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Homestead Inn/Thomas Henkelmann
By
Published: Sep 24, 2009
Category:
Travel
UPDATE: TheDailyMeal.com has named The Homestead Inn the 10th best French restaurant in the United States.
There are weeks so intense that, come Friday, all you want is to hibernate
The calendar says you have a reservation at a 4-star inn just 45 minutes away? You don’t care.
And that inn is holding a table for you at its restaurant, where a master chef routinely delights some of the most critical customers in the Northeast? You’d settle for toast and tea.
But a funny thing happened to me that summer Friday afternoon. No sooner had we settled in at Homestead Inn in Greenwich, Connecticut than I began to shed tension and irritation. And the two-and-a-half hour dinner at Thomas Henkelmann that I had dreaded did the rest. By the time I slipped between the Frette sheets, I was at peace with the world — and very glad the proprietors had invited us.
A night at the Homestead costs several nights at Motel 6. Add dinner at Thomas Henkelmann, and you’re spending enough to stay at Motel 6 for a week or two. But then, this is one of the few Relais & Chateaux destinations in New England. And by that standard, the Homestead is kind of a bargain, delivering value — and more, therapy. Really, the place is like a psychic spa; it works subliminally on what ails you and, imperceptibly, restores you to your best self.
This is an unnatural experience, which is to say it is intensely choreographed and highly theatrical — not that the client sees how any of it happens. On the contrary. Theresa and Thomas Henkelmann have created an experience that has you gliding from one tasteful environment to the next. Are there really 52 employees on this three-acre property? You’d never know it. But then, you’re not really aware that the inn has eighteen guest bedrooms — it feels very much as if you’ve wandered into a large New England house that’s all yours for the weekend.
It’s not just that the big things are done right. It’s the attention to smaller things. A stand of cut orchids in a vase. Bulgari soaps and shampoos. Exceptionally tasteful art, including a funny Al Hirschfeld caricature of Chef Henkelmann with a few more hands than the average mortal. Murano glass candleholders on every table in the dining room. Dimmers on overhead lights. And, in our bedroom, ringing the top of the walls, a frieze of hand-carved Balinese figures. A lovely touch — and, as it happened, ours was the only room had it. (Other rooms, other environments; just down the hall was a suite with Chanel lipstick-red carpeting.)
How did this retreat come to be in a once-dowdy 200-year-old inn located in Belle Haven, arguably the most elite neighborhood in Connecticut’s toniest suburb? A well-made marriage is the answer. In the early 90s, Theresa Kelly, a former casting agent in New York who had moved to Connecticut to raise her children and work as an interior designer, decided she also wanted a restaurant career. So she looked for the best establishment near her home in Greenwich and started at the bottom — as an assistant in the kitchen. A few years later, she married the chef.
The chef was Thomas Henkelmann, a tall, intense German with impeccable training in French cuisine. As a teenager, he had apprenticed in fine restaurants, and then, aloft on audacity, he hitchhiked to the Auberge de l’Ill, the restaurant near Strasbourg where Paul Haeberlin was annually awarded three stars by Michelin. The famed chef was impressed, Henkelmann was hired, and thus began his training with a master. Eventually, America beckoned.
In 1997, the Henkelmanns bought the inn and began a near-total renovation of the 200-year-old structure. In a note on luxury, Theresa set out her definitions: “the opulence and weight of polished mahogany doors with brass fittings….drinking coffee from a bone china cup….” You get the idea? Then you may be surprised to read the final definition: “a friend who understands the difference between personal conceits and avarice. The Homestead operates on that principle: discretion and distinction, not snobbery and exclusivity.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that The New York Times review calls the restaurant “extraordinary”. [The ultimate affirmation: By the end of dinner, the finance kings at the next table were sufficiently relaxed to allow their wives to talk.] Compared to New York prices at comparable restaurants, entrees are modest.
For me, the genius wasn’t only in the food, but in the pacing. The slow, stately presentation of courses forced me to work through my normal impatience. Eventually, the evening — indeed, everything about the Homestead — tuned me to the rhythm of the place. And that place did not remind me of Connecticut, but of France. As I say, a kind of bargain.
Homestead Inn & Thomas Henkelmann, 420 Field Point Road Greenwich, Connecticut 06830. Phone: 203-869-7500
