BLUE HILL AT STONE BARNS
630 Bedford Rd., Pocantico Hills, N.Y.
914-366-9600

As a matter of pride, food snobs like to think of themselves as sojourners on an elusive quest for culinary excellence. These days, the great foodie pilgrimage leads north, up the Hudson, to the old Rockefeller estate in Westchester, near the town of Pocantico Hills. That's the home of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the new seasonal-ingredients Shangri-La run by the Barber brothers (Dan and David) and talented chef Michael Anthony. Drive north, and the clamor of the city gently falls away. The beamy, comfortable restaurant is built into the old barns themselves; if you arrive in summertime, the evening sky will be filled with barn swallows. Many ingredients are grown or raised on the premises, so expect fresh peas in spring and tomatoes in summer (folded, say, into a fine gazpacho) and fine braised pork, thanks to the restaurant's own collection of nicely fattened Berkshire pigs. If you're feeling up to it, you can even visit these animals, who snuffle around in a pen near the barns, to pay your last respects.