By Don Rosendale

Photos by Sabrina Eberhard

This is a tale about a country inn where Liz Taylor hid out with Richard Burton while she was cheating on husband Eddie Fisher, that now terms itself a B&B, with a restaurant whose quality wags the tail, and a $200 bottle of wine.

Legend has it that the Old Drovers Inn in Dover Plains was the overnight stop for drovers—colonial era cowboys-on-foot herding cattle to downstate markets. There is no proof of this folklore, but in its latest reincarnation the inn is appropriately charming. A warren of small, low ceiling rooms with hewn beams, tiled floors, rustic tables, and electric lights that tortuously flicker—whether from design or a kitchen appliance about to pop a circuit breaker. Food such that a cousin who journeyed from New Jersey said he’d drive the 100 miles “any night of the week” to eat again.

What makes a restaurant worth a trip isn’t an $80 tasting menu but how it prepares everyday plates on the menu. For example, my fare at this recent trip to the Old Drovers Inn started with Caesar salad, a classic perfected by a chef named Caesar in Mexico 100 years ago, and spread through the world. I don’t recall many menus not offering it. In the original recipe, it’s crisp lettuce accented with garlic, oil, vinegar, mustard, egg yolk, croutons and anchovies. Parmesan cheese on top. But nowadays, all too often it’s limp greens with “Italian dressing” and a couple of croutons. Based on the thick emulsion and rich taste, I’d vouch Old Drovers is faithful to the original, except for anchovies, which you don’t find as much anymore.

What pleased my kin’s palate were the smoked corn chowder which improved with every spoonful, and the perfectly cooked parmesan-crusted French cut chicken breast with a beer and glass of rose, $145.

Then there’s the wine list. The New York Times in September spotlighted Hudson Valley restaurants with great wine lists. The newspaper must have missed the Old Drovers—its wine list is like a book, with a plentitude of good affordable wines at $45-$50 a bottle.

There, sticking out on the wine list like a Lamborghini on a used car lot, is a $200 Gevrey-Chambertin, a red wine from Burgundy that wine writers rhapsodize about having a “scent of plums and cherries.”

I asked my waiter if the $200 wine was a big seller. She said it’s popular for birthdays and did I want a bottle to go with my cheeseburger?

Upstairs from the tavern, there are a half-dozen rooms with what might be termed Colonial décor priced at no much more than a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin. No telling where Liz and Dick had their tryst, there’s a recently renovated “party barn” for weddings and parties, adjacent to the inn but I doubt any drover ever sheltered a cow there.

My last visit was on a Saturday night, the parking lot was full and the street lined with illegally parked Mercedes, with every tavern table filled, and the party barn rocked. —olddroversinn.com