Destination Dining

Some Catskills restaurants are worth the drive from wherever you're staying. Not the obvious Phoenicia-or-Woodstock neighborhood options, but specific kitchens that anchor weekends by themselves. Three of them, in rough order by how remote they feel.

Peekamoose (Big Indian)

Rt 28 in Big Indian, between Phoenicia and Margaretville. Peekamoose is one of the longest-running serious kitchens in the Catskills. Devin Mills opened it in 2004 and has held consistent quality since; the menu is contemporary American with a technical hand and good use of regional producers. The dining room is woodstove-warm, modest in scale, and reliably fills on weekends.

What works: the kitchen. Peekamoose's consistency is the reason people book it as a destination from Woodstock or Phoenicia; the restaurant is a drive in any direction, and the drive is part of the weekend rather than an obstacle.

Reservations are required on weekends and strongly recommended mid-week. The bar seats a few, walk-in, and is the workable back-up when the dining room is booked.

The Andes Hotel (Andes)

Main Street, Andes. The Andes Hotel is one of the oldest continuously-operating hotels in Delaware County (the building dates to the mid-19th century; the hotel operation has run off and on throughout that period). The current kitchen operates a serious modern-American menu with an unpretentious dining room, a proper bar, and a handful of rooms upstairs for guests staying over.

What works: the full package. Dinner and a room above the restaurant; breakfast the next morning; a walk to the Hawk + Hive gallery a block away; the whole weekend routes through one building. For a no-driving-after-dinner weekend, the Andes Hotel is the cleanest solution.

Andes is 20 minutes from Margaretville (see the Margaretville anchor guide). The western-Catskills frame works: Andes Hotel as the dinner + room, Hawk + Hive in the morning, drive home.

Spruceton Inn (West Kill)

Spruceton Road, at the head of the West Kill valley in Greene County. Not a full destination-dining restaurant the way Peekamoose is (the Spruceton Inn runs a limited kitchen that holds up under the weekend load), but the Inn makes the list because the drive itself is part of the experience. Spruceton Road dead-ends in state forest at the base of West Kill Mountain; the Inn sits in the last village before the road runs out. The setting does half the work.

What works: the place as a destination. A Friday night at Spruceton Inn is a specific experience: small valley, cabin weekend, the mountains at the end of the road. The kitchen is simpler than Peekamoose's or the Andes Hotel's, but that is not why you are there. The Inn has nine rooms, so dinner and bed sit a short walk apart.

How to Sequence These

For a three-restaurant weekend that uses all three:

• Friday night — Spruceton Inn for dinner and the room. Quiet arrival.
• Saturday — morning at West Kill or the Diamond Notch Trail, breakfast at Mama's Boy or the Phoenicia Diner on the way out, afternoon at Peekamoose (late lunch or early dinner), back to the rental.
• Sunday — drive west to Andes for lunch or brunch at the Andes Hotel, walk through the village, Hawk + Hive, drive home.

This is a three-county weekend (Greene, Ulster, Delaware) but manageable with a single rental somewhere central like Phoenicia or Mt. Tremper.

The Editorial Point

The three restaurants share a specific character: small, confidently-run, non-pretentious kitchens in towns the critical press rarely names. Peekamoose has run for two decades; the Andes Hotel has been a dining anchor in Andes for much of its lifetime; Spruceton Inn has made the end of a dead-end road a plausible weekend destination. They're restaurants, not brand campaigns.

Compliance, Quickly

• 21+ only, licensed shops only. Verify via OCM QR code at cannabis.ny.gov.
• No consumption at any of the three restaurants — all private venues.
• No consumption in cars between venues, driver or passenger.
• Lodging rules apply at the Andes Hotel and Spruceton Inn; read the house policy before booking.
• New York state law prohibits cannabis consumption on state-owned land and in public spaces, which includes the state forest at the end of Spruceton Road.