A HUDSON VALLEY CULINARY GEM
Inside River and Post, an upscale restaurant in the hamlet of Staatsburg, New York, diners enjoy creative American dishes in the intimate, chocolate-colored dining room. Atmospheric dance music sets the mood. The proprietor, Sergia Rebraca, keeps an eye on the proceedings, helping out his staff and welcoming guests, who often tell him their dinner is the best meal they’ve ever eaten.
Rebraca has been fine-tuning this symphony of food, service, and ambience nearly his entire life, starting when he worked for his parents, romantic American dreamers who founded a beloved restaurant called Panarella on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1979. The family moved to the Hudson Valley in 1994 to open the Belvedere Mansion, a Staatsburg inn and restaurant that became a sought-after wedding venue.
From these formative experiences, Rebraca learned that hospitality goes far deeper than feeding people. “There’s an intangible emotional ingredient,” he says. “It should stir your soul.”
From 2010 to 2020, Rebraca owned the Liberty Public House, a sprawling 200-seater in Rhinebeck with three bars, including one made from a 24-foot sailboat. “It did really well, especially because it was in a touristy town,” he says. “I’d be there until four in the morning.”
When the pandemic hit and the landlord wouldn’t budge on the rent, Rebraca reconsidered his future. He didn’t want to work round-the-clock anymore. He found an affordable space, less than half the size of the Liberty Public House, in a 19th-century building in Staatsburg. It had been a red sauce joint with low ceilings and tacky banquettes; Rebraca applied reflective paint to the ceiling to create the illusion of height and divided the booths with antique windows. For the walls, he had the chocolate shade custom-blended based on a paint chip from a noted London designer, because the larger high-end brands like Benjamin Moore and Farrow and Ball did not carry dark enough colors.
Rebraca invited his longtime chef, Antonio Cerón, to helm the kitchen at the new restaurant. Rebraca appreciates him for the love he pours into everything he makes, even the family meal that the staff share. Perennial customer favorites include crispy artichokes with lemon-caper aioli and diver scallops with sweet corn puree—which is replaced with Japanese sweet potato come fall. Some dishes have graced Rebraca menus since the Panarella days.
River and Post is only open four nights a week, and Rebraca doesn’t actively promote it to the media. Yet somehow, the diners who find it are exactly the company he likes keeping: “friendly, open-hearted, intellectual, creative people. I feel like I set a crab trap for this specific type of catch.”
In choosing to operate at a comfortable capacity, Rebraca is able to maintain his high standards while living a more balanced life: “I don’t want to sacrifice quality to make more money,” he says. “You’re going into contracts with tons of people every evening, and you want them to turn out in a good way. Thankfully it does, for the most part.” —Jonathan Vatner