Matthew’s On Main

For a restaurant in the middle of a region’s famous for its agricultural bounty, the menu features no local ingredients. The dinner menu is uninspiring but sometimes you just want a no-​nonsense meal. That’s fine — but don’t charge an outrageous sum for a mediocre burger. Service is hit or miss. Inexplicably long waits during breakfast. It has a great location and a popular no-​frills bar in front which must help pay the bills. With options like The Heron in Narrowsburg or Henning’s Local in Cochecton Center — or even Peppino’s just down the street — there is no need to come here unless you want to grab a bite immediately after the Sunday farmers’ market.

Came here for lunch and was pleasantly surprised with the food. I has the lunch special (chicken curry) and it was really great! Would def come again :)

Recently found this spot while staying at the Villa Roma and ate here a couple times. As mentioned the front bar area can be a little loud if you are looking for quiet and may not be appropriate for young kids. To be fair, the bar is filled with locals, which is an attribute, but if you are looking for a more family appropriate seat, sit in the restaurant section which is a completely different room and all your troubles are solved. At first the menu looked a little ambitious for the location, and that was an inaccurate perception on my part. Wife had quail which was outstanding, kids had burgers and I had the Rueben. Enjoyed everything, Mozz sticks were spot on and the service quick and friendly. Was little disappointed in the wings, not as crispy as I like. When in the area, this is worth the stop.

Been here 3 – 4 times, food is not bad given the area but the crowd is trashy. Last week I made the mistake of sitting in the front area, had to listen to 9 or 10 drunk rednecks throwing the F word, hitting on the waitress, getting into fights with each other. A few literally had their heads down on the bar but were still being served drinks. Doesn’t this place have some cutoff point?
When leaving I had to walk a gauntlet of these creeps outside, said good night to one guy with a blow dried red mullet and this for some reason triggered him to give me shit.
Well, Unilocal says it’s a dive bar so there you go. Really impossible to find decent places to eat up here.

This is our second or third time at this place we were a little put off in the beginning because it wasn’t very busy it is kind of in a weird part of town and we walked in and they started with a list of the things they don’t have anymore. But I went out on a limb and on the salmon and it was fantastic! Seriously don’t think I’ve had a better salmon dish my wife at the lasagna and it was also great environment a little quirky the waitress was amazing.

As someone who visits Villa Roma and the Catskills on a yearly basis, we were looking for something different (and tasty) as the food is somewhat lackluster at the resort. A Unilocal search brought us to Matthew’s On Main. Let’s just say that this place is like an oasis in a desert. The indoor atmosphere is lovely and there is an outdoor garden patio with torches, situated under a tree. We were greeted by the chef’s wife/​owner, who was quite charming and assured us that we were going to enjoy our meal. We ordered a few cocktails which were made to perfection – including a yummy watermelon mojito that was offered to me by the chef’s wife because they just made fresh watermelon juice. Happiness!
The menu is very eclectic – there is something for everyone; from burgers, to salmon and quinoa, lamb, quesadillas, pasta fagiole and everything in-​between. I had the salmon and my husband had the catfish… he said it was the best catfish he ever had. My salmon was cooked perfectly and had the right amount of flavor. All entrees are served with farmer’s market vegetables and you can certainly taste the freshness.
In the large group that we had, EVERYONE genuinely enjoyed their meal. The service was also great from both our server and the chef’s wife. It is so nice that we now have a go-​to place when dining in the country.

A gem in the wasteland… honestly it’s really hard to find anything that lives up to a foodie’s expectations in this area, but this restaurant is the only one we have found on our visits. I had the ceviche and then the lamb chops– both were excellent, especially the lamb, which was cooked and herbed perfectly. My husband had the Mediterranean platter, that he let me have a tiny bit of. The falafel was crispy and light. I had a fresh watermelon juice margarita, that’s was delicious. For dessert I indulged in the peanut butter chocolate pie that was super decadent. All their desserts and ice cream are homemade. Service was prompt and friendly.

It’s hard to find good places to dine up here. It seems most places burn down or shut down. With the new brewery in town, I hope this town picks up a bit. Matthew’s is always consistently good. Our only complaint every time we go is service is slow. We’d go here more if the owners hired more employees so things move quicker. That aside, well worth stopping in. We started by sharing babaganoush and a Caesar salad. I like that they have something like babaganoush on the menu. It’s ambitious for this area. However, it works! The Caesar salad was a huge hit with us. It was large with a creamy dressing, cheese and homemade croutons. For dinner I had pesto over pasta with farm fresh vegetables. It was so tasty!!! The pesto sauce tasted like it was just made. It wasn’t overly oily and had a ton of fresh vegetables. The mango margarita was very good, but watch out because they charge $ 12 which is overpriced for this area. Most places charge about $ 5 up here. However, that wouldn’t stop the person I was with from ordering it again. The menu is short. You have your choice of bar food or about five more formal options. I would absolutely, without hesitation, recommend this place! It’s a solid four and could be a five if just changed a few of the glitches I’ve consistently noticed and see other reviewers addressed too.

