Weekend Getaway: Beacon, NY
My husband and I decided to get out of town for the weekend for our anniversary. We had heard a lot of interesting things about the town of Beacon, upstate, NY but had never been there. The one thing that attracted us to the town was an art museum called, Dia. The New York Times and some of the other publications had mentioned the museum as being cutting edge and we wanted to check it out.
We decided to stay at the Swann Inn, a bed and breakfast place located a few minutes away from Main Street. Our first choice hotel, was booked with a wedding, so, even though we don’t typically go to bed and breakfasts, we decided to stay there.
The Swann Inn, is a quaint little inn. They have six guest rooms all beautifully decorated. The house, built in 1866 and has gone through several owners until the current owners, Darlene and Neil Caplan bought it in the 1995 and totally renovated the house.
The first morning, Darlene and Neil made a yummy breakfast of orange french toast along with fresh fruit and a special anniversary cake (we told them it was our anniversary). On the second day, we had an assortment of chocolate covered strawberries, fruit compote and an Almond Amaretto waffle.
The first day, we went to the Dia Art Gallery, which was the old Nabisco factory converted into a new art museum. The Dia reminded me of how SoHo used to be in the 80’s. Each room had an interesting exhibit from a pile of dirt to a parking garage lit in green. It may sound like I didn’t really enjoy myself, but I did. It was interesting, unique and thought-provoking. On this blog, I share noteworthy pieces.
We went to two restaurants for dinner — Cafe Amarcord and the Roundhouse.
Cafe Amarcord was a quaint little restaurant on Main Street in Beacon. They served Italian style food with an American flair. We started the meal with a Beet and Goat Cheese salad and my husband had veal chop that was incredibly think and juicy! I had a short ribs and pasta dish. My only complaint was that there wasn’t enough meat in the sauce.
The Roundhouse had a beautiful setting. My husband and I had a table overlooking a waterfall all lit up. It was gorgeous. The inside was also pretty chic, having red velvet chairs that were incredibly comfortable. It looked like a Manhattan style restaurant.
The food, on the other hand, wasn’t great. There was a section on the menu where you can get anything on the pig and have an entire spread – ear, eye, liver and heart, etc. That wasn’t my forte.
I ordered the duck breast medium, which came out medium rare, with a chocolate/orange sauce. My husband ordered the short rib entree. It was braised for four hours and then pressed into a patty. It had a spicy sauce on top. I didn’t like it. The vegetables were good — true farm to table. I was a little upset that the waitress never offered us the prixe fix meal of six different courses, but as my husband said, “we probably wouldn’t order it anyway.”
The town of Beacon was cute. It was larger than I would have thought. There were an array of small boutique shops and upscale second hand shops. The town is also laced with lots of small art galleries, offering modern, pop art.
The evenings are quiet there. We went one of the evenings to the Oak Vino Wine Bar. It had a nice atmosphere but nothing was going on so we drank a glass of wine and left.
We decided to leave after breakfast on Sunday since we saw pretty much all we were going to see on Saturday and there was a threat of snow. All in all, it was a fun weekend to get out of town.
