"As if New Yorkers needed another reason to flee the concrete jungle for the idyll of the Catskills, Casa Susanna, chef Efrén Hernández’s celebration of Mexican cuisine, has arrived. The restaurant sits in the tavern-style lobby of Camptown, a new 50-room hotel at the foot of the Catskill Mountains. The project comes from the team behind Rivertown Lodge in nearby Hudson. At Casa Susanna, Hernández, formerly of downtown New York hot spots MIMI and Babs, is pairing his family recipes from the western region of Jalisco—celebrated for its vibrant seafood and its heartier meat dishes like birria—with the bounty of the Hudson Valley. The menu features tortillas made in-house and bold dishes like a blood sausage tamal and grilled whole porgy al pastor with fennel curtido. If the lodge setting or the on-site greenhouse-grown cocktail garnishes haven’t convinced you to depart the city for dinner, perhaps the alfresco patio dining will." - ByKate Kassin