All we wanted tonight was to go out for a peaceful and relaxing dinner. We had a group of 7 with us, everything started out great with the waitress until we got our meals and they weren’t what we ordered. Once we addressed our concern about the order a second person came over introducing herself as the owners wife, which she also stated that her husband was the chef. She was very rude and bold and wasn’t to happy that the order was wrong, she then went into the kitchen to tell the chef about the changes and all hell broke loose. All we heard was yelling and swearing at the waitress and repeatably calling her an idiot for not taking the order right, everyone in the restaurant was looking at each other with a big sign of embarrassment and discomfort. I felt so bad for the waitress. Yelling and screaming at your help is always a BIG NO NO in any business and the owner of this place needs to swallow a humble pill and apologize to his entire staff. How unfortunate that our dinner was completely ruined due to a bad attitude. The menu was very pricey for the portion size and was not worth it. This is the first and last time we will ever come here. No one should ever experience such a horrible situation. There are many other good restaurants in the area. Don’t make the same mistake we made.

It is sad that a restaurant can serve such outstanding food and ruin the dining experience by the actual owner/​chef swearing & yelling vulgarity at one of the waitresses so loud that everyone in the dining room could hear it.
Food is minimum $ 25-​$ 40 ea. entrée not including drinks, app’s or desert. And for that kind of money you should get outstanding food and a memorable dining experience… Not the case here!
Again my compliments to Chef Matthew on his culinary skills but he needs a serious attitude adjustment and an extensive course on etiquette!
Chef Ramsey needs to come here and open a serious can of Whoop-​Ass!
P. s. The owners wife was of the same cloth and argued with us when we asked about 2 of the 7 entrée portion sizes being very small for $ 29. She was outright RUDE!

The stars are for the food, I have never had a bad meal here. Mathew is the chef and he does a great job. The bar is a bit small for those of use who prefer to eat at the bar and meet new people but you can sometimes squeeze in. The only knock is that it is a bit pricey.

I’ll start off with a negative and end on a positive… Don’t go here if you are really, really hungry! They weren’t even that busy and we literally waited 50 minutes for our food. That being said, everything was fresh & delicious– the service was good (wait staff was nice!). One suggestion would be if they take a long time to get the food out, they may want to put bread out on the table. Overall, not a bad experience!

There aren’t many dining options in the lovely hamlet of Callicoon. This I imagine to be one of the oldest and most original. Somehow, I found myself here with my fiancé several times during the year and twice on a New Year’s Eve. We loved the «dive» sensibility of the bar with all its tipsy bar stool residents, often addressing the bartender with a cheery and sometimes loud familiarty. We were recent NYC transplants and were starting to believe we were regulars at Mathew’s because we were introduced to the proprietress and knew other local business owners. While the food is mediocre at best, we still loved the fried calamari and wonderful onion rings after a movie at the old timey Callicoon Cinema, a treasure! However, we finally grew weary of incredibly slow service and the bar keepers, servers and proprietress that seemed to never care if we came or went. Especially the last New Year’s Eve when our service was poor and we spent over $ 100 semi-​regularly. We had minimally poured glasses of red wine and the final straw came when we ordered cognacs at the end of our meal and finally complained. No apologies, no re-​pours and definitely no buy backs. To keep people returning, one must offer hospitality. This place is lacking in everything but divey elegance!

