"Matilda is the hotel restaurant at The Henson, a 16-room inn that charges $389 a night for rooms engineered to look good in your end-of-summer film dump. It comes to the Catskills from the team behind Wildair in NYC, and they also run Day June, a fancy diner around the corner. While everything is technically spot-on and tastes good, the flavor combinations don’t land as well at Matilda as they do at their other restaurants—it's almost like they fed the Wildair menu to AI and told it to spit out an Upstate version. Still, it’s worth checking out for the lush mountain views, or to have wine and delicate, vegetable-forward small plates with your creative director friend who says Phoenicia Diner is “overrated now.” It’s a lot quieter here than in Hudson or Woodstock, making it perfect for a romantic date or getaway. Golden hour light streams into the dining room from the garden windows, and soft fabric lights and a giant limewashed fireplace lend a nice modern touch to the historic feel of exposed wooden beams. If you’re coming with a larger group, know that you’re going to have to put in multiple orders of the dainty small plates. Unless you want to Lady and the Tramp dauphine potatoes the size of an egg with your homies. Food Rundown Dauphine Potatoes Airy pockets of fluffy potatoes would be a decadent snack on their own. But the bright green basil leaves sandwiched between the piping hot potato pastry and a translucent sheet of fatty prosciutto takes these to another level. They are rich enough that you’ll feel satisfied after just a few bites, which works out great because your order only comes with three and they’re the size and shape of a foam football stress toy. photo credit: Matilda Roasted Onions This is one of the simpler dishes. And by that, we mean that it’s a plate of 11 onion slices in a shallow pool of bonito broth with crisped-up sourdough shards. It makes for a very tasty side to pair with your larger mains like the slow-grilled chicken or striploin. photo credit: The Henson Green Asparagus We wanted to like this asparagus dish, where bite-sized pieces of vegetables are arranged into teeny Lincoln Log cabins with curled fiddleheads and garlicky green onions. But for $18, we wish that we got more than three stalks of asparagus. Confit Tuna Belly Imagine you left a tuna salad sandwich in your backpack before stuffing it with a laptop and a Neapolitan Novels boxed set. Now imagine pulling it out to discover that instead of a mushy, wet mess, it was a delicate stack of paper-thin sumac crackers, fatty confit tuna belly, and preserved lemon dijonnaise. It’s one of the better dishes here, but the combination of funky ingredients still leaves us scratching our heads a bit. Steelhead Trout Trout in the Catskills isn’t groundbreaking, but it still feels fresh and interesting here, with a deep onyx-colored nori puree and tender, poached fish. The crunchy sea beans on top also add a great touch of salinity. photo credit: The Henson Strawberry and Potato Do we actually detect roasted potatoes in this fluffy mousse? Not really, but it’s a very nice dessert with smooth ribbons of olive oil and strawberry jams. We especially like the texture of the milk crumble and heaping mound of strawberry granita on top." - Anne Cruz
