One Twenty One Restaurant Reopens with Jean Georges Protégé

One Twenty One Restaurant,  the pop spot for North Salem and over the boarder Ridgefield locals, reopened on May 7 after a four-week renovation promising a modern and affordable urban dining experience in the backwoods of North Salem. The facelift replaces the traditional country ambience of this stand-alone roadside eatery with a sleeker more modern sensibility.

Beyond Bistro

New Executive Chef Beck Bolender

The new look mirrors new Executive Chef Beck Bolender’s updated farm-to-table bistro menu that looks beyond the starchiness of contemporary comfort food. Chef Bolender, who spent five years at Jean Georges in NYC and claims the title of the youngest sous chef in its history, has created a New-American menu with international influences that can be traced to Jean Georges’ fascination with Asian spices and aromatics.

While firmly grounded in the traditions of contemporary bistro cooking, Chef Bolender’s menu finds its own niche somewhere between the worlds of spa-bistro/small-plate finger-food and carb-laden hearty entrees. Gone from their menu is the steak frites, risotto, lobster mac n’ cheese and fried calamari – replaced with sweet chili shrimp and cheddar grits, lamb riblets with sweet and sour glaze and scallions, and charred cauliflower with goat cheese and sherry. Locavores will applaud their commitment to local Hudson Valley sources that provide about 70% of their daily ingredients.

Sheer “share-food” fun

Spring pea soup, garlic cream, black bread

Foodies who like to share and try “lots of stuff” will gravitate to the global small plates and “smears” portion of his menu. General Manager Jeffrey Skiba told us that their goal is to have the traditional party of two try five dishes.

We asked him to design a 3 plate, 5 plate and 7 plate order for, respectively, 1, 2 and 4 people. “I would definitely start with the ramp roast toast with Sprout Creek goat cheese from our “smears” menu. Add on the shrimp ceviche, avocado and plantain chips, and the Scotch egg, sausage, potato soufflé with chipotle and that’s our version of a hearty meal.”

“For a party of two (5 plates) I would add the Diver scallops with crispy pork, guajillo and apple and the smoked squab with smashed peas and mint. For a party of 4, add the roasted fennel, buttermilk and oil-cured olives and a pizza Bianca from our wood-fired oven.”

Traditionalists who like their food on one plate, can find a hanger steak chimichurri with potatoes and greens, an Arctic char with asparagus, spring onions and crispy skin or a duck breast with sour cherries, edamame and basil. Entrees will run you between $14 (for a Batch burger) and $25 for the Diver Scallops. The share plates start at $6 and go up to $19. Smears are $8. And wood-fired pizzas range from $10 to $14.

Easy potables

The One Twenty One wine, beer and cocktail programs are unintimidating and user-friendly. Beers focus on American Craft selections presented in categories: Light/Crisp, On the Sweet Side, Malt-focused and He’s Got Hops. The wine menu offers 20 whites and 20 reds, all by the glass or bottle, with a slant towards obscure varietals like Italy’s Gavi di Gavi, France’s Sylvaner and a Mencia from Spain. The chef’s special cocktails include The Tennessee Cola (Michter’s Whiskey with root syrup, Sorel Liqueur, Averell Damson Gin Liqueur and Coca Cola) served in a flask over cola ice cubes, and the Passion In Phuket, a sweet and spicy drink made with Tito’s Vodka, passion fruit and Thai chilies.

A different playlist in every room

One Twenty One sports three rooms: a bar/lounge with a fireplace, the main dining room surrounded with white wood-trimmed windows overlooking surrounding greenery and a large picture window peeking into the chef’s kitchen. There you will hear the alt-rock sounds of Pete Bjorn, Citizen Cope and the softer side of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In The Gallery, a second dining room, they spin popular WFUV folk/Americana artists like Jack Johnson and Ben Harper.

Throughout you will find the relaxed country chic appointments of designer Pamela Dailey that features mid-century seating upholstered in warm tobacco linen on white steel bases, petrified wood stumps, and custom tabletops of reclaimed oak with a bespoke burnished finish on industrial steel bases. The bar has a new marble countertop and the much improved gallery room is lined with a shimmering gray eel skin, charcoal vinyl banquettes and cove lighting.

The worth the trip index

One Twenty One has been a What To Do favorite over the years because we have a soft spot for finding good food in old houses in the middle of nowhere. Drive along Dingle Ridge Road in North Salem and there is nothing, nothing, nothing and then One Twenty One Restaurant. It is the kind of discovery you might make on a country road upstate or in the Berkshires run by a recent Culinary Institute grad.

And it’s good people watching, too. Like The Meeting House in Bedford, you can always have fun playing count the jodhpurs there – North Salem being horse country. But at One Twenty One you can also play count the flannel shirts and beards because there are both bankers and artists this far north.

One Twenty One was a place we went when we just wanted to get out of town. For us it was always worth an extra star for the fireplace in winter and the ample porch and patio outdoor seating in the summer. With it’s new and lighter “beyond bistro” fare from the Jean Georges pedigreed chef, Beck Bolender, it just might be worth the trip year-round.

(One Twenty One Restaurant, 2 Dingle Ridge Rd., N. Salem, 914.669.0121: www.121restaurant.com)

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