As Cabaret’s ultimate striver, Sally Bowles belts in “Maybe This Time,” “everybody loves a winner,” which explains the numbing parade of televised award shows every two weeks, and why The Food Network has practically abandoned cooking for pleasure and satisfaction in favor of turning all culinary endeavors—from baking bread to smoking BBQ—into fierce national competitions. Evidently, it’s no longer enough to be great on the grill. Nah. You want to rate? Then you’ve got to Beat Bobby Flay. In addition, the informative and relentless foodie website The Infatuation posts “best” lists as often as Jimmy Fallon gushes over guests, grading everything from Sunday brunches to the most surefire place to take your mother-in-law. I guess that certain Melania was right after all. Life has no higher calling than to “Be Best.” 

But the food fight that gourmands on air and online seem most obsessed with bestowing crown, scepter and sash to is who makes the Best Pizza. After all, who doesn’t love pizza? (Do you even dare befriend anyone who doesn’t?) The problem with this ultimate accolade is that it’s as subjective as it is bogus. As of 2019, there were more than 5,700 slice emporiums in New York City alone, and as of 2023, there were 73,333 pizza “parlors” in the US. No matter how many places Eater, Grub Street, The Infatuation or Dave Portnoy sample, none has either the resources or the stomach to issue a truly valid blue ribbon. 

I certainly don’t. However, what I can happily, enthusiastically, justifiably and hungrily rave about is who creates and serves my favorite pizza. The pies here are so sumptuously superb. It’s not even a close contest, and perhaps even more surprising, unlike almost every other food writer, my pick isn’t home-based in Brooklyn.

Hilltown Hot Pies

This pizza novelty has been vagabonding around the Hudson Valley for five years now doing al fresco pop-ups and amassing a fan base of near Swifties-level devotion, which is why the news that proprietor and pizzaiolo, Rafi Bildner, has finally found himself and his glorious pies a home is cause for Grucci-fireworks-worthy celebration. However, the musty former John Andrews space in Egremont needed more than a kiss and a fresh coat of paint (Bildner has taken the interior down to the studs), so for one more summer he’s improvising down the road a bit. Not a problem. I’d still make a pilgrimage to Hilltown’s pizza oven if it were in the back of the Greenport Transfer Station. 

Hilltown’s pies are fresher than an entitled brat’s backtalk, the combinations are unexpected but often inspired, the ingredients superior, the flavors bright and bracing and the sourdough crust is so delicious you’d devour it with nothing on it. When was the last time you had a pizza with spicy kale, hot pepper and burrata? How about grassfed lamb, feta, pickled onions, herbed yogurt and za’atar? Garlic pesto, spring peas, asparagus, ricotta and hot honey? Or with peaches, nectarines and goat cheese? I’m guessing never. Though there are more traditional options such as Margarita and Marinara, as well as Caesar salad, fried Mozzarella sticks and yummy wood fired meatballs, what makes his pies so irresistibly addictive is Bildner’s commitment to inspirational originality rendering them startling, disarming and Jesus, is this delicious! 

There’s one drawback. Hilltown’s tireless team can turn out 80 made-from-scratch pies an hour, but as you’ll see by the seemingly endless lines that form daily, it’s not fast enough to immediately satisfy the collective hunger around you and can best be explained by a classic waiter’s comeback for impatient diners, “I only have two speeds, and you won’t like the other one.” If you think you’re coming by for a quick bite, forget it. The wait is going to be two cocktails long. If you’re the restless type, bring a board game, catch up on Words With Friends or watch the finale of Bridgerton season three on your smartphone. Is it really worth it? Could I possibly gush any more? My only regret is that by telling you, I’m guaranteeing the line is going to get even longer. As Sally Bowles said, everybody loves a winner, and there’s Rafi Bildner standing atop my pizza podium.

Hilltown Hot Pies
at The Egremont Barn
17 Main Street
Egremont, MA

hours: Thursday & Friday 5-9pm
Saturday & Sunday 4-9pm 

Outdoor seating 

future home: 224 Hillsdale Road
South Egremont, MA 

rafi@hilltownhotpies.com

Kitty’s Market & Restaurant

The food available around train stations notoriously sucks. Overly sweet, pasty muffins, tasteless fall apart wraps, Cobb salads with chicken breast slices so dry they could double as coasters. So, I was surprised the first time I walked into Kitty’s Market across the street from the Hudson Amtrak Station and didn’t see much of that stuff in the cases. But dealing with half a chicken with sumac yogurt or pulled pork with passion fruit BBQ sauce on a baguette was too daunting to deal with on a crowded train, so I just bought a soda and stuck my head into the adjacent restaurant space. The room had a retro diner feel to it, not quite followed through, but the wall art, red banquettes and bar stools were fun, though I wanted to toss the faux vintage Home Depot chandelier hanging over the bar onto the train tracks. But for some reason, I wasn’t intrigued. 

