Little King feels like a beautifully curated trap designed to make you spend money on a melon chopstick rest or a $200 baguette lamp. You might also find yourself splurging (to a lesser degree) on the cafe’s excellent baked good selection, with options like rye brioche egg buns, black sesame butter mochi cakes, and rhubarb mascarpone tarts. Little King’s focaccia sandwiches and seasonal banchan are the perfect pick-me-up that’ll keep you from getting too hangry before catching the train home.

The Roundhouse should be your Beacon dinner spot. This restaurant that’s located in a hotel of the same name is the most upscale option in Beacon. Both the dining room and the big, string-light-covered outdoor patio overlook a waterfall, and they’re each great places to eat some deviled eggs, blistered shishito peppers, and housemade pasta on a nice evening.

There’s one main street in Cold Spring—filled with charming cafes, antique shops, and design stores that look like they belong in a much bigger city—and after you walk the entirety of it, you’re going to want some ice cream. Get it at Moo Moo’s, then walk across the street to the park on the river for an extremely scenic ice cream experience. If you happen to be the planning type, you can check out their current flavors on their Instagram.

Wm. Farmer & Sons is connected to a hotel of the same name, and feels like a much nicer-than-average hotel restaurant. The space is attractive, the service is great, and the food all looks familiar, but includes tweaks like serving charcoal-roasted beets with rose petals, or topping a fantastic burger with butter-braised onions and tomato relish. Reservations are encouraged.

Cafe Mutton feels like it was made for a rapidly-disappearing version of Hudson—one that remains eccentric, affordable, and connected to the natural world around it. Things like sausages and head cheese are made in house, with the kind of care and attention you couldn’t manage in New York City without charging at least three times as much. The country pâté, served in sandwich form, is the kind of dish to go out of your way to eat again and again.

We recently took a last-minute train to Hudson for a weekend trip and had three of our five meals at Kitty’s, a daytime cafe and restaurant located right across from the train station. Kitty’s sells some very good rotisserie chicken plates, pastries, and one of the better breakfast sandwiches we’ve had in recent memory. Between the blanket of mild muenster cheese, smoky bacon, and a bun that’s been blasted with sesame seeds, this thing should have its own Hudson tourism ad on Amtrak.

From the outside, this pink little spot with a neon sign in the window looks like a dive bar. But step inside and you’ll feel like you’ve arrived at a tropical artist retreat—with food better than anything you would ever find at an artist retreat. You'll see things like sweet plantains with cilantro yogurt, a fermented lentil dosa, whole fried fish topped with herbs and ginger vinaigrette, and vegan tamales. Everything we try at Lil’ Deb’s is wildly delicious.

If you find yourself in the sleepy village of Kinderhook, make a bee-line to Morningbird and order their breakfast sandwich. The dish is something you’ll find yourself incapable of shutting up about, and is made with lemongrass pork sausage, a golden fried egg, scallion chimichurri and sambal-flecked mayo, and a fluffy milk bun that easily soaks up runny egg yolk. There isn't much seating inside and people tend to leisurely stay a while, so it can be hard to snag a table here.

This cozy cafe in Kingston will make you consider moving upstate just so this can be your local spot. They serve high-quality coffee in locally-made ceramics and the food is worth going out of your way for. A seasonal salad is never a bad choice—they’re usually bulked up with interestingly-seasoned nuts or seeds and some local cheeses. There are also breakfast sandwiches, a variety of toasts, and a pastry case filled with good-looking things you’ll have a hard time choosing between.

The line at Rosie’s General can wind all the way around the block on weekends, but the wait is worth it. This little spot looks like a Pixar animator’s rendition of an antique shop-slash-general store, right down to the flawless natural light. Everything is baked in-house, and the bread is some of the best in the area, so you can’t go wrong with a sandwich.