Kitchen Sink Food and Drink, Beacon

Plumb the tasty depths of this farm-fresh menu

Plenty of businesses have come and gone in this little spot on Beacon’s west end, but if the social media raves and demand for tables are any indication, Kitchen Sink Food & Drink looks like it’s gonna stay a spell. Open since last August, this welcome newcomer has quickly become a must-try.

Take a seat in a cozy window banquette and watch the hipsters saunter by as you munch on a complimentary plate of just-baked brioche and black rye from Beacon Bread Company. Admire the quirky plumbing-themed light fixtures while you check out the appetizers: Thai red curry aïoli served over crispy latkes ($12) is highly recommended.

What’s for dinner? Spiced lamb meatballs served with a rustic polenta from Wild Hive Farm in Clinton Corners ($21) is a customer fave. Cauliflower faux risotto is also creating a buzz, with all the creaminess of this well-loved entrée complemented by a fresh vegetable kick ($17). It makes a satisfying, though relatively light, main course.

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Everyone loves Fried Chicken Mondays, when $15 gets you three pieces of buttermilk fried chicken served alongside mac and cheese, cornbread, coleslaw, a house-made pickle, plus a cookie (or melon slice) for dessert.

“I’ve always loved fried chicken, but the recipe is too labor intensive to have on the day-to-day menu,” says Chef/Owner Brian Arnoff, who marinates the chicken in a buttermilk brine for 24 hours before frying it in a cast-iron pot. “People bring the whole family, and that’s when we have beer and wine specials.”

kitchen sink food and drink kitchen sink food and drink

The aforementioned mac and cheese has a history all its own. Arnoff grew up in Poughkeepsie (yes, he comes from the area’s well-known moving-company family), and began his career at age 15 working in the Poughkeepsie Adams prepared foods department, but he got most of his culinary training elsewhere. While a student at Boston University in the early 2000s (he earned a degree in hospitality management), he worked for superstar chef Barbara Lynch, helping to launch her restaurant, Sportello, in Boston. In 2010, he moved to D.C., where he owned his own mac-and-cheese food truck. After a successful, if exhausting, three-and-a-half-year run, he decided to return to the Valley and start a business here, thereby keeping the family entrepreneurial flame burning bright.

“People can do farm-to-table in New York City, but they’re not really growing the food,” says Arnoff. “This, the Hudson Valley, is where the food is grown.” In addition to working with Common Ground Farm in Wappingers Falls, Arnoff and his family own Truckload Farm and Orchard in Hyde Park, a half-acre microfarm of intensively grown crops, including beehives and fruit trees.

“We produce a lot of our own stuff,” says Arnoff. As spring revs up, expect an impressive march of vegetables, beginning with pea shoots and followed by arugula, rhubarb, carrots, corn, melons, cucumber and, thankfully, heirloom tomatoes, which were a huge hit last summer. “There is nothing like a tomato that’s never been in a refrigerator,” says Arnoff.

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In spring and summer, you can also look forward to the back patio opening, which will double the restaurant seating to 50. Which is great news for us locals, not to mention the day-trippers who flock here. “We get people from the city saying, ‘This is better than the food we had in Brooklyn last night, at half the price!’ ”

If you go…

Kitchen Sink Food & Drink
157 Main St., Beacon
845-765-0240; www.kitchensinkny.com


Related: Kitchen Sink Food & Drink in Beacon Now Open For Business


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