Open Table: Hudson Valley’s Best Value Restaurants

Open Table: Hudson Valley’s Best Value Restaurants

Last week we published Open Table’s (OT) recently announced 2022 Diner’s Choice Awards for Best Overall Restaurants in Westchester and the Hudson Valley. Here, we follow up with OT’s Diner’s Choice Awards for Best Value eateries. The OT’s top ten diner’s choice rated eateries include six Italian, two French, one Greek and one American restaurant. Armonk’s Meraki Taverna is the sole local representative in OT’s Best Value category. Meraki Taverna also made Open Table’s Diner’s Choice top ten lists for Best Food, Best Overall Restaurant, and Best Service. The rest of the list features nearby standouts that are worth the trip.

Pelham’s La Fontanella topped OT’s Best Value list. This traditional white table cloth Italian is, in  fact, your father’s Italian restaurant. Located in an unassuming Pelham strip mall La Fontanella is holding the line at $30 for an entree. Customers love their generous wine pours and the Filet of Sole Francese, at just $27. If you’re crazy for traditional Italian, La Fontanella is listed on every OT top ten list from Best Food to Best Service.

Second on OT’s Top Value list is Sergio’s, also in Pelham. If La Fontanella is a great place to have a business meeting with the head of the Solozzo family, Sergio’s offers a touch of La Dolce Vita – especially on the inside where the walls display great black and white photos of Rome. Here the price of a Porterhouse for one climbs over the $50 mark, the veal dishes are $28, the chicken dishes start at $25 and all the side dishes are in single digits.

Contemporary Italian food lovers, however, should go to Purchase’s Tredici North, #3 on the list. Here the ravioli is filled with Kobe beef, porcini’s, or burrata; the salads with baby kale, Asian pear, or shaved Brussels with currants and smoked duck breast. Not to mention the Bang Bang Shrimp, buttermilk battered and topped with their homemade Calabrian chili sauce.

The old world Italian, Marianacci’s in Port Chester comes in at #4. While the Marianacci family has been serving the Port Chester area sine the 1920’s, they offer a lighter take on traditional Italian with items like South African Lobster Tail drawn in butter and lemon, and a crab and avocado salad. Traditionalists, however are well served here too, with their Braciole and a lasagne for just $19.75.

25 North in Mamaroneck continues the Italian dominance of OT’s top five. Located in a stand-alone house in the center of town, 25 North carves out its own Italian identity with its Sweet Chili Aioli Salmon; its Mac & Meat, a 14 oz. coffee crusted Angus strip steak, sliced and served over classic ditalini Mac & Cheese, and a nice list of aged scotch and whiskey and tequilas on its beverage program.

Next up at #6 is Bocuse, the Culinary Institute of America’s contemporary French restaurant in Hyde Park. CIA students run the restaurant (front and back) with faculty monitors and every night is a pop quiz. So you can expect perfectly prepared food, breathtakingly plated, polite and knowledgeable service and good prices.

The word from Armonk’s Meraki Taverna fans is order the seafood or the kebabs prepared on a charcoal grill. That’s where head chef  and Cyprus Culinary Institute grad, Michalakis “Mike” Sarris’ kitchen rises above the average gyro and souvlaki Greek fare.

Yonkers takes the number eight and nine spots on OT’s list with Rory Dolan’s Irish Pub.  And before you blow off yet another Italian (and in Yonkers, no less) Zuppa Restaurant, offers a sleek dining room with brick walls, and dishes like Corn Ravioli with sweet corn and ricotta filling, a pork cheeks appetizer and this Nutella braised off the bone short ribs with polenta, they call Cosotline.

Finally, at #10, is Port Chester’s Appetite Bistro. Often called a “Hidden Gem”, this Modern French in a Port Chester strip mall is all dressed up inside with white tablecloths where Rye foodies go for their fix of Canard a L’orange, Escargot En Croute, Moules Frites, Steak Frites and the weekday four course prix fixe men – just $45.

Open Table’s Diner’s Choice lists are based solely on feedback from individuals who have reserved tables through their Opentable.com online reservation system. OT’s feedback is generated from online questionnaires sent out shortly after dining. This year’s Diner’s Choice lists were based on 400,000 diner reviews per month.