Carolann wasn’t quite intending to start a full-blown restaurant.

“I just wanted a café, because I didn’t want to be stuck in the house all the time. We were just going to do coffee and pastries, you know, and have a super chill little place and then it just turned into a restaurant somehow,” she says with a sigh.

Carolann is not an inexperienced chef though, having been cooking for friends and family since the age of 12 under the tutelage of her mother. US-born, and Canada-raised, Carolann lived in a multi-cultural community and learned to cook all sorts of regional dishes with her mother. Although she began her career as a make-up artist, she later lived in Italy for five years to study the cuisine there.

After settling in the Catskills from NYC, she decided to do a Pierogi Pop-Up in the restaurant when it was Liza Belle’s Kitchen, which closed at the start of lockdown in 2020. Pierogis are some of her favorite foods and the pop-up was so popular that she considered starting her own restaurant at that point. The seeds were sown.

Carolann arrived at the Commons a year and half ago, like a burst of fresh air, with sparkly make-up, fierce eyelashes, and loud, loud, loud music. She’s since toned it down – the music, not the make-up. We need more gold eye shadow in the Catskills, not less, and she has added a gorgeous little garden on the side of the building to eat al fresco in our ever-decreasing springs and summers. The restaurant now has a solid, regular team of four and she is able to engage in some much-needed research and development for new community projects regarding locally-sourced food and sustainable ingredients.

The Commons is fast-becoming a social space as Carolann initially wanted. At the weekends, you can paint and draw at Bea Ortiz’s Studio; visit Honeybee Herbs for hot honey and fermented condiments next door; visit your humble correspondent at Upstate Dispatch studios upstairs for sketch art and photography between 1pm – 4pm on Saturdays weather permitting, and pick up gifts at the Catskills Artisans’ Guild. Carolann’s occasionally hosts karaoke and salsa dancing classes in the evening. Local art adorns her walls. There is a shelf full of books and games, so customers can interact with each other instead of their phones.

To fight severe cabin fever, and to take breaks from the studio, I swing gently in the hammock chairs in Carolann’s window and people-watch with a strong cup of tea. I thoroughly recommend this activity if you’re currently calling your sanity into question. “I always say we don’t talk politics around here, or religion,” she smiles. “This is a chill place where people can relax and hang out with their friends”.

The winter menu – full of hearty soups, generous main courses like lasagnas, and thick sandwiches and salads – is fulfilling without being too heavy. The menu is made with locally-grown ingredients where possible. Carolann wants to expand her support for local farmers and locally-made products as much as possible. Next month, she will be participating in March’s NYS Maple Weekend, where sap houses across the Catskills will be opening their doors to visitors while they boil their sweet stuff. She will be making all sorts of delicious fare made with Tree Juice Maple Syrup. Watch this space for further details.

There is a cute little coffee bar in the restaurant too, with three seats, where beverages like home-made lemonade (with Tree Juice maple syrup), hot chocolate, coffee and teas are brewed. The main seating is made up of large tables that seat roughly six each, so strangers can sit together. There are two small tables and the aforementioned hammock chairs in the window. It’s a scene. Come visit.

Carolann’s Cuisines, The Commons Building, 785 Main Street, Margaretville, NY 12455. Open hours vary. See Instagram page for opening times.