Heirloom Lodge owner Matt Straus sits outside the restaurant in West Stockbridge with resident chef Hannah Wong from Hudson Valley. Wong also ran a residency last year at the Old Chatham Country Store & Cafe. Some of Wong ' s creations while at Heirloom Lodge include, left, steelhead trout, curried cauliflower, capers, green peppercorns, and watercress; and above, Rhode Island squid, Baer’ s cranberry beans, chicories, and chili oil. was the name of the game. That meant grabbing other produce from small farms and greenhouse grows in the Berkshires and nearby Pioneer Valley, which allowed them to get access to excellent root vegetables and the winterized shoots of kale raab even in February, when they were still in the ground a couple weeks prior. Fresh. Local. Healthy. Delicious.
Just over the Berkshire border and into New York, Old Chatham Country Store & Cafe has been in continuous operation as an eatery and provisions store since the 1750s. It has been a gathering place for generations of neighbors and Berkshire locals crossing over to enjoy the bounty
of the land. Part market, part café, part restaurant, this space is deeply rooted in community. Thanks to owners Caroline Jaquiss and Jack Kearney, their vision has come to life in a way that honors its legacy while still attracting a new community of Hudson Valley residents and transients alike.( Its ultra-Instagrammable aesthetic doesn’ t hurt its vibe, either.)
Jaquiss says that their residency programnot only attracts talents from NYC and the greater Northeast region, but there’ s the added attraction of an upstairs apartment dedicated to giving nomadic cooks a place to live while they infuse the cafe with the cuisine they bring with them, along with their cherished collection of knives. The intention when Jaquiss and Kearney took this over a few years ago was to capture the rural beauty and unique spirit of creativity and exceptional talent that is afforded a spot so close to urban hubs like Manhattan and Boston.“ Most of the amazing produce and meats and wares you get in a city like New York is often pulling from the farms in this area,” Jaquiss says.“ Our intention was to really highlight what’ s already here and bring in different chefs to not reinvent the wheel and just show others what is so special about this region: the food, the people, and the natural beauty.” She says she loves artist residencies but hasn’ t seen a lot of that with food, so it made sense to offer the upstairs apartment to chefs to come live and cook for a week or a month over the summer. The result has been demonstrable in creating new experiences and new variety to the flavors being emboldened by the local ingredients.“ It’ s been wonderful to be able to have one weekend where we offer Jordanian food, the next weekend Italian, or a really great Chinese food chef that can be rare up here,” says Jaquiss.“ We are even talking to a Sudanese chef for a residency this summer.”
Early this year, the Kitchen Work Foundation( KWF), a California-based nonprofit,
July 2025 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 19