Michelin-Starred Chef David Israelow to Open Four Corners in Chatham Landmark
For a generation the Blue Plate felt like the center of Chatham culture. Four Corners looks to reclaim the magic.
David Israelow on the porch of the future Four Corners in Chatham.
- Josh Shaw“For me, the cooking is more of a format and a style than a dish because I'm so focused on what is happening around me and what is growing,” says chef David Israelow. His next project, Four Corners, slated to open in the spring of 2026, is a love letter to the Hudson Valley. The restaurant derives its name from its home village of Chatham, which was previously known as Chatham Four Corners until it was incorporated in 1869. Israelow has a deep history with and appreciation for Columbia County and the greater Hudson Valley.
Hailing from New York City, where he was the culinary director of Manhattan’s Michelin-starred One White Street, Israelow was first intrigued by the Hudson Valley when two of his cousins moved to the area. His history in the New York City food industry has connected him further to the Hudson Valley through restaurant relationships. “We kind of treat it as our backyard as far as produce, vegetables, meat, and fruits go,” he says. “There's always been a huge focus on the Hudson Valley as the source of all that. So the combination of family and the intentionality of the cooking brought me here to spend more and more time.”
The menu of Four Corners is going to be a true culmination of intentional cooking and the Hudson Valley’s farm-to-table focus. Israelow is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute and the Tokyo Sushi Academy. He has traveled extensively in places like Japan, France, and Thailand to develop a better understanding of various cuisines and find inspiration in unfamiliar places and methods. In pursuit of diversifying his experience and skills, he has worked in bakeries, butcher shops, fishmongers, and was even a farm apprentice at Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent.
While menu specifics are currently being ironed out, Israelow is planning to offer a rotating menu based on his creativity in the kitchen and the seasonal availability of produce from surrounding farms. “I also really love baking bread and making pasta, so we'll see those in the menus, too,” he says. The drink and cocktail menu will be based on the same hope of honoring local, seasonal flavors. “We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, we're trying to just have an awesome, approachable, fun bar program,” Israelow says.
The Four Corners restaurant space used to be home to the beloved American bistro Blue Plate. The building is three stories tall, complete with two bars and a fully finished full-height basement. “In the past, they had a speakeasy, dark cocktail bar vibe downstairs with this copper-top bar and a little piano in the corner. We're trying to maintain a lot of that basement vibe because it's just amazing,” Israelow says. “The first floor is this kind of light, bright, larger dining room that spills out into a front lawn with some more seating, windows all around wrapping the whole space. And then there's this whole second floor that's never been used for food and beverage that we’re planning to incorporate into the bigger offerings.”
The intention is for the main bar in the basement and the first floor to have the same food, cocktail, and wine menu, while the second floor will have a more casual feel and have a smaller wine bar menu.
Pop-Up Proof of Concept
While the restaurant itself is in development stages, Israelow has been busy organizing various pop-ups in the area surrounding Chatham. These pop-ups offer an intimate, sit-down dining experience with a fixed menu crafted by Israelow. The pop-ups started in July, with one held at Ben Gables, right across the street from Four Corners. The second was at the Old Chatham Country Store, 20 minutes north of the future restaurant. There are two more pop-ups slated for August—one on August 13 at The Hereafter cocktail bar in Hudson, featuring a three-course menu with a cocktail pairing, and another on August 24 at the Apple Tree Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts. Israelow plans to continue the pop-up series into the fall and winter as well to continue building anticipation and growing his local following while the build-out continues.
“My intention is to make this 30-mile, 30-minute radius around Four Corners and do events in Dutchess County, Columbia County, Berkshire County, the Catskill area, and Litchfield County,” Israelow says. “The intention of the pop-ups, to a certain extent, is to introduce people to me, to the food that I plan to cook, the style, the approach, and the intention. The best way for people to understand the food that I'm going to be cooking is really to come to these events and these dinners.”
