When Chef Mike Kaphan says he likes to keep things as local as possible, he often means the restaurant’s backyard. Purdy’s Farmer & the Fish is housed in an American Revolution-era building surrounded by four acres of terraced farms and greenhouses. From August to October, according to Kaphan, the farm produces more than 90 percent of all produce served in the restaurant, which is paired with fresh seafood, like Maine lobster, Nova Scotia halibut, and littleneck clams. When the weather’s nice, the best seats in the house are on the flower-encircled front porch, where diners can dig into several varieties of East Coast oysters and lobster rolls.

Scott Vaccaro, founder of Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (Westchester’s oldest and largest craft brewery), partnered with prominent Peekskill restaurateurs Louie Lanza and John Sharp to develop Factoria at Charles Point, a dining and entertainment complex on the Hudson River. On the second floor sits Fin & Brew, where chef Mike Anastacio creates seafood-driven dishes, like harissa-spiked fisherman’s stew and charred octopus with smoked pear broth, persimmon puree, and bitter greens, to pair with craft beers, particularly those on draft from Vaccaro’s River Outpost Brewing Co. downstairs, which runs tap lines directly to the Fin & Brew bar. 

Of the big-name New York City chefs who’ve made the journey north, few have had the longevity of Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who opened  the Inn at Pound Ridge in 2014. Set in an 1833 farmhouse, the restaurant’s rustic-elegant dining room (exposed wood ceilings and four working fireplaces) is a favorite of residents in ritzy northern Westchester.. While the aesthetic is wholly different from Vongerichten’s sleek urban restaurants, the cuisine feels familiar — ginger-marinated tuna tartare, black truffle and fontina pizza, steamed black sea bass with orange and cumin — if a bit more relaxed.

Housed in a 1790s barn-turned-manor house, Crabtree’s Kittle House is a fine-dining institution known for its romantic atmosphere and wine list featuring 40,000 bottles. But what few diners here realize is that the Crabtree family was also at the forefront of the local farm-to-table movement, well before it was a marketing buzzword for restaurants. These days, the menu is still peppered with local ingredients, like Chaseholm Farm cheese and Highland Farm venison, many of which come from small, New York State farms. Don’t skip dessert: The Kittle Krack pie is a decadent amalgam of butter cookie crust and sugary filling, topped with a scoop of coconut gelato. 

As the second-generation co-owner of her family’s Mexican restaurant, Joana Herrera is reclaiming the authentic cuisine of her grandmother’s kitchen. Hand-pressed tortillas, made with fresh masa from Yonkers nixtamal La Milpa de Rosa, seasonal ingredients from local farmers markets, and molcajete-pounded salsas are the backbone of dishes like the quesadilla plazera with farm greens and Oaxaca cheese and the brothy, tomatillo-based sopa de tortilla. The bar program is centered around mezcal, with a short number of signature cocktails, plus some local craft beers.

The Restaurant at Kanopi opened on the 42nd floor of what’s now the Opus Westchester hotel in March 2020, just weeks before the pandemic shutdown. The restaurant reopened in July 2021 with only seven tables and one of the county’s most unique dining experiences — its sky-high views has no rivals in the area. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, diners have sweeping views in all directions, and chef Anthony Gonçalves seeks to make an equally bold impression with his Portuguese omakase. Start with a vegetal cocktail, like a honeynut squash Old Fashioned, then tuck into dishes such as piri piri-seasoned hamachi ceviche and cheese tortellini with a lemon-dashi cacio e pepe sauce.

From the strip-mall parking lot, O Mandarin looks like the average Chinese restaurant. But entering the restaurant feels like a passage into owner Peter Liu’s native China, with intricately carved screens and Chinese antiques. Chef and two-time James Beard semifinalist Eric Gao specializes in Sichuan cuisine (expect lots of mouth-numbing peppercorns across the menu) and dishes that aren’t found on Chinese American menus, like silky thousand layer tofu, Sichuan hot pot, beef tendon, and a Peking duck that requires a three-to-four day process of air drying and roasting with malt sugar before being tucked into handmade pancakes.

David DiBari owns a number of establishments, but his Italian gastropub remains his best restaurant, and loyal customers pack the space on weekends. The airy meatballs, brown butter-bathed cauliflower ravioli, and deep-fried pork osso buco are musts for first-timers but don’t overlook the specials, where DiBari and executive chef Sajin Renae play with offal and seasonal ingredients. The suckling pig dinner, which must be booked in advance, is one of Westchester’s iconic dining experiences. A whole, crispy-skinned pig is paraded through the dining room and carved tableside, often at DiBari’s grandmother’s kitchen table, which now sits in a nook by the front window.

When Jennifer Aaronson, an editorial director at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Danny Meyer alum Paul Molakides, who worked front of house, opened this chic wine bar in 2016, the menu comprised mostly of cheese and charcuterie boards, salads, toasts, and 30-plus wines by the glass. But 2020 was a transformational year for Boro6. After expanding into an adjacent space to add a full kitchen and the takeaway B6 Kitchen, the wine bar now has a full menu of shareable plates and entrees. The wine list has also been reimagined to feature mostly biodynamic, sustainable, and organic wines with a growing number of selections from women winemakers.

Burrata is a hidden gem among Westchester’s countless Italian restaurants. Neapolitan-style pizzas are slow-fermented for 48 to 72 hours and fired in the wood-burning oven. (The J. Sexton, topped with chilled burrata, and the namesake wild mushroom pie are both standouts.) And the rest of the menu is equally well-executed, from the tender, balsamic glazed ribs to the fresh pastas. There’s also a solid craft cocktail program and a newly updated wine list that features reserve bottles at low markups. 

During the summer, lines snake down the block in front of this 103-year-old Mamaroneck institution. The roadside dragon pagoda, with its oxidized copper roof and hanging lanterns, is on the National Register of Historic Places, but it’s the hot dogs that have put Walter’s on the map. Composed from a proprietary blend of beef, pork, and veal, the franks are split and griddled with butter sauce, then sandwiched between toasted buns, ideally with a smear of Walter’s own relish-flecked mustard. The only seating is a series of picnic tables (for indoor seating, a White Plains storefront opened in 2018), but that’s part of the charm.