RICHARD FRISBIE :: Destination Dining - Windfall Restaurant

The Windfall Restaurant in Cranberry Lake is located in an "officially" unpopulated region of New York, 2.5 miles down Tooley Road, just before the pavement ends. I joked as my partner and I drove down the unlined lane, "Beyond Here Be Dragons." Then, just before we fell off the edge of the Earth, John and Roz Dragun's restaurant came into view. Here, the Culinary Institute of America graduate and beekeeping chef decided, "If we build it, they'll come" and, along with his wife, is working to create a fine dining experience in what began as a bar & grill in the last outpost of civilization.

The Draguns are too young to call the Windfall a response to a mid-life crisis, but their youngest daughter did graduate from high school last year. John graduated from the CIA some time before that. He honed his skills in one of the best restaurants in the Hudson Valley, Cafe Tamayo, in Saugerties, New York. The chef there worked at the Russian Tea Room and cooked at the James Beard House three times.

Roz raised the family while she helped with the books and ran a Bed & Breakfast in the other half of their two-family home. Their love of the outdoors found the pair fishing and kayaking in the Adirondacks so often they decided to buy a summer house in Cranberry Lake. With their small-business skills and food service background they were perfectly positioned to purchase the nearby Windfall Bar & Grill when it went on the market four years ago. They went from part-time to full-time Adirondack residents, boomeranged careers, and haven't looked back. Now, Roz runs a two bedroom B&B at the Windfall while she helps manage the restaurant.

It is when you are seated in the Windfall's dining room that you finally begin to feel as if you are in a restaurant, not a bar & grill. It is a sunny, bright, high-ceilinged room with seating for 38. There is no linen service in the area (it really is isolated) so only special dinners - anniversaries, birthdays, etc. -  have tablecloths and cloth napkins which Roz has to launder herself. "Everyday diners" get paper napkins and utensils set on bare tables. We were everyday diners.

Roz told me: "We have a split personality, to some degree.  Locally, we have a reputation for good food. We get all the bookings for anniversaries, Christmas parties, special occasions, etc., from the locals, and we have a pub menu that caters to their everyday needs. They especially like 'Fish Burgers' otherwise known as Fish Sandwiches. Then we have the broader reputation, for fine dining, that spans to Keene, Lake Placid, Canton, Potsdam, Watertown, etc.... Yes, people willingly drive for an hour or better to come to our restaurant."

My friend and I drove for five hours to dine there, so I know what she says is true. We had reservations (always recommended) and were seated immediately. We let Chef John pick the food we would eat and invited Roz to join us at the table for a running commentary on the dishes he prepared. Then, we just let the eating begin.

It was an odd combination of food delivered to our table. We ate family style, an option regular diners don't have, sampling and sharing the dishes as they arrived. Appetizers, salads and entrees kept appearing in no particular order. Each looked good and tasted delicious, but some of the combinations didn't always work on the same plate. All-in-all, it was an imaginative way to taste the menu, but lesser folks could not have gotten through it.

First of all, the wine selection is very good, excellent for the region, and heavy with New York entries. However, we had an unusual beginning with a young fruity Italian red, Banfi Centine Toscana 2006. It was a good drink, but odd with the grilled shrimp and garlic aioli. ($7.99) No matter, new dishes kept appearing that worked with it. I loved that Chef John could grill seafood and still have it moist, and that he made the aioli for this dish as he prepared it. Talk about fresh! It turned out that every dish of his that I tasted was my favorite.

There was a plate of goat cheese and feta cheese that had been breaded and deep-fried, ($6.99) served with a simple tomato marinara. The cheese was from a local farm. When I asked Chef John how fresh it was, he replied, "It was in the goat 3 days ago!" It would have been fine any way it was served, but I liked the innovation.

I realized that the red wine made sense. Especially when the grilled portobella mushrooms ($5.99) came out, and again when a bowl of capellini with tomatoes and kalamata olives appeared ($10.99) and quickly disappeared. This is also offered as an entree with grilled shrimp or mussels. (add $4.99) I could have eaten a whole bowl myself. Chef John said that some locals hadn't seen black olives before and had to be encouraged to taste them. Now it is a very popular dish.

