The PHoenicia Diner Cookbook

Dishes and Dispatches from the Catskill Mountains

By Mike Cioffi, Chris Bradley, & Sara B. Franklin
Clarkson Potter, 2020

purchase

DESCRIPTION

85 comfort food recipes, including classic Americana dishes and reimagined favorites, from the celebrated Phoenicia Diner in New York's idyllic Catskill mountains

Whether you're a local or just passing through, the revamped Phoenicia Diner is an irresistible must-stop in the region, beloved for its honest cooking that seamlessly combines the best of the classics (Classic Buttermilk Pancakes, Chicken with Chive-Buttermilk Dumplings) with the multifaceted way we love to eat today (Chile-Braised Lamb Tostadas, Cider-Braised Duck and Grits). In the Phoenicia Diner Cookbook, you'll find a roster of approachable, soulful dishes that are deeply delicious and full of life-satisfying abundance. "All Day Breakfast" recipes like a Twice-Baked Potato Skillet and gold standards with a twist, such as Roasted Chicken with Tarragon-Honey Glazed Carrots, are complemented by rich essays on the region's fascinating history and the revival that defines it today, creating an evocative love letter to both the area and disappearing diners everywhere.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mike Cioffi is the creator and visionary behind the Phoenicia Diner. After a thirty-year career building scenery for television and Broadway shows, he became interested in the restaurant world and in 2012 he and his family took a leap of faith when the Diner opened its doors.

Co-author Sara B. Franklin is a writer and a professor of food culture and history at NYU's Gallatin School for Individualized Study and the NYU Prison Education Program. She lives with her family in the Hudson Valley.

Chef Chris Bradley spent two decades cooking in some of the most renowned restaurants in New York and Washington, D.C., before moving to Upstate New York. He now lives with his family in the Hudson Valley.

Reviews

“The smell of bacon. The sight of pancakes growing golden on a griddle. The sound of gentle conversation at a long counter. If there is a place where just about anyone in this fractured country would feel at home, it’s in a roadside diner, and if you wanted to dream up the ideal version of such a roadside refuge, it would look and sound and smell a lot like the Phoenicia Diner. From Brunswick stew to biscuits and gravy to ’shrooms on a shingle, this book brings all of those sensory comforts to life on every gleaming page. This book might just save America.”
—Jeff Gordinier, author of Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World

“If there’s a sight in the Hudson Valley more soothing, more full of familiar promise than the globe lights shining beacon-bright through Phoenicia Diner’s windows in the late afternoon, I just don’t know it. In the embrace of the Diner’s vinyl booths, I have stomped snow from the treads of my boots between bites of Salisbury steak, shared a late-August milkshake with a new love, welcomed in birthdays with pancakes and fat onion rings. The Diner’s rare knack for nudging nostalgia into a modern context is what makes it so special, and it’s all over this book: 272 pages of a gorgeous, inclusive, golden-yolked American Dream, where chilaquiles and Brunswick stew and patty melts and meatballs are all welcome and all make perfect sense. The Diner will make short-order cooks out of all of us, and in the end, that’s a very good thing.”
—Jordana Rothman, restaurant editor-at-large, Food & Wine

“A really good diner becomes the heart of its community, and Phoenicia Diner is a great one—serving up hearty and delicious food from people who are happy to see you, and a sense of abundance that feels like home, whether you’re a local or just passing through.”
—Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and founder of Shake Shack