SIMPLE MENU, GOOD FOOD
At Chops Grille in Uptown, seasoned restaurateur focuses on quality
The trick to good food is quality ingredients and a chef who knows how to prepare them, said Denni Demosthenes of Uptown Kingston’s Chops Grille.
“It’s hard to mess up good food,” Demosthenes said recently, praising his chef Frank Jeannetti. Demosthenes said Chops offers a “simple menu” and specializes in a “really, really good burger,” “really good cod and salmon” and weekly specials posted Thursdays on Facebook.
“Two of the most important things” in the restaurant business, said Demosthenes, 62, are, “the greeting and the goodbye. And I’m lucky enough to have the middle covered too” by a chef he trusts to produce
consistent, high-quality food.
Demosthenes should know. He’s the former co-owner of one of the area’s iconic
restaurants, the familyowned Hillside Manor on the Boulevard in Kingston. Demosthenes said he owned the 700-seat banquet hall and restaurant with his brothers Dino and Jimmy for about 30 years.
The brothers also worked alongside their parents George and Kiki Demosthenes, former owners of New Paltz’s Plaza Diner, at the Hillside, he said.
Demosthenes, who was born into the restaurant business, married Joan Demosthenes, 54, of the Dallas Hot Weiners family. And, although Joan works elsewhere, she contributes to Chops and her experience and interest in the business are a valuable asset, her husband said.
Denni Demosthenes, a Kingston native who grew up on O’Neil Street, said he never really left the restaurant business. He did, however, leave the area. A graduate of the New York Military Academy, Demosthenes left in 1973 for Athens, Greece, where he went to college and then landed a job as a flight attendant for Olympic Airways, where he worked for nine years.
“That’s basically in the restaurant business,” he said, “Serving coffee and dinner at 36,000 feet.”
From there, he was lured stateside by his brothers who proposed opening a restaurant.
When they opened the Hillside, Demosthenes said, it sat 70 people; and, when they sold it in 2014, it seated 700.
Although Demosthenes said he misses the Hillside, he is obviously enjoying the smaller, more intimate Chops atmosphere.
Chef Jeannetti said he tries as much as possible to source his food locally and uses as many organic ingredients as possible in whatever he offers customers at Chops.
Jeannetti said the menu will be changing a bit in the fall and urged customers to look for a new selection of steaks, burgers and seafood dishes in the coming months.
Chops Grille at 33 John St. in Kingston is open Mondays through Thursdays from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturdays from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sundays from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. A bar menu is available. The restaurant offers a $23 prix fixe menu Tuesdays through Thursdays from 4:30 to 7 p.m.
The restaurant can be reached at (845) 339-1111.
Recipe: Chinese Chicken Salad Lettuce Wrap
With miso grilled sliced chicken, napa cabbage, watercress wonton crisps, butter leaf lettuce and ginger soy sesame vinaigrette; serves 4.
Ingredients:
European Cucumber, julienne or spiral cut on a Japanese mandolin 4 oz. boneless chicken breast, marinated with 2 oz. miso mixed with 2 oz. mirin, 2 oz. toasted sesame oil 2 heads Napa cabbage shaved about 1⁄2 inch (chiffonade), green only 1 head chopped watercress, washed 16 pieces wonton skin, julienne and fried golden brown 12 leaf butter leaf lettuce (bibb) Fried rice noodles shredded carrot Black and white sesame seeds
Recipe for Ginger Soy Sesame Vinaigrette:
1 oz. fresh ginger 2 clove garlic 2 oz. light soy sauce 4 oz. sesame oil 1 cup light mayonnaise
Instructions:
Blend 1 oz. fresh ginger, 2 clove garlic, 2 oz. light soy sauce and 4 oz. sesame oil until smooth.
Mix well with 1 cup light mayonnaise.
Procedure:
Slice grilled chicken into thin julienne strips. Toss with salad mix. Add wonton strips and mix with vinaigrette.
Presentation:
Place butter leaf lettuce on plate at 12 o’clock, 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock.
Top each lettuce leaf with 3 oz. of mixed salad.
Garnish each lettuce wrap with a pinch of cucumber.
Sprinkle with black and white sesame seeds.
Garnish center of the plate with fried rice noodles and shredded carrot.