Vivid flavors at Local 111
In such wildly flip-flopping weather, the sudden return of 70-degree temps in November has upstate restaurants prolonging outside seating even without heaters and tents, and those worried about indoor dining are once again occupying tables in the street. There’s almost a collective sigh of relief.
Among them is Local 111, the popular woman-owned, veg-forward, hyper-local restaurant in the service bays of a former Philmont garage. Philmont is a tiny Columbia
County community where the collective beautification and revitalization efforts, and a population swollen by downstaters fleeing
New York City this year, are proof of what can be accomplished when vision becomes actionable plans.
The retractable garage doors are firmly down for the season at Local 111, but twin tents protruding like earmuffs have expanded socially distanced dining on the forecourt since reopening for dine-in service in late July. And award-winning chef-owner Josephine “Jo” Proul, whose show-winning dessert made
with bourbon, elk, plums and blue cheese aired on the Food Network’s “Chopped” in July, has continued to demonstrate creative chops.
The native Californian chef-turned-owner of Local 111 has curried the industry knocks of COVID-19 into coordinated, multiprong operations. From an initial pivot to weekly takeout dinners with baked goods by pastry chef Bonnie Davis of Baker Addiction in Ghent, and Proul’s private C.U.B. Catering company focusing on home menu planning over large-scale events, Proul has branched out with readyto-eat dinners, patés and dressings at the Philmont Cooperative across the street. Add in a hybrid role as wholesale vendor of dried goods and cheese, and the co-op shelves have never looked so good.
Perhaps more importantly, Proul understood the impact of the shutdown on either end of the food supply chain. She hired back staff at a universal $25 hourly wage, reflected in a 20 percent automatic service charge. (It’s in small print on the menu, though we weren’t reminded when given the bill.) Proul also renewed efforts to help local farms by bulk-buying seasonal produce and figuring out what to do with it after.
To that end, our dinner is awash in squash: Acorn squash sliced in thick wedges and fried in a sheer potato batter, so the dark green skins crunch like pork crackling. Grilled butternut squash under a drizzle of R&G Cheesemakers yogurt snuggling a thick, whole toasted bok choy with fire-wilted leaves. More butternut, diced and roasted, fanning out in formation from a slump of slow-roasted pork belly falling apart under a potent cilantrogarlic sauce.
If I knew ahead of time to expect farm-friendly plates, Berkshire pork, vegetables from Common Hands, Blue Star, Ten
Barn and Miller’s Crossing farms, I had not anticipated such delicate presentation or house pickles and preserves deployed with as much value as a brooch at the neck or kerchief in the pocket of a tailored suit. The thick bok choy would have been too subtle alone, but dolled up in smoky piquillo purée and sweet-pepper relish with icy slivered radishes, jalapeno shards and tiny purple borage flowers, suddenly it’s fashion: A cotton slip transformed into taffeta for the ball.
Alongside, a simple gold beet salad with julienned cabbage and pear leans vaguely Southeast Asian in a brown sugar vinaigrette. Its sweetness, smashed peanuts and torn herbs are all suggestive of an upstate farm riff on Thai som tum.
That instinct for flavors and travel weaves throughout. Proul, an avid traveler PRE-COVID, seems to tumble recipes from memory onto the ingredients on hand. A trout fillet with potatoes and shaved Brussels sprouts in a sprightly mustard cream feels Germanic, Nordic even, from the influential use of pickle and dill, despite something in the sauerkraut yanking bitterness a shade too far.
Proul also chooses the restaurant’s wines, generally led by culinary travels in Europe, and offers half bottles often at the deal of $30 demis, allowing more affordable access to some delicious wines. We spy natural and orange wines too, but we choose Austrian Zweigelt, a cedary, smoky red that pairs well across plates, including dessert: a salted and crumbling flourless chocolate cake doused in sticky caramel, and a deconstructed cinnamon-spiked pear tart with fresh whipped cream, for which we wish only that the flaky pastry disc at the bottom had longer in the oven to get perfectly crisp.
With so many years in town, Proul has a team she relies on, from Davis to chef de cuisine Michelle Coleman-pelkey and sous chef Chris Johnson, who run the line most nights. And despite the gentrifying Philmont community, Proul knows local tastes like a solid steak-andpotato dinner brightened with the last of the summer tomatoes in a smoked butter, and an old-school pepperoni sandwich with fried green tomatoes, onions and pepperjack cheese that replaced a popular burger. There’s an equally popular Sunday brunch each weekend.
Local 111 has an ease about it. It’s as unpretentious as it is unfussy, from the farm ingredients to a sparse interior, where a large central table bearing an impressive flower-andstill-life arrangement does a good job spacing tables apart and providing a landing pad for bottles of hand sanitizer. As a former garage with concrete floors and retractable front doors, it’s not the coziest, and pandemic rules have pushed guests even farther apart, but staff are warm and there’s color and detail, from the wine list to your locavore plate.