with the inside temperature of the place being rather cold. I would gladly go again, however. the place is a rustic, old house and cozy. It is a great find for anyone travelling through and looking for something above diners and burger stands.
The staff were very friendly and knowledgeable, and not at all intrusive, overbearing or pretentious. They were just right.
This restaurant has great historic ambiance and takes you back 200 years. The staff and service were great and pleasant. Unfortunately this is where the pleasantries ended. The food was one of the most inedible plain disgusting combination of ingridients that didnt work togather at all. Not even in experimental way. Everything lacked flavor and depth and all dishes resembled a plate of hasty assembled leftovers. For example: beef brisket consisted of few slices of boiled beef plopped on a slice of boiled sweet potato , all the above covered in ground beef marinara sauce mixed with canned (!) String beans. This nugget of "culinary brilliance" was garnished with two cherry tomatos a piece of corn sliced off the cobb and a beet roset. My wife's food was just as bad. Filet mingnon about 4 oz plopped on same sweet potato and covered with same bolognese sause(???) Garnished the same. Price each $32 dollars. The chef must be delusional. Please learn how to cook or sell this great location to someone who knows how.
Review Source:The service is very bad and slow!!!! Overall the food was good but when we had their chocolate souffle which has been on the menu for ever it was burnt and rubbery. Â When I brought that to their attention they did nothing and charged us the $14. Â Because of this I will not go back nor will I recommend this place to anyone. Â They need to be accountable when they do not serve acceptable food.
Review Source:What a disappointment!.  Read the great reviews and we were excited to try this place.  Service was SO slow.  The restaruant was not even half full, but our dinner took forever.  Very limited menu ( three entrees).  And the entrees were strange combinations of the main item surrounded by lots of "things" that were in no way related.  The fish entree had brown rice "risotto", salsa, a pickled beet, a strip of corn cut from the cob  - really just a strange mash-up of ingredients.  My husband ordered a souffle, which took forever and was still undercooked.  The servers seemed to forget we existed.   We asked for salt, which arrived in a shaker that consisted of a solid block of salt ( probably left outside in the humidity all summer)
NOT worth the high price.
I think it is interesting that the reviews here tend to be one star or five stars. Â While everyone has different tastes, I really am wondering if the one star raters just don't understand the food they are being served? Â I was with a party of 4 that had brunch this past Sunday (July 29). Â We've eaten at good restaurants like Per Se, Manresa, and several restaurants in France. Â And so we can understand when a chef is being witty and imaginative, we don't just think it is "odd" or "weird" when that happens.
We took a cold bottle of Champagne (corkage $15) and started with the corn pudding soup. Â John takes an interesting approach to soups, and he tends to include dry ingredients, like the tasty corn pudding, with the liquid being layers of sauce. Â We all thought it was tasty and interesting. Â Then my wife had the Branzino (Dorade) which we thought was nicely cooked, and not particularly salty, with a kale risotto that made a nice foil for the fish. Â I had the trout filet appetizer as my main course, and I loved the fact that visually it looked like a Japanese sashimi platter. Â What looked like the pink pickled ginger, was actually onions. Â The tobiko or flying fish roe made an orange stripe along the edge of the fish, which was really what you would get in the Japanese dish. Â But the flavor of the fish, locally smoked, was very American/European, and not at all Japanese. Â This kind of playfulness is what makes eating out fun and I appreciated it.
Our friends had the quinoa tart and the empanada (with short ribs) and really enjoyed both.  We split the chocolate soufflé four ways as dessert.
And we thought the service was friendly and gracious, of course the place was largely empty when we arrived but it filled up during our meal. Â Personally I think that if you understand what John is doing you are really going to enjoy eating at the Canal House. Â If you want a pizza, go elsewhere.
I really want to love the Canal House. It's a beautiful spot with so much potential. But the food is ALWAYS mediocre (and odd!), and the service is atrocious. Not "hey, it's slow and just sit back and relax" service, but "wow, how long does one need to wait for a glass of water & do you know anything about the ment?" service. Before The Last Bite opened next door, it was kind of the only (fancy) game in town. We would give it a try every couple of weeks because we want to support local business, but we've eaten our last meal there.