Next, a personal favorite wine, a Hermann J. Wiemer 2007 Dry Riesling, was poured as the soup was served. It was a Ribolitta, a Tuscan white bean soup, ($4.50) with zucchini and chicken in a rich flavorful broth. White wine after red? Soup after seafood and pasta? We were like little kids, eating and drinking what we wanted, when we wanted it - conventions be damned. As the plates piled up on the table we turned to a new wine for the salads.

A house salad is included with every dinner, but we tasted the North Country salad. ($6.99) It's a good mix of braised red cabbage, bacon and goat cheese, but the "house dressing", a vinaigrette, was too sweet for me. Don't mind that though, anything even a little sweet is too sweet for me. Roz kindly said that I didn't like it because "sugar ruins your palate." Instead, I ate the Caesar salad, ($4.99) which was everything I could expect, and the dressing - complete with raw egg and anchovies - made no compromise for the parochial tastes of the locals. I was thoroughly happy.

We opened another Centine, a Kendall-Jackson 2007 Chardonnay, and a Ravens Wood 2006 Lodi, a nice old vine Zinfandel, and the second red of the evening. It was really a mix and match evening. (The wines were from $16 to $26 each.) There were so many different platters of partially eaten food and half drunk glasses of red and white wine - we were having a ball!

It didn't stop there. The waitress brought serving dishes of chicken picatta ($14.99) with capers in creamy lemon sauce and pork schnitzel with melted cheese; some of pot-stickers, more of chicken satay, ($6.99) and a penne pasta with prosciutto and peas ($13.99) in an alliterative and very tasty dish - especially with the Parmesan! Chef John was having fun, and so were we. His menu is all over the globe.

My favorite dish of the evening was the real Southern catfish & hush puppies. If Chef John had to hang his hat on one dish, I would suggest this one. Of course, he doesn't have to. They're all good!

By this time he was sitting with us, eating and talking about food. The last dish served, before dessert, that is, was a beautiful 16 oz rib eye steak, ($20.99) red inside, the marbled flesh nicely grilled on the outside. I tasted the pure grass-fed goodness of it and wished I had room in my stomach to eat more - but I did not. We passed the wine again and started to pick at the platters with our fingers while we  talked about CSAs, farm co-ops and the wide variety of local food available. Our dinner was a veritable smorgasbord of colors, aromas and flavors, the texture as different in our mouths as the shapes were on the plates. Truly a fantastic meal!

Oh, for dessert ($4.99 each) there was his specialty, a creme brulee to die for (I'm told) that disappeared as it hit the table. You know how am about desserts, I can take them or leave them. This wasn't my choice - I blinked and it was gone. It is that good. I did try the walnut/pear wontons, deep fried and served with a raspberry sauce. They were outlined in red, sweet and savory, the crunchy, red wine reduction in the filling bringing all the flavors together. It was a fitting way to end a feast.

A somewhat incredulous couple at a neighboring table, who earlier had sent over a bottle of wine to encourage us in this extravagance, joined us for coffee. Jay Rogers, salesman for Newton Falls Fine Paper, said "I am a loyal customer. Not just because of the food - which anyone would agree is the best. It is because of the feeling of family I get here, and the passion for food, that I love this place." Talk about unsolicited testimonials. I can only echo his sentiments. The Windfall Restaurant in Cranberry Lake is a mere five-hour drive away. I'm going again, soon!

ADDENDUM: Some of the entrees are available on the menu as half portion appetizers. That explains why I thought our dinner serving was all mixed up.

The catfish was spectacular, but Chef John didn't like the way it was plated by his sous chef, so for lunch the next day he served it to me correctly. I actually ate the one with peas for dinner and the one with carrots for lunch!

Also for lunch, he cooked the fish burger (Fish Sandwich $7.99) plated as it is usually served, on a hoagie roll with sweet potato french fries.

To drink, we had his special home-made root beer, in frosted mugs, a real thirst quencher.

John Dragun is a great chef and a stickler for details!

Windfall Bar and Grill

550 Tooley Pond Road Cranberry Lake NY 12927

(315) 848-3559

Richard Frisbie, FOOD Correspondent:

RICHARD FRISBIE is published twice a month to Gather Essentials: Food. It is a food junkie's take on growing, raising, preparing and - above all else - eating food. Together we?ll explore the trends, addictions, equipment and regional specialties that make up the sometimes mundane and sometimes sublime cooking and dining experience. You can keep up with my other postings and Gather activity by joining my Gather network -- I look forward to hearing from you.

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