Restaurants that get fresh (in a good way)

Restaurants that get fresh (in a good way)

Ever wonder where those beets in your Gorgonzola salad came from, or that amazing piece of marbled-steak? Lately, chances are good that the food at your favorite restaurant is not from some far-flung locale, like Japan or Costa Rica, but from right next door.

Here in the Hudson Valley, a handful of chefs are changing the way we eat by using locally grown ingredients – from fingerling potatoes and ramps to farm-raised trout, grass-fed beef and eggs still warm from the nest. But the equation, of course, is incomplete without the farmers, on the other side.

Karen Croke and our staff of photographers brought together some of the area's top chefs and the folks who get their hands dirty to provide the tomatoes, beef, eggs, fish, veggies and more.