Between the city lights, Farmer’s Creekside efforts stand as a lighthouse of ambition. There are chicken wings ($12), but also creative dishes like a churro poutine ($12) built on savory doughnuts instead of French fries.
Apr 11, 2019
By Andrew
Oatka Creek provided the water power that built LeRoy, as the businesses whose gears it drove prospered along its banks.
It also provided the building materials for One Main Street. The masons who laid its fortress-like walls built them of Marcellus shale, some slabs dark as blackboards, hauled out of the creek bed while James Monroe was in the White House.
Step down into Farmer’s Creekside Tavern, the restaurant Bill Farmer built into its painstakingly restored innards, and you might find yourself thinking “They don’t make buildings like this any more.”
In 2004, the building was gutted by fire. To LeRoy’s benefit, it was purchased by Farmer, who is in construction, and a restoration specialist to boot. One Main Street has been many things in its nearly 200 years of its existence: factory, office, home, burned-out shell. Now, after years of restoration, it’s the finest restaurant between Buffalo and Rochester.
In a drinking landscape dominated by Bud Light, it has invested in the caliber of wine program it takes to earn a Wine Spectator award of excellence, and a custom cocktail list ($10) with drinks like a New-Fashioned, with applejack, rye and maple kombucha.
The low-ceilinged space is lined with dark wood, expanses of exposed brick and shale stonework. Its prime tables are in a room overlooking the creek and mesmerizing arc of water crashing into creamy foam over a dam. In pleasant weather there’s a patio close enough to feel the water whoosh by.
Tear your attention away to peruse Executive Chef Sean Wolf’s menu and specials cards, and you’ll see controlled adventurousness everywhere. The seared tuna appetizer ($14) is pointed up with tamarind and coriander, the steak tartare ($16) dusted with cured egg yolk.
Churro poutine might sound like a gross misadventure, but Wolf uses savory batter for the piped-out doughnut sticks, and omits cinnamon sugar. They’re served warm, topped with duck confit, gravy and raclette cheese. Quite an imaginative spin on poutine, marred only by the cheese application, which welded everything together into a puck, albeit a tasty one.
Another imaginative appetizer went sideways in design. “Actual" Potato Skins ($10) weren’t the scooped-out cheddar-and-bacon boats I have loved since childhood. Instead, these were potato peelings, fried to crispy wisps instead of being thrown out, and served with gorgonzola cheese, bacon and scallions.
It's a worthy lineup of ingredients that taste great together, but the cheese and bacon settled to the bottom of the potato haystack. To get the blessed cheese-pork-potato trinity I had to to pinch together bites, which I did, because I’m shameless, but it wasn’t fine.
Another appetizer called Pnocchi ($7) are pitched as a gnocchi-pretzel crossover, which puzzled me until biting into a dumpling the size of a pretzel nugget. Dunking into the proffered beer cheese sauce, it made sense, as a heartier, fortified bite with a heart of soft pretzel.
A picture-perfect calamari ($11) rounded out appetizers, with greaseless, sprightly seasoned coating on rings and tentacles fried to a crisp, tossed with pickled shishito peppers and leaves of peppery arugula. Aioli spiked with sunny citrus lightened morsels.
Venison osso buco ($32) led the entrée round with a mountainous shank braised in red wine and root vegetables until falling-apart tender. Bites scooped up with tender risotto redolent of Parmesan were a winter warmer to remember.
Scallops ($29) set standard seafood against an unusual backdrop: Fresno chile mole, a Mexican-inspired sauce whose spicy and spiced intensity served the meek bivalves well. Four well-seared scallops came on diced root vegetables, each bearing pomegranate berries for a juicy acid pop.
Red snapper ($28) was also cooked deftly, its skin crisped while retaining tenderness, then served over nutty quinoa tossed with vegetable hash. Lamb chops ($31), on roast potatoes, date puree and a dab of garlicky yogurt, were a notch overcooked.
The sole vegetarian entrée, angel hair pasta with falafel and vegetables ($23), was a letdown. Chewy, fudgy falafel and vegetables that were heartily adequate weren’t up to the standards of other dishes.
Standouts for dessert were a salty caramel cheesecake ($7) finished with flakes of salt that crunched between my teeth, and a credible flourless chocolate torte ($7), dark as midnight, that melted easily on the tongue.
Service can improve. I was told there was no way to transfer a bar tab to our table. The flow of courses was uneven, without explanation, and servers auctioned off dishes instead of knowing who got what.
That said, Bill Farmer has done more than rebuild a structure. He has established the foundation of a first-class fine-dining restaurant capable of becoming a regional attraction. Not two years old, with some big paws to grow into, Farmer’s Creekside Tavern is doing just fine.
RESTAURANT REVIEW
Farmer’s Creekside Tavern & Inn – 8 plates (out of 10)
1 Main St., LeRoy (585-768-6007)
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.
Prices: appetizers, $5-$15; sandwiches, $11-$18; entrees, $23-31.
Atmosphere: low ceilings and muted sounds.
Parking: lot behind building.
Wheelchair access: yes