By Cynthia Hochswender
Photos by Sabrina Eberhard
Staatsburg is the kind of town you can drive through without realizing it. The town center is barely an intersection. But settled snugly at that intersection is a restaurant with a pedigree so exquisite that the tables are nearly always full, with visitors from the neighborhood (of course); from nearby Rhinebeck, Red Hook, and Poughkeepsie; and as far away as New York City and New Jersey.
River and Post takes pride in being a hidden treasure—the kind of pride that comes from decades of experience in the restaurant business, and a quiet confidence that they know their clients will travel to distant corners to enjoy their meals.
To explain the layers of roots and history that led Sergia Rebraca and his mother, Patricia Panarella, to embrace the center of Staatsburg as the home for their newest culinary adventure would take pages and pages. Suffice it to say that the family (including patriarch Nikola Rebraca, who died during the COVID pandemic) has had many restaurant successes in New York City (Panarella’s on the Upper West Side) and in the Hudson River Valley (the Belvedere Mansion, and popular Rhinebeck spots Arielle and the Liberty Public House).
For River and Post, Sergia has taken the reins and created a serene, understated, and supremely chic interior. There are cozy booths as well as mid-century modern tables and chairs. A dark, woodsy-colored ceiling melts with rich chocolate brown walls; a smooth, hip soundtrack has your shoulders bouncing as you read the menu.
The menu is short, and changes continually—except the meltingly tender beef short rib, served over roasted root vegetables; and the buttermilk fried chicken served with slaw, mashed potatoes, and honey.
“We can’t take them off the menu,” Rebraca says, but you can tell he doesn’t mind. Part of the restaurant’s mission, he feels, is to give good home cooks a chance to take a break.
“We try to do things you’d rather not make at home, because they’re too slow, too fragrant, too messy.”
The summer menu features lighter ingredients, veering toward “spa.” The winter menu has soulful favorites such as pork schnitzel, and a “classic paella” with shrimp, calamari, mussels, chicken, and saffron rice—at the moderate price of $38. Which is a clue to another of Rebraca’s goals: To create meals that anyone can afford.
The chef that makes it all happen is Antonio Cerón, who also cooked at Arielle and Liberty.
“I said I wouldn’t do my next restaurant unless he came,” Rebraca says. Fortunately, he did.
A newer discovery is bartender Matt Hoffman, who has curated a refined and rare selection of wines and spirits, and who concocts cocktails that, like the restaurant, combine sophistication with a chill vibe.
That chill vibe is the third part of Rebraca’s mission here: To create an environment that people would seek out—even if food were not their priority. It seems to have worked.
“We didn’t tell anyone we were opening here,” he says. “And we were packed from our first night.”
River and Post, 57 Old Post Road, Staatsburg, 845-773-9373—riverandpost.co