Restaurants
The restaurant descriptions that follow reflect the opinions of the editors of Rural Intelligence.
They are editorial content, not paid advertisements, and are organized by county.
Taste the Café at Hudson Supermarket serves authentic Mexican with a sophisticated flourish. |
The West Taghkanic Diner in Ancram is a welcome pit stop just off the Taconic State Parkway. |
When Pigs Fly South in Mabbetsville is a new drive-in with BBQ and soft ice cream. |
[See more Restaurants, Listed by County]
Cafe Giulia - Lakeville, Connecticut
A successful restaurant in our region usually needs to have a split personality: one that caters to the people who go out to eat Sunday through Thursday and another for the Friday and Saturday night crowd. Robert Wills and Tara Kelly are expatriates from Brooklyn (he owned Vaux Bistro in Park Slope) who understand this dynamic, and their new Cafe Giulia is a nimble and delicious balancing act with an Italian point of view. They have warmed up the space formerly occupied by the overly ambitious Chives by painting the walls a cozy pumpkin, adding a few booths and moving the bar. Two people can sit at that bar and share a large well-dressed salad of Sky Farm greens with pine nuts and ricotta salata ($8), a plate of delicately fried calamari with anchovy-lemon aioli ($10) and a small but hearty pizza ($11/$12) and leave very satisfied. Or you can sit down and tuck into more ambitious fare such as roast Cavendish Farm quail with polenta ($23) or an intensely flavorful hanger steak with salsa verde, roast potatoes and spinach ($21). Both Willis and Kelly make rounds in the dining room, asking if everything is OK, eager to know if their customers are happy. In this quiet corner of Connecticut, success depends on building a loyal following of both full- and part-time residents, and it looks like Cafe Giulia (which was named after an Alfa Romeo race car) is on the right track.
2 Ethan Allen Street; 860.435.9765
Thursday - Monday 5:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Closed: Tuesday & Wednesday
