Diners, Distilleries, And Duvets

Thanks To A New Generation Of Chefs And Hoteliers, The Hudson Valley Is Quickly Turning Into The Next Napa Valley. Come For The Food And Drink. Stay For The Alternative Vibes.

- Jeff Gordinier

Let’s start with chicken wings.

Years ago, when he was a teenager in the Hudson Valley, Kristopher Schram put in time in the kitchen of a local pizzeria. Cooking in upstate New York, the regional birthplace of the Buffalo wing, meant that Schram paid his dues dropping a lot of poultry into the fryer.

More than a decade later, he found himself manning the stoves at Bæst, a restaurant in Copenhagen, where the Sicilian-born Danish chef Christian Puglisi, a veteran of Noma, was on his way to creating the best pizzeria in Scandinavia. Schram felt that the menu at Bæst could use a nod to his Hudson Valley heritage, so he whipped up a spin on the Buffalo wing—a version involving a finger-sticky coating of ’nduja, the spicy, spreadable Italian sausage—and the ’nduja wings at Bæst became one of the must-order dishes of Denmark.

Still with me? So here’s the thing. Now 36, Schram has boomeranged back to the Hudson Valley. He’s making those famous ’nduja wings again, but he’s doing so at a roadside diner.

If you happen to drive north from Manhattan up the Taconic State Parkway for 90 minutes or so, you can park outside the West Taghkanic Diner, walk-in, and find Schram, a chef with Michelin-star cred, cranking out Reubens and turkey clubs in a shiny space that seems to have been beamed in from Back to the Future. Of course, the sandwiches, like the wings, go beyond what’s usually expected of greasy-spoon staples. “I work with what is given to me and what people expect when they walk through the door, but I also twist it,” Schram says. The pastrami in the Reubens has been brined for ten days and smoked for 12 hours out in the parking lot; the turkey club has strips of homemade bacon and smears of mayonnaise made with smoked oil.