Less than a week later, I tap on Instagram to see Matthew, a charming friend of mine posting a pic of him and his friends sitting in a booth at Kitty’s kvelling over an indulgent platter of oysters. I immediately texted Matt and asked him whether he had eaten a full meal there. He immediately wrote back, “Oh yeah, you got to come. Nice people. Real casual. And the cocktails are great. You’re going to like it here.”

So, I did come, and the staff is really nice, and the cocktails are great, and you betcha, I sure do like it here. Except Matthew left out the best part. Owner Ben Fain’s Kitty’s is one heck of a find mainly because the food is so beguilingly good it’s worth missing your train and taking the next one. Though it’s a limited menu, and except for a very impressive rotisserie chicken with plate-scraping onion relish, most of the options are not what you’d expect from the deliberately unsophisticated décor. In fact, the choices boast the quirkiness of very-tough-to-get-into Café Mutton on the other side of town. 

But I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face as I went from one unexpected pleasure to the next, devouring a plate of clams and beans on toast sparked by Meyer lemon and sassy watercress purée, then insisting on a second order of pork belly toast with quince aioli for the table because I didn’t get enough sharing the first one. 

Skate’s one of my favorite fish, a fairly common item on menus during my decade as a waiter, but now you can hardly find it, so I couldn’t be more tickled that Chef Nicole Lobue’s version is exactly what I crave, perfectly pan fried in saffron brown butter. Equally impressive is her lamb sugo with its heady perfume of garlic (Chanel No. 5 to me) on twisted treccione noodles. A simple, and simply inhalable petit filet gets a kick from a bay leaf butter and mustard sauce, but I wish you could get a separate order of the onion rings, because they’re the scene stealer. No one may ever make a blackout cake as magnificent as Ebinger’s Bakery in Brooklyn since the recipe was never revealed, but Kitty’s gives it a solid shot, with four layers of devil’s food and salted chocolate icing.

The staff is relaxed, engaging and smart, sociable but not in your face. There’s also a lively bar crowd here, probably because the Brendan Clark’s cocktails are clever and potent, particularly the mezcal based Division Bell, his mid-century Old Fashioned, the pisco laced El Capitán and a brunch enhancing Bloody Mary. 

However, I have a bone to pick with Mr. Fain. Well, two really. First, how could you get rid of the smashing fried chicken sandwich at brunch? I’m sure its replacement, pulled pork on baguette, is delicious and I promise to give it a shot, but I weep at the loss. 

Second, please 86 that unharmonious light fixture over the bar. I’ll go with you to the Antique Warehouse down the road and help you pick out a new one if you like. Your bar deserves a sleek mid-century inspired chandelier. Now, wouldn’t that be nice, and then nothing would distract me from savoring that wonderful skate. Forgive me, Mr. Fain, I don’t mean to be pushy, but as Matthew said, I really do like it here.

Kitty’s Market & Restaurant
60 South Front Street
Hudson, NY 

market hours: Daily, 8am-9pm
restaurant hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 5-9pm
Friday & Saturday, 5-10pm

Outdoor seating

meow@kittyshudson.com

Shadows On The Hudson

Folks drool over New York City apartments with a view. When looking to buy land in the Hudson Valley, one of the first things people ask the real estate agent for is a view. When sightseeing, so much focus is on peaks, canyons, skylines, observation decks, lakes at sunrise, rivers at sunset, oceans ’neath a full moon. I get it. But I’m not that guy. I don’t stare out the window when the plane takes off. We built a house in the middle of a forest of hemlocks. And when dining out, fine if the draperies and café curtains are drawn. I enjoy a restaurant being a self-contained domain, a gastronomic principality, safely removed from the harsh reality outside. 