A bit more about the food. I don't know where I've seen a more odd menu. Why not just keep it SIMPLE? Good food does not need to have every ingredient in the pantry. There is so much good, local food to be had in the Hudson Valley. GET SOME OF IT, and prepare it simply. Oh, and 86 the sushi. SUSHI? Really? And for the love of God, retire that Carrot Reel Pasta.
Look at Cucina or Boitson's or even The Last Bite for examples of good, unfussy food.
We stopped at Depuy Canal House for brunch on a Saturday afternoon heading for Lake Minnewaska. High Falls is at the northern loop of the scenic byway entering the Shawangunks. This was a fantastic brunch.
First some history on the restaurant. It is a registered National Historic Landmark. This weekend celebrated its 43rd anniversary in operation under the loving care of owner John Novi. A Brooklyn native, he bought the house when he was 19 years old in 1967, but he did not open the restaurant until he had spent a couple years in Italy learning how to run a kitchen. When he returned and set up shop, his business was an instant hit, garnering much acclaim. It was recently shuttered, however, and has only reopened for weekends.
It's a gorgeous space filled with antiques. There are several dining rooms, though we preferred the front barroom. The staff were friendly and talkative. Most were high school students and the oldest was 23. In the kitchen, the owner has reinstated his Culinary Institue of America membership, and there are externs working alongside him.
I ordered from the brunch menu and had the bouffarette with house cured salmon. The other choice was Canadian bacon. But the dish is something like an onion bialy served with the incredible salmon, beet greens, a poached egg and Hollandaise. My mimosa was fresh squeezed OJ, cava and a shot of Patron Silver. The cocktails were imaginative with my companion's bloody mary tasting very fresh with celery salt and grated horseradish from their garden. He ordered a "Taste of the Hudson Valley Blue Ribbon Award" winning carrot pasta reel (a bit like cannelloni but a wheel) filled with ricotta and steamed then served with either marinara or bolognese sauce. The menu is accommodating toward vegetarians.
We went back to the kitchen and delivered our compliments personally to the chef. I left my email to add to the mailing list to collect the occasional recipe.
I came here for its first opening in about a year, and judging by the other reviews it has only gotten worse. The only good thing I ate here was the tiny little, very cute special omelette caviar tart they served us before our appetizers. This set me up with an expectation that the rest of the food would be just as good, or at least decent. Sadly, it was not.
My appetizer was a gnocchi tomato soup with... That fake crab stuff they use in California Roll sushi. Weird. The combination of favors was jarring and slightly gross. The tomato soup itself was bland. The focaccia bread they served with tomatoes, poppy seeds and a LOT of pepper on top. A LOT. I had two bites and that was more than enough.
My main course was a Quinoa Tart. What I got was a mushroom, a couple leaves of spinach on top of a bed of soggy quinoa. Literally the only edible thing on the plate was the mushroom, which was very salty. My friend got the veal...however they also served it with a cut-open leg bone, and you were supposed to eat the marrow put of it with a fork. Gruesome.
Since every course we'd had had gotten progressively worse, we decided to skip whatever horrors dessert might offer us and got the check.
I went just last night for Valentine's Day and had an exquisite experience. Â The wait staff were friendly and attentive. Â the food came out at a wonderfully refreshing pace. Â And the creativity, tastes, preparation, and presentation were all top notch. Â where else can you fina a tender smoked duck placed on top of a portobello mushroom with miso eggplant, spinach roasted red pepper and caramelized onion mix (not to mention the fois gras on the side) and have it taste delectable and with the flavors of each ingredient bursting in your mouth. Â A truly magnificient experience.
Review Source:I think this place is very inconsistent and for the money I will no longer play spin the wheel. The owner seems to have a huge problem keeping staff and I have never seen the same people there twice. I once saw a bartender quit on the spot after a yelling match with the owner. Very expensive and not always good. The one consistent plus: beautiful building.
Review Source:Beautiful Inn, terrible food! The restaurant is gorgeous and the decor is so nice. But the "award winning dishes" we had were so awful, I took a few bites and literally could not eat it. We decided to order a pizza in addition to our entrees, hoping this would change our minds, and fill our hungry bellies. What was so bizarre was that we ordered a Margarita Pizza, and the waiter told me that we could order this, however it would have to be without basil as they were out! - Um, so basically I would be ordering a regular cheese pizza? How could a restaurant be out of basil?
