With Hotels With Great Taste, we’re pulling back the curtain for a peek at the “special sauce” that hotels use to create memorable, meaningful culinary experiences for their guests.
Piaule Catskill is one of those boutique hotel properties that makes you feel, once you arrive, that you might never want to leave. The Hudson Valley has become known for places that can fulfill any New York City dweller’s craving for the great outdoors without sacrificing creature comforts (Inness in nearby Accord, The Henson in Hensonville, and the DeBruce in Livingston Manor all fit the bill), and the 24-cabin Piaule Catskill had long topped my “get out of the city” bucket list.
Founders Nolan McHugh and Trevor Briggs started Piaule as a homeware brand before opening the hotel five years ago. Their vision was for a property that felt at once expansive and cosy, with a design that celebrates the natural landscape. To bring this to life (all interior design was handled in-house and exteriors were done in collaboration with Garrison Architects), McHugh and Briggs embraced local and natural materials and let the architecture be the star. Take the main building, with its untreated white oak ceiling and wall of west-facing windows that give a clear view of the mountains. The structure’s sloping roof parallels the rise and fall of the skyline.
All gravel paths at Piaule lead back to this structure, which houses both the restaurant and the spa (the raw-cedar-wall sauna and the large saltwater pool that faces the Catskills get a lot of love on Instagram—for good reason). “It was a challenge to make a space that can accommodate 48 people [when we’re booked up] but not feel vacuous if there’s two people in it,” says McHugh.
The Restaurant at Piaule, which offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner, takes a similarly local approach, with a menu that showcases hyper-seasonal ingredients. While you technically can eat all three meals on property, the idea is to mix and match the convenience with nearby restaurants in Catskill and Hudson (just a 10-minute or 25-minute drive away respectively). When you do stay for dinner, there are four options for each course, so in theory, a couple could have dinner back-to-back nights and try new things, with gluten-free and vegetarian dishes aplenty.
Kate Kassin
For my meal, we start with lamb sausage with braised fennel, yogurt, and herbs (there’s a gamier meat option: a Highland Farm venison tartare). All tables then receive house sourdough with cultured butter before mains like a Hudson Valley steelhead trout, wagyu hangar steak, golden hen, or forbidden rice (the vegetarian option) arrive. For dessert, we enjoy various delights, like a fancy cheeseplate, smoky-sweet campfire semifreddo, and blueberry sorbet.
And don’t sleep on the supplements. During my stay, celebrating couples (seemingly half the guests on property had something to toast) said “happy anniversary” with caviar served with potato chips, crème fraîche, and chives. Both raw and roasted oysters were also on offer, with the best bite of the night being oysters Kilpatrick baked with butter, prosciutto, Worcestershire, and Calabrian chili.