However, two of the world’s most celebrated and perpetually popular restaurants are named The River Café (one in NYC, the other in London), with thousands coming for the vista as well as the fare. So, if supping riverside instigates that much pleasure for so many, let’s search for a room with a view. And I found one: Shadows On The Hudson. Except I wasn’t swooning at first glance. Hey, after years of shlepping back and forth to Manhattan via Amtrak, the mighty Hudson River no longer inspires wanderlust and awe, plus there’s rarely a lot happening on that water. 

Shadows—known locally for their immensely popular Sunday brunch—is massive, a sleek, corporate looking festival of right angles with multiple decks framed by two massive walls of windows that look out onto an undramatic stretch of the river, a structure-free Palisades, and the barely lit Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge. It doesn’t exactly take your breath away. And though Shadows’ bar is warmer, livelier and more convivial, the angularity of the main dining room and the sprawling menu had me fearing that dinner would have too much in common with The Grandview, the catering and event space run by Shadows next door. 

Well, sometimes it feels so good to be completely wrong. Shadows serves classic American cuisine, which can be tricky, because the menu isn’t about innovation and offers little intrigue or daring. But Shadows’ new chef, John Malone, knows how to elevate the familiar into a hearty feast. Calamari boasts the pleasing crunch of freshly made taco chips while keeping the squid rings tender. Meaty crab cakes, golden on the outside, devoid of filler on the inside enjoy a zingy citrus remoulade. Mussels are easy to prepare, yet tough to make notable, but the balance of garlic, shallots and white wine had us diving in and asking for more garlic bread. We ordered an extra portion of grilled beef kabobs in a zippy Kung Pao sauce to-go so we could revisit this treat tomorrow. Caesar salad is another traditional dish that gets tragically overworked, but this one is just as it should be, light on the cheesy dressing, with lettuce that snaps and just enough zap from anchovies to prompt a blink and a grin.

Two dishes that read ‘oh-yeah-those’ on the menu provoke giddy cries of ‘Oh, yeah! Those!” at the table: burrata glazed in a bracing shower of pistachio pesto sweetened by white balsamic and peppercorns. And though it hardly sounds glamourous, if you order Shadows’ clam pot, prepare to temporarily suspend all conversation. This formidable pile of Kumamoto oyster-sized Littlenecks deserves undivided attention, puddled in a refreshing Chardonnay based sauce and served on a mound of terrific garlic mashed potatoes. Though listed as an appetizer, it makes a dandy main course. 

Not that there aren’t swell choices in that category. An ample-for-two Fra Diavolo provides a bounty of shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari in a lively house made Marinara (ask for hot pepper flakes). Roasted chicken would be a simple but solid choice on its own, but there’s a bonus: a hearty circle of roasted Brussels sprouts, smashed potatoes, cranberry, shallots and sliced almonds. The steaks, which you would expect in a space like this are a sure bet. The bourbon burger is a rare menu novelty, except the two-fisted exercise has a little too much going on between those buns. The how’d-that-get-here inclusion of Mexican street corn may give one pause. Get over it. They got it right. The only disappointment was short rib gnocchi, a new dish that Chef Malone had recently added to the menu. It’s not the ragout, which is sweet and pungent, the essence of comfort food, but the stewed meat’s weight, intensity and density clobber the weightlessness one tries to achieve with gnocchi. Atop a bowl of pappardelle would be a much better fit. However, the supersized red snapper for two, simply roasted in citrus and herbs, is gorgeous, glorious, worthy of inspiring envy at neighboring tables and worth every bone-extracting moment. The best desserts are a skillet made bourbon pecan cookie that’s bigger than your face, and incredibly tall, ice cream packed profiteroles. 

A space this large has to attract a varied and diverse clientele to survive. Shadows succeeds for three reasons: First: though it presents a fairly grab bag menu, the kitchen allows each option to retain its own individuality. Second: it benefits from a seasoned staff who know how to cheerfully engage customers without getting in their faces, know the menu as well as their way home, and how to seamlessly shift gears when dealing simultaneously with a table of six boisterous ties-askew coworkers, a multigenerational family of eight, five women nursing a bottle of white as if this was an oasis in the Gobi desert and a deuce who wish they were all on the other side of the river. Third is…well, the view, I guess. In fact, our server was kind enough to point out when a boat came cruising up the river. I only had eyes for my profiteroles. 

Shadows On The Hudson
176 Rinaldi Boulevard
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601

hours: Monday – Thursday 11:30-8pm
Friday & Saturday 11:30 – 9pm
Sunday 10:30 – 8pm 

845.486.9500

Outdoor seating

shadowsonthehudson.com