Blue Hill Restaurant

The story

On May 30, 2009, Barack and Michelle Obama had dinner here, in a quietly landmarked evening for a Greenwich Village room that had only been open since April 2000. Dan, David, and Laureen Barber built Blue Hill around ingredients sourced partly from Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture in Pocantico Hills. When the pandemic shuttered dining in 2020, Dan Barber repackaged that farm connection literally — sending boxes of Stone Barns produce home with cooking directions, keeping suppliers afloat. The James Beard Foundation called it an outstanding restaurant in 2013. The ethos held even when the tables had to go dark.