A few of my friends and I went here for dinner the weekend of an atypical bachelor party. We spent most of the weekend relaxing in the pool, playing bocce ball, tennis, etc. at the resort-​like place we booked and wanted to check out the town Saturday night. Since there are only a couple options for restaurants with slightly higher end food in Callicoon we went on Unilocal to compare the reviews of each place. We narrowed it down to 2 places and what made us choose Matthew’s on Main was the hilarious negative review by Barbara C. I read her review out loud to my friends and we laughed so hard that we had to go here just to see what the fuss was about. I truthfully don’t understand how anybody could have become so upset from eating here. I have since saved a screenshot of Barbara’s review to my computer and read it whenever I want to brighten my mood. If you are already on this page please read it. It is gold.
Now onto our dining experience: When we walked in there the bar was pretty lively but we were so hungry that we went straight to the dining room in the back. We arrived right around the time the kitchen was closing so it was nice of them to still seat us. When you first look at the menu it is a bit surprising because it is much more eclectic than what you would expect from a restaurant upstate. Some of the items are expensive but the basic items are fairly priced. One of my friends got the crab cakes while another friend got some salad with a huge piece of chicken breast on it. The portions were surprisingly large and both of my friends seemed like they were pleased. I got the burger with sautéed onions on it which although priced reasonably was definitely above average in the way it was prepared. The atmosphere at the restaurant is nice. Not super fancy but not mundane. You could tell that they went out of their way to buy and hang up quirky items and pictures which give the place charm. I don’t have much else to say except that if I am ever in that part of New York I would definitely be willing to again. The set of events that led up to us coming to this place always make me smile when I think of them :-)

Had a very nice lunch experience here. The front bar is separate from the relatively small indoor dining room, which is iboth intimate and private. The outdoor decks looks like it’s be great during the right seasons. As well as the standard menu, daily specials are avaiable daily. I had crab cakes and a green salad… wonderful.

Nice find in the cute town of Callicoon. Decent American fare with drinks served in pint glasses. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is only a pub, walk to the back for seating on the deck or large dining area. Looking forward to trying this again.

This is the worst restaurant that my daughter and I have ever experienced. First, the time the waitress took to take the order was inordinately long. As I glanced down to the floor I noticed dust balls. My heart sank. Where were the cleaners last night?! When our orders came two things happened at the same time. My daughter noticed a lipstick stain on the mug of soup. What happened to the dish washer? Why didn’t the waitress noticed this? When my daughter started to eat her dish of spinach she choked due to the excessive salt. The waitress did not appear to be too alarmed by my daughter choking but appeared to be annoyed that we were being «demanding and difficult.» I told her that this was not acceptable and that the dish needed to be returned to the kitchen and that a new dish needed to be prepared. They seemed matter of fact about the lipstick stain as well. The mug of soup needed to be replaced as well. My dish of poached eggs and lox on two English muffins with two sides of cantaloupe and home fries were not very fresh and appealing but lame. The home fries were not piping hot. Instead of satisfying our appetites we lost our desire to eat. The only thought I had was that Robert Irvine needed to come in and make over this tired and neglected restaurant. When I asked who was in charge, the waitress told me that the owners were not there. There was no supervision of wait staff, a definite red flag. If the owners don’t care why should the staff. I shared my observations with one of the waitresses. I asked her whether she wanted to work for a place that she was proud of or a place that had problems. Avoid this place as it does not care about food and customer service and only pretends to be a restaurant. My experience raises doubts about the positive reviews that have been posted.

Matthew is a long time friend and an excellent chef. Matthew’s on Maine offers delicious fare and good times. His wife, Dominique, is an outstanding hostess. Good food and good times. You won’t be disappointed.

I wish I would have heed the warnings of the one and two star reviews. However we visited the restaurant anyway. It was way overpriced and the food was poor quality and just tasted bad!!!
The hostess who came to the table made it a point to tell us that they were a kid friendly restaurant however the highchairs were not working due to the buckles being broken there is no kids menu and the same hostess asked us to remove our infants shoes in case she walks on the upholstered bench seats. (Poor taste)
1906 restaurant a few doors down has better food and is the better choice when visiting Callicoon.

I have eaten my last meal at Matthew’s, and it’s not because of the food. What comes out of the kitchen is still pretty delicious. The rest of the experience is the problem here.
First off, they’ve been inching their prices up over the years, and they’ve now become simply absurd. Five years ago the specials ranged from $ 13 — $ 22. Now a steak is $ 30, without any clue as to its provenance. A plate of pasta is $ 22. Who do they think they are, a Cipriani joint? It’s galling. As a weekender I don’t mind being a little bit fleeced, but don’t insult me.
Then there’s the service. They’re clearly pushing the outrageously priced specials, and if you opt for something from their more reasonably priced everyday menu you will feel the frostiness from the hostess, who takes your order and pushes the upsell. Her manner makes it clear she has little time for you if you’re not a high roller. This is inexcusable, and it’s only gotten worse over the years. Servers seem anxious, covering for it by being comically overly upbeat. This gives Matthew’s the unpleasant air of a place that’s about to go under. It’s not pleasant.
This is a shame, because the food is still good. For example, the Cuban sandwich is generous, and hits all the right notes. But at $ 9 it’s twice the price you’d pay for one in NYC. It’s not worth paying extra for the attitude that comes with it here. And that’s a shame.