Just over a year ago, NYC-based restauranteur couple Zakary Pelaccio (he's the force behind the Fatty Crab and the Fatty 'Cue empire) and Jori Jayne Emde surprised everyone by pulling up stakes and moving to the Hudson Valley, with the intention of "combining farming and cooking." Their new venture, the Fish & Game Restaurant, is located in a 19th century blacksmith on the picturesque main drag of Hudson, NY (some are already calling it The French Laundry of the Hudson Valley). Much of the produce served at the restaurant, which offers a set dinner menu on the weekends, is sourced from the nearby Fish & Game Farm.
This is no ordinary farm: with grounds designed by Rees Roberts + Partners, every detail is carefully considered, from the architected chicken coop to the minimalist fencing. Lucien Rees Roberts, the partner in charge of interiors and landscapes (with landscape architect David Kelly) at Steven Harris Architects, is known for taking a painterly, naturalist approach to landscape design. It's not surprising, considering that the UK-born, Cambridge-educated designer is a third-generation painter himself (see his work at the Foss Gallery in the UK and on his Tumblr, Lucien Rees Roberts).
N.B.: Fish & Game Restaurant serves a set dinner menu from Thursday through Sunday in Hudson, NY.
Photographs by Scott Frances via Rees Roberts + Partners.
Above: The rolling landscape is evocative of English landscape paintings.
Above: A classic stacked fieldstone fence borders a small pond.
Above: The pond, complete with a tiny island, is straight out of an English landscape painting.
Above: A meadow of naturalized bee balm and day lilies.
Above: On the far side of the pond, a pair of silos sit at the edge of a trial garden "fenced" in by a line of shrubbery.
Above: The espaliered shrubbery creates a windbreak to shield garden beds; Emde creates infusions and homemade bitters for the restaurant's cocktail program, using herbs she grows at the farm.
Above: A closeup of the exterior with sliding, barndoor-style shutters.
Above: Barn as living space. Instead of a rug, a staircase ramp is carpeted in grass.
Above: Perennials and wildflowers grow beneath a pair of sliding barn doors that can be closed tight against the elements.
Above: A bentwood settee and a view of the bucolic landscape from the barn. (For a similar look, we recently admired Thonet's Cane Seat Bentwood Settee.)
Above: A simple, minimalist wood fence encircles the property.
Above: "We house a lovely group of free-range chickens who roam our pastures," the couple says.
Above: Lawn as path; the grass cuts a walkway between perennial beds planted with Joe-Pye weed, bee balm, lilies, and daisies.
Above: A perennial border with white veronica in the foreground.
Above: A sinuous path of wood planks leads to the pond.
Above: A pair of Adirondack chairs and a dock on the bank of the pond.
Do you garden in upstate New York? For more planting schemes, see It's High Season in Grace Kennedy's Garden and read our review of Gardens of the Hudson Valley.