Anyway, we ordered a cheese pizza instead which took ages to arrive. By the time we got it I was starving, took one bite and it was not worth the wait. Very mediocre. We canceled our souffle and asked for the check. The ladies at the front were pleasant, but our waiter seemed a bit disgruntled. Sadly I don't think we will be giving Depuy Canal House a second chance. Â :(
I've gone here twice for restaurant week. Â The service is good while the food can be mixed. Â I found the entrees to be stellar while the appetizers have been appetizers have been mixed. Â Make sure you go on a night that the head chef is working, otherwise you'll miss out on their chocolate souffle. Oh, and their grapefruit/orange/lemon citrus water (they have slices of each fruit on the bottom of the water pitcher) is delightfully refreshing.
Review Source:This is one of the places that should be at the top of everyone's list.
BUT, it's way too erratic in taste and finish.  I've had a long meal with a group of serious eaters.  It was a high end set menu.  The ideas were very impressive.  They were able to snatch  defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I couldn't believe how they could screw up continuously with such talent and skill. Â I was flat out disappointed and still am with their food. I'v e driven past many times and never stopped again. Â It's good, but it's not $75 good.
This is my favorite restaurant in all of NY. Period. I can't believe it hasn't received rave reviews across the board. True, you wait for the food - but that just gives you more time to enjoy the quaint, homey ambiance and savor each bite that you KNOW is cooked (or baked) just for you. This Depuy perfectly balances a warm friendly atmosphere and staff who aren't stuffy with a menu and presentation that are as good as it gets. The ingredients are incredible fresh and combined in excited and unexpected ways. It is worth every mile of the drive from NYC - and then some.
Review Source:After an amazing experience here 2 years ago I was really excited to come again, but I have to say that this place is just not the same. Â The waitstaff was completely clueless about the menu as if he had never eaten any of it. Â He recommended the "Carrot Pasta Reel" and it was the most horrid meal ever. Â It was supposed to be a pasta dish, but was about 90% ricotta cheese (cold) and in a bolognese sauce that was so salty I could barely eat it. Â I have no idea why it has supposedly won a "Hudson Valley Blue Ribbon" award. Â I have to think that something has gone wrong as this recipe got handed down from the original chef. Â I had a nive fois gras appetizer, and the biscuits were still the fresh, delicious biscuits I remember, but our main meails (my husband had the burger which would have been a standard burger at any place we went to) left us wondering why we came in the first place. Â If people come here reading that it's a James Beard award winner and 4 star NYT restaurant like I did, then that means delivering on the expectation of something more than good pizzas and burgers. Â Come here to see the tavern because it's a historical landmark. Â Not for the food.
Review Source:After all the reviews I read I was so excited to try this place out. Â I made reservations ahead of time. Â My boyfriend and I had decided to go climbing in the Gunks after a business trip in Boston. Â The morning of the reservation (granted it was a sunday) I got a call that said they would not be opening up the upstairs because of limited reservations but I could eat downstairs with a limited menu. Â Since I am from SF I decided that would be a great way to taste the dishes. Â We were seated in the basement where most people were having pizza. Â The waitresses are over worked and have hardly enough time for each table. Â They don't have enough menus so you have to wait till someone else is done. I told the waitress my dilema and that I really wanted to try the food of the main dinning area. Â She assured me that the chef that was staffed tonight is one of the main chefs that works upstairs. Â We ordered from the limited menu to find out a few of the more popular items were not made this week. OK.... When the rest of the food came I was completely disappointed. Â It was no better than Denny's and not very creative. Â The sauce for the fish tasted like thousand island dressing. Â The food was bland and not worth your while if you are a foody and very expensive for what you got. Â If you want pizza this is the place. Â The sushi is nothing spectacular from what we saw on the menu. Â Better restaurants in New Paltz. Â This was suppose to be a special night out and turned out to be horrible.
Review Source:This was one of the best restaurants that I have ever been to. Honestly not my style of folk who frequent the place but the food was out of this world. Polo playing, waspy doctor types hang out here. It makes sense since one bowl of soup cost $16.
If you have money to burn and really want to experience some fantastic flavors eat at this place.
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