At his eponymous home-restaurant in upstate New York, Damon Baehrel handcrafts most components of his 20-plus-course meal with ingredients from his 12-acre native farm. And he's booked out for years
Damon Baehrel’s rural property in upstate New York
There is hesitation in Damon Baehrel’s lilting voice when I ask him how he would like to be known: A chef, a farmer, or both? “Umm... that... and a wine specialist, a waiter, a cheese maker, a carpenter, a beekeeper, and a dishwasher, among others,” he says. “I am a pretty good dishwasher, you know. I haven’t broken anything yet. It’s almost therapeutic to do something as mindless as the dishes at the end of the day.”
Baehrel might have a problem of plenty while choosing his designation, but his eponymous restaurant at Earlton, in upstate New York about 220 km north of Manhattan, has received unequivocal acclaim for being one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world. International media reports say you will have to wait till at least 2025 to be able to eat here—you can’t walk in, and all tables are booked till then. In fact, you can’t even send in a reservation request now: Baehrel has stopped taking reservations since March 2014, and is unlikely to resume anytime soon.
Baehrel won’t put a number to pending reservations. He says he doesn’t like numbers; perhaps that’s why he doesn’t reveal his age either, except that he is in his early-50s. In an email he writes that he is frustrated with the media’s obsession with his waiting list. “I will no longer confirm the year we are reserved through,” he says. But he will give out this much: “I possibly couldn’t clear up pending requests if I were to live till 100. Maybe some people will drop out. But even that would leave me with a pretty long back-up list.”
(This story appears in the 20 January, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)