October 21, 2026

10 Questions With a Catskills Chef-Owner (The Henson)

When Jeremiah Stone announced he was opening a hotel-and-restaurant in Windham, NY, the New York food world's reaction was, mostly, Windham? Stone — co-chef of Wildair and Contra in the Lower East Side, a Star-and-Bib-tier operator for over a decade — had every option in the city. He chose a Catskills ski town with about 1,700 year-round residents and exactly zero existing serious restaurants.

The Henson opened in late 2025. Eighteen rooms above the restaurant Matilda. By spring 2026 it had become the most-talked-about new opening in the upstate hotel scene, and Matilda's Saturday tables were booking out four weeks in advance. We sat down with Stone for a quick conversation about the project.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

1. Why Windham?

My family has been coming up here for years. Skiing, mostly. We knew the town. We knew the surrounding roads. And the more we paid attention, the more it became obvious that there was nothing on the dinner side of Windham that matched what was happening in the rest of the Catskills. Hunter has Scribner's. Phoenicia has Phoenicia Diner and the smaller spots. Windham had a couple of solid après-ski spots, but no real dining-room concept. That was the gap.

2. You'd spent fifteen years building a New York restaurant audience. Wasn't it scary to bet a project on a town nobody knew?

It would be scarier to open in New York right now, honestly. The Lower East Side is six new restaurants a year. The cost of staffing, the cost of rent, the cost of getting noticed — it's brutal. Up here, the cost structure is real, the building is beautiful, and the audience that wants what we do is willing to drive for it. Every weekend so far has confirmed that.

3. Why a hotel and a restaurant, instead of just a restaurant?

Because of dinner. We do a long, considered, multi-course menu. People who drive two hours from the city for that menu shouldn't have to drive home at midnight. They should walk upstairs. The hotel exists to make the restaurant make sense. If we'd just opened the restaurant, we'd be doing two services on a Saturday and going home; with the hotel, we get the room turning over with people who came specifically for the food, who'll have breakfast with us, who'll come back the next month. The economics work better and the trip works better.

4. The dining room at Matilda is loud. Was that deliberate?

Very much. I worked in some quiet rooms early in my career. I find them depressing. A dinner room should sound like the people in it are having a good time. We tuned the acoustics to be alive — hard floors, exposed beams, no soft-cushioned banquettes. People notice. Some love it, some wish it were quieter. We're not changing it.

5. The wine list is heavy on natural and lower-intervention bottles. Is that a Wildair carryover?

It's the carryover, yes, but it's also responsive to where we are. The wineries we work with are willing to send us things they wouldn't have sent five years ago — partly because the upstate scene matters more now, and partly because we have storage that no Manhattan kitchen can match. We have a full cellar here. We can age things. We can have weird old bottles waiting for the right night. That changes what the list looks like.

6. How big a piece of your customer base is local versus from the city?

It's shifted faster than I expected. The first six weeks, almost everyone was driving up. We were a destination. By month three we had real local regulars — people from Windham, Hunter, Tannersville, Catskill — who eat with us once or twice a month. That's the future of the project. The drive-up audience is great, but a restaurant that's only weekend tourism doesn't survive long-term. We need the people who live here.

7. The rooms upstairs are smaller than most new Catskills hotels. Was that a budget call or a philosophy?

Philosophy. We didn't want oversized rooms with a desk and a sitting area people don't use. We wanted properly built sleeping rooms with great beds, real bathrooms, and a window with a view. Eighteen rooms instead of twelve bigger ones means we can run the restaurant kitchen at full capacity without selling out the hotel three months ahead. The math is more flexible.

8. What's your read on the rest of the Catskills hotel scene right now?

It's in a good place. The first wave — Scribner's, Foxfire, Eastwind — proved you could build serious hotels up here. The second wave — Piaule, Inness — proved you could run them at a high level. We're trying to be part of a third wave that's more chef-driven, smaller, more rooted in a specific town. Camptown in Leeds, the refresh at Twin Gables in Woodstock — those are part of the same conversation.

9. The big hospitality groups — Auberge, Lark, Faraway — are all expanding into the region. Does that worry you?

Not really. They're solving for a different traveler. Someone who wants Auberge wants Auberge — they don't want to drive into a Catskills ski town to eat at a restaurant they've never heard of. The risk to small operators isn't the chains; it's losing focus. If we keep doing what Matilda is supposed to do, the rest takes care of itself.

10. If a first-time Catskills traveler had one weekend, what would you tell them to do — including not staying at the Henson?

If they're food-first, sure, come to us, that's our pitch. But if they want a different version of the trip — a quiet design hotel in the woods, no restaurant pressure — Piaule is genuinely beautiful. If they want a town walk, the village hotels in Hudson or Kingston work better than ours. We're a destination dinner. The right Catskills hotel for any given weekend depends entirely on what kind of weekend you're trying to have.

The Henson is open year-round in Windham, NY. Matilda serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday and brunch Saturday and Sunday.