Falling short Farmhouse Tap + Tavern reminds us why critics write negative reviews.
Popular Altamont spot offers dated menu, badly presented
This week I'm reviewing Farmhouse Tap + Tavern, open since April in Altamont. Before I get to the specifics, let’s start with some thoughts on the role and purpose of reviewing restaurants as the pandemic fades.
We’re back: 70 percent of
New York adults are vaxxed, masks are off, protocols loosened, people are out. And restaurant critics are examining the landscape for what’s changed, what’s new, and the right way to proceed. In last week’s Extra Spicy podcast for the San Francisco Chronicle, dining critic Soleil Ho talked to Jimi Famurewa, her counterpart at London’s Evening Standard, who agreed that after 16 months of a stowing the knives and a “de facto truce between restaurants and criticism,” it’s time to get back to criticism. There are myriad benefits to speaking clearly when food misses the mark.
Some see negative reviews as an affront and clap back under the mistaken notion that critics should perform a sort of charitable consultancy, phoning in tips or waiting six months between visits before writing a review. But that’s little use to those dining out now, nor is it practical for other arts critics, who pan a one-time musical performance or theater production. It’s an “everyone tried” position based, wrongly, on the assumption that criticism is a personal attack rather than a description of an experience that can steer readers, compare standards, spot regional nuances and applaud wine lists or elevated mixology while, yes, calling out shoddy service or subpar twaddle.
The pandemic truce wasn’t about slipping into PR mode with false praise. The industry was brutalized by layoffs, lockdown closures and support that came too late in the game. I sidestepped lackluster, soggy meals picked up during the pandemic and wrote only about takeout that could deliver a taste of restaurant dining at home.
But now we’re back.
Changed, for sure. Many restaurants struggle to hire a full staff. But as Ho perfectly puts it: “... negativity isn’t just about saying someplace is bad. It’s about seeing what a restaurant aims to do — the experience it’s selling — and how well it achieves that aim.” I couldn’t agree more.
The friendliness at The Farmhouse Tap + Tavern is on display as a buzzy, packed meeting point in a manicured village. Guests and staff are as commingled as the cast of "Cheers," and it can be hard to tell them apart in the chorus of goodbyes between bartenders and servers on the floor and cooks waving from an open kitchen. Is there a chef ? Hard to say, with many hands pushing dough into a wood-fired oven and faces peering from a kitchen window. The twomonth-old Farmhouse Tap + Tavern isn’t short on staff or patrons. And that's partly why I’m here, in a building formerly home to Veronica’s Culinary Tavern and, before that, the wine bar Mio Vino.
Farmhouse's owner, Jackie Silvestri, is the founder of 518 Foodies, an online membership group that discusses the local dining scene from best patio to the best pastrami on rye, like a more personal version of Yelp. So, there’s built-in buzz about the place, and its website promises locally sourced meat, calls craft beer “our thing ” and claims to “take cocktails very seriously.” People are driving from well outside of Altamont for a taste of Farmhouse Tap + Tavern and jamming my inbox with exhortations to go.
So we arrive as Gov. Andrew Cuomo lifts restrictions, and we can’t help sharing the enthusiasm of a packed sidewalk patio and the novelty of walking in unmasked. I’d held in check the red flags on the website, like a bold claim to be “setting the standard for cutting-edge mixology.” With that, I’d dared hope for bitters and tinctures, mixologists shaking whimsical concoctions — not sweet cocktails fresh off spring break. On the menu, J’s Double Rum Mai Tai fist-bumps a Cosmo-and-bourbon lemonade. My guest’s jalapeno-yuzu margarita is so lid-flipping sour it must be 90 percent lime mix, with no wisp of heat. A Jamaican mule served, natch, in the hammered copper cup of the 20-teens is a ginger ale soda on the itchy side of sweet.
But dinner puts our expecta
tions to the test while listening to enthusiastic diners exclaim at arriving plates. The list of Farmhouse burgers and pizzas make sense for a local pub — they could serve hot dogs and Carlo Rossi and people would still come — but the menu is a playlist stuck on past decades' trending hits: ahi tuna nachos of the ’90s, crispy Brussels sprouts of the 20-teens (turned “Korean” with Korean barbecue sauce) and tater tots doused in Y2K truffle oil. The latter might have worked had the “tots” not been deep-fried rectangles leaking oil like Spongebob applying Bain de Soleil on the beach. Whatever was done to the spuds — maybe a run through a ricer before shaping in lollipop trays — transformed their insides to glutinous paste and outsides to oily fried toast.
We sidestep a sesamecrusted tuna rice bowl with poke sauce and wasabi crema, knowing pubs generally struggle to get a lone Asian dish right. But, for a new summer menu, the large plates read like autumn, with a pork peperonata dish and local filet mignon medallions. The latter nails the request for rare, but shoots the salt index off the scale in a gloopy mushroom bordelaise with artery-clogging potatoes au gratin and broccolini flash-parboiled so its crunch is audibly raw.
I’m desperate for the silver lining now, which might be the English cheddar holding together a loosely packed Farmhouse burger topped with pork belly. My guest is unnerved by “stringy bits” and gushing oil soaking the bun, but it has a nice char and is clearly handmade. Maybe redemption will be found in the white Farmhouse pizza, over which a centered fried egg spills liquid gold? But — dear god — even scattered Brussels leaves leach oil with every bite, and ruckled folds of speck are a salt lick. Perhaps try delicate Prosciutto shavings instead.
Let’s keep going with helpful tips. Maybe don’t saturate the artisan salad with citrus dressing until its leaves are matted, and avoid topping it with a dump truck’s worth of sliced onions that beg to be on a burger? Maybe use a larger plate so lettuce doesn’t fall on the table when set down? Maybe rethink lamb-stuffed poblano pepper, served like a ball in a sock or a streaking comet with a trailing tail and massive tip stretched by a whopping meatball. It emerges phallically, resists the knife and is raw inside.
We get the check with a glass of pinot noir and a rum cake urgently endorsed by staff. If the cylindrical sponge is the dry antithesis of anything Jamaican or rum-based, it’s rescued by caramelized pineapple chunks and a pineapple-coconut ice cream I could scoop all day. There’s also a warm skillet cookie that’s likely to please.
In ambition and appeal, it’s a warm spot for locals with its dozen draft beers, wine and pizzas pulled fast from the fire. But poor cocktails and a dated menu make a full meal at Farmhouse Tap + Tavern instantly forgettable.