The Lodge at Glendorn dates back to 1927 when C.G. Bondieu purchased 1,250 acres as a retreat for his growing family. He built a “Big House” and some cottages in the American Arts and Crafts style. They continued to add buildings to the property over the next 80 years, opening it to the public in 1995. One of the families that frequented it, fell in love with it and bought it when it was auctioned off in 2009, after most of the family no longer resided in the area. Cliff Forrest and family then made Glendorn their home and set about preserving the history and natural surroundings while doing restorations, improvements and expanding to 1,500 acres. Today, many of the furnishings and artworks were original to the home when the Dorn’s owned it. We were lucky to snag a room at this Relais & Châteaux for 2 nights during Fall leaves. Breakfast is included with your stay and I’ll cover that and lunch in a separate post. Dinner is in a 4-course tasting format where you choose between multiple options. You can also choose to have just 3 courses, pick more than one from each category, or add additional at a la carte prices. They will customize it however you want. Prior to dinner, they served snacks in another room with a bar, pool table and roaring fire. I’ll talk more about the place in the upcoming posts but it is a beautiful spot and the staff could not be more welcoming or helpful. The food is locally based and good but marvelously enhanced by the stunning yet cozy 2 story dining room. If you can get there I know you will enjoy your visit.
Set-Up
Food
Snacks with cocktails included olives, fish skewers, snack mix and samosas with sweet and spicy sauce. They were all fine.
Bread service was a pumpkin poppyseed bread with both plain salted butter as well as apple thyme butter. The bread was very soft and somewhat under-salted. Adding the butter solved the latter issue. It was fine.
An amuse bouche was octopus salad. It was well seasoned with a hint of spice. It was quite good.
Wild Mushroom Risotto was made with Chanterelles, Lion’s Main, Matsutake and parmesan. They offered a supplement of shaved Alba White Truffles for $25 which we opted to add. They were shaved at the table, yielding some fragrance, but the flavor added was minimal. The assortment of mushrooms carried most of the flavor in the good dish.
Honey Smoked Quail was served on a log with frisée, arugula, pickled blackberries, candied pecans and feta cheese. The quail was outstanding with a deep smoked flavor yet remained quite juicy. The skin was a bit tough but still very edible. I’m not sure what the milky sauce was. It was slightly sweet, so maybe it was made from the honey drippings.
A Bison Filet was served with potato purée, lardo, pickled beets, and glazed root vegetables. We ordered it rare and it was cooked perfectly. Tender with a tasty sauce, it made a good main course. The root vegetables included carrots from their garden and the server called the yellow ones pole beans but I believe they were parsnips. The pickled beets were also tasty and added a sharpness to the flavors on the plate.
Warm bread pudding was served with caramel sauce and I asked for extra caramel. The pudding had a good amount of cinnamon but was not heated well throughout. The extra caramel sauce was key to this dish’s success. A very sweet dessert.
Last treats were pumpkin pie cookies. The crust was very soft and crumbled easily when handled. However, they were nicely seasoned and tasty so worth the mess.
