Excitement on Main Street

by Harold Jacobs and photographs by Jennifer May, February 26, 2007

Charlie and Megan Fells have turned the long-closed M. Schwartz & Co. clothing store on Main Street in Poughkeepsie into an urbane, hip, and bustling restaurant. Cynics thought that not enough people would be willing to support a serious restaurant in what has long been perceived to be a crime-ridden and decaying part of the city. But the moment the Artist’s Palate opened in May of last year, it struck a receptive chord with its patrons. The restaurant’s presence has reinforced the city’s efforts to revitalize the neighborhood, and the city in turn has improved security. The Artist’s Palate presently serves as the anchor establishment for what will likely become a more gentrified part of town. The owners and chefs owe their success not only to the delectable food they serve but also to the restaurant’s eye-catching interior design.

Alan Baer, an interior designer from Kingston, created the polished and inviting space. Although this is the first restaurant he designed, he came up with a number of wonderful touches that allowed the owners, in Megan Fells’s words, “to realize our idea of making the interior aesthetically interesting, a place where food and art would be seamlessly integrated.” A large, shiny aluminum duct pipe runs just below the high original tin ceiling along the length of the restaurant. Coupled with other exposed pipes, this gives the interior a sleek, modern industrial look. The sense of openness is reinforced by the stainless-steel kitchen located in the rear of the restaurant. It allows the chefs to look out on the 76-seat dining room and enables patrons to see the activity taking place in the open kitchen. At the left of the entrance, a seven-seat bar has a dark gray poured concrete top decorated with backlit round holes filled with clear fiberglass. Interspersed along the left wall are large cream-colored alcoves, framed in steel gray and containing featured artwork. The brick rear and right walls, a Tuscan red-painted section of the rear wall, and Finn Form yellow tables and chairs placed on the dark brown hard wood floors accent the milieu with additional drama and color.

As with its art (a new show rotates through every other month), the restaurant regularly reconfigures its menu. It features contemporary American food with Italian, French, or Asian accents. Seventy-five percent of the items on the menu change every two weeks, including all the entrées. Charlie Fells believes that “this keeps us fresh and creates a bit of excitement for our clients, who can look forward to some surprises each time they come.”

Among the five appetizers that have become a staple offering, the onion soup is made from four types of onions: red, Sea Pine Island (a pungent, strong, and delicious variety of cooking onion) or common yellow, the white part of leeks, and shallots. After caramelizing the onions and deglazing the pan with cream sherry, fresh thyme, and a bay leaf, the onion base is slowly simmered in chicken stock, beef broth, and a touch of Worcestershire sauce. As in the French fashion, the soup is presented in a small bowl with a toasted baguette slice and topped by a layer of melted Gruyère cheese. The variety of onions and their subtle variations in flavor, ranging from mildly sweet and garlicky to delicately spicy, set this soup apart from others of its type.

The appetizer most favored by patrons according to the chefs is the Lobster Mac and Cheese—an inspired twist on the classic American comfort food. The Fells’s variation substitutes Italian fontina, a cow’s milk cheese with a mild, nutty flavor, for the traditional combination of extra-sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack. Maine lobster, lobster stock, heavy cream, elbow macaroni, and fontina are combined and then topped with buttered breadcrumbs. Once baked, the breadcrumbs form a browned, crunchy topping to the mélange of bubbling-hot lobster sauce, pasta, and morsels of succulent lobster. The dish is finished with a Pedro Jimenez sherry drizzle. The sherry’s sweetness and round, crisp, velvety aroma adds to the appetizer’s decadent luxuriousness. This suave dish can easily become addictive.