Photo by: Shannon DeCelle

Next Stop, Flavor
By Laura Leon

Caffe Pomo D’Oro
6 Depot St., West Stockbridge, Mass., (413) 232-4616. Serving daily 8 AM-3 PM through the summer season; call for fall-winter hours. Cash only.
Cuisine: American
Entrée price range: $5.75 (Pancalus or French Toast) to $8.95 (smoked trout sandwich)
Ambiance: the artful peasant
Clientele: locals in the know, New Yorkers without a clue

Not that long ago, the village of West Stockbridge was something you passed through, at 15 mph, while traveling between New York state and Stockbridge or Great Barrington. You would have been hard-pressed to imagine that, nearly 200 years ago, this was a busy railroad stop and home to several iron works. A few antiques shops and two local markets seemed to be about all the little village had left to offer the weary traveler, who therefore saw no reason not to keep going.

Things change, of course, and with the influx over the last quarter-century of city folk yearning for more open spaces in which to grow families and hone their creative talents, West Stockbridge has become sort of like a mini-Woodstock, minus the Birkenstocks and tie-dye. In addition to even more antiques and crafts stores, there are restaurants catering to the crowds that flock to the area, including Truc Orient Express, La Bruschetta, Rouge, and, located at the site of the old train station, Caffe Pomo D’Oro. Owner Scott Cole (whom some might recall from the Albany music scene of a dozen or so years ago) opened the place a decade ago, and it immediately caught on with a local and transplant clientele ready for a fresh spin on simple food.

It’s not hard to see why. Open for breakfast and lunch (no dinner, as there was in an earlier era), Pomo D’Oro has an easy charm and an informal, inviting ambience—indeed, a centerpiece of the room is a table laden with the day’s baked goods. Works by regional artists—when we visited, it was landscape painter Harry Orlyk—hang on walls the color of freshly churned cream. Various-size tables are arranged in the room, and there are several more small ones outside on the deck. It’s a homey, comfy place—if it’s not too crowded. This is not the ideal location to bring that party of 12, just in for parents’ weekend at a local camp. But more on that later.

Cole, who mans the stove, prepares simple food from fresh, usually local, ingredients. For a recent breakfast, we tried a little bit of everything: omelets made with three organic eggs and stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, red onion and creamy chevre; a fruit platter of melons, kiwis, bananas, grapes, berries and citrus that was as aesthetically appealing as it was downright tasty (the menu promises the freshest available fruit they can find); buttermilk pancakes with Ioka Valley Farms maple syrup, and outrageously good pastries like scones and croissants, served with creamy butter and savory jams. The eggs can come with either a side of toast and herb-roasted potatoes, or lightly dressed baby greens. The multigrain bread is a sturdy, pleasingly chewy raft for butter or cream cheese, but the potatoes were a bit bland, all herb and not enough butteriness. The greens, on the other hand, were lovely and delicious.

In the same week, we challenged the space constraints of Pomo D’Oro when our party of eight, including three children, stopped by for lunch. This is where the kitchen truly shines, serving up hearty—but not too hearty—sandwiches on hearty bread from Rock Hill Bakehouse with top-quality ham (including parma), turkey, salami, beef tenderloin and salmon, not to mention exquisitely grilled vegetables like portobello and eggplant. These are straightforward sandwiches on which the toppings, condiments, etc., are delicious but understated: They satisfy without overdoing it, and they don’t leave a mess all over your plate, your hands, or your lap. We also enjoyed the soup of the day, mushroom barley, which benefited from an obviously homemade, well-seasoned base. Salads featured mixes of fresh organic baby or field greens, dressed lightly, and came with the option of warmed chevre or, in the case of the insalata pera, Berkshire Blue cheese. Everything save the soup ($4 for a cup or $5.50 for a bowl) ranged between $6.50 and $8.95.

In addition to decent coffee, the cafe also features an interesting selection of Izze Natural Sodas (blackberry, clementine, pear, etc.), Wild Fruitz Spritzers (try the huckleberry!) and birch and root beers. The cooler refreshments were welcome when, on both visits, we had to wait for some time to be seated. And herein lies one of Caffe Pomo D’Oro’s few, but glaring, problems: There seemingly is no system in place for handling queuing people. Hoping in vain to be able to give our name and the number of our party to somebody—anybody—we instead watched as recently vacated and still-unbussed tables were snatched up by later-arriving parties. It’s sort of a Manhattan dog-eat-dog mentality transported to the bucolic Berkshires, and it proved so frustrating that some parties during both our visits ended up going home for “toast on the patio.”

The smallness of the space, something that can’t be helped, contributes to the frustration you feel when waiting to get somebody’s attention in order to let them know you’ve got, say, a party of five. Waiters hurtle past you, clearly annoyed at having to navigate your presence, and having been in the business, I can empathize. But without even a waiting list, and with impatient city folks literally pushing past you to seat themselves at an uncleared table, you’re disinclined to clear out of the way and wait outside, or walk around this very pleasant neighborhood, for fear you’ll never get seated.

I highly recommend Pomo D’Oro, which translates to “apple of gold,” for quiet, early-morning breakfasts, midday lunches for two to four, or luxurious mid-afternoon noshes of the cafe’s mouthwatering desserts, perhaps with a pot of tea or café au lait. Whatever annoyance you might feel from having been scolded by a waitress for standing too close to the door is forgotten in a mouthful of freshly baked peach pie, its filling redolent of lush summer ripeness, its pastry divinely moist and buttery. I can forgive a restaurant nearly everything, with hopes that it’ll work out before my next visit, for a taste this good.

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