The Ridge Terrace

I made it all the way through the summer season last year without discovering The Ridge Terrace. It’s only open for the Lake George summer through mid-October. The new man in my life and I started dating in mid-October. When he found out I wrote the Cravings column for HERLIFE, he began telling me about The Ridge Terrace. I had to wait all winter until it reopened, but he was right! It was well worth the wait.

The restaurant is an impressive log cabin that immediately welcomes you. The wine list had a nice array of choices, but I chose the house-prepared Sangria. It was delicious, bright but not too sweet. One of my favorite parts of this meal was the bread and the relish tray, with an entire loaf of warm bread that tasted like a Parker House roll. The relish tray had a kidney bean salad, a potato salad and a cole slaw. All prepared from scratch. All amazing. But the cole slaw was my favorite. And I usually don’t like cole slaw. This one had cinnamon and raisins and I’m pretty sure a little nutmeg!

My companions and I decided to share two appetizers. The Baked Havarti with Raspberry Sauce was an interesting variation on baked brie. It worked well with the Havarti instead of brie and phyllo instead of puff pastry. It certainly satisfied one companion’s sweet tooth! My favorite was the Sautéed Eggplant. The secret to eggplant is to peel the skin off and slice it thin. This was done to perfection. It was sautéed, then layered with spicy capicola ham and a red sauce we Italians refer to as “gravy” and finished with bubbly mozzarella cheese. We finished every last bite. The truth is, I have already returned there and had the Eggplant as my main course!

I will do my best to explain the incredible Chateaubriand Bouquetière. First of all, most restaurants will only prepare this dish for two; here they offer it for one. The tenderloin was flavorful and cooked perfectly and the sauce bordelaise impeccably prepared. There was an abundance of fresh vegetables, including a whole au gratin tomato. The entire dish was bordered by duchess potatoes. It was a delight both to see and taste. My companions both chose seafood. One had the Shrimp Rockport, plump shrimp stuffed with crabmeat in a sweet pimiento dressing, wrapped in decadent bacon with béarnaise sauce on the side. A simple classic, amped up! He ate every bite. The other had the Stuffed Lobster Tail, also with a crab stuffing and broiled.

When it came to dessert, we all decided we could barely eat another bite. I, of course, said I couldn’t let my readers down. We had to order dessert. We would just eat a few bites of each so I could tell you all about it. We decided to split the Key Lime Pie and the Oreo Pie. We each had our bite of the Key Lime Pie and it was delicious, with lots fresh lime flavor. But then we had a bite of the Oreo Pie. Ice cream mixed with big chunks of Oreo on an Oreo crust. And a puddle of hot fudge! Three people who had no room for dessert. We demolished it. Every bite. Gone.

The Rios family knows how to do things right! Go to The Ridge Terrace. Right now! Don’t wait. I’ve already been back once and I hope to go again this week!

Visit The Ridge Terrace at 2172 Ridge Road, Route 9L Eastside Lake George, Queensbury, New York. Call 518-656-9274 or check the website, theridgeterrace.com, for directions and menu previews.