Meet the Chef: David Haviland of The Castle on the Hudson and the Equus Restaurant

When Chef David Haviland attended Walter Panas High School in Cortlandt Manor, his favorite extra-curricular activity was wrestling. A member of the varsity wrestling team since a freshman, he was named to the All-Westchester County, high-school wrestling team.

He was fond of eating and after graduating from high school, he concluded that more and better opportunities existed in the restaurant industry than in the wrestling profession. So he enrolled in Restaurant Management at Morrisville State College (SUNY).

Following graduation, he moved to Albany, NY to cook at La Serre, a landmark downtown French/bistro restaurant. He shared an apartment with his brother Charles who was a student at Albany Law School and another law student–his occasional cooking becoming a fringe benefit for the house mates.  

“At La Serre, I realized what experienced cooks could do and after about a year-and-a-half, I knew if I was going to advance in my career, I needed more training,” Haviland recalls. He enrolled at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY to study for a Bachelor of Professional Studies degree in Culinary Arts. 

When his studies at CIA were completed, Haviland joined the Rye Town Hilton in Rye Brook as an entry-level cook and stayed for ten years–the last five as Executive Chef. 

Next he served as Executive Chef at other hotels and spent two years at the Ridgeway Country Club in White Plains prior to joining the Castle on the Hudson in Tarrytown in 2003, home of the award-winning Equus restaurant.  

Dishes high on the summer popularity list

In his eight years at the Castle, Haviland has created many dishes. The following are being offered this summer: 

• Sea scallops with Hudson Valley foie gras, corn pudding and huckleberry marmalade–created by Haviland for the summer menu two years ago. “In my mind,” he says, “this is a true example of American cuisine–New England scallops, Hudson Valley made foie gras, Hudson Valley grown corn and wild huckleberries.” 
• Goat cheese ravioli paired with wild mushrooms. A key to its success, Haviland reveals, is the use of fresh goat cheese obtained from Lisa Schwartz at Rainbeau Ridge, a farm in Bedford Hills. “We will probably serve this dish all year round,” he notes.
• Catskill Mountains rabbit wrapped with Applewood bacon and served with English pea puree and plum salad–recently introduced as a special.
• Striped bass, locally caught, accompanied by black trumpet mushrooms, heirloom English peas and yellow wax beans, and served with a green sauce.

Later this summer, Haviland plans to bring out an unusual new dish–mangalitsa pork served with homemade summer marmalade, gooseberries and other fruit. (A mangalitsa is a breed of pig that grows hair; it is sometimes referred to as a "wooly pig.") 

Time-proven Equus favorites also available from Haviland’s kitchen include grilled veal chop, grilled berkshire pork loin chop and roast rack of lamb.  

He is a participant in the “Great Chefs of Westchester” cooking demonstration series conducted at Westchester Community College (in his most recent class he cooked a crispy Berkshire pork shoulder dinner with strawberry marmalade and strawberry herb salad). As a member of La Chaines des Rotisseurs, an international gastronomic society founded in Paris in 1950, he joined a dozen other chefs to prepare and present “Celebrating Great Taste,” an event sponsored by “Pride of New York.”

For the past seven years, Haviland has hunted pheasant at a working farm in Oxford, CT. He is also studying how animals are raised and fed at the same farm.

He keeps a garden at his home where he experiments with fruit and vegetables including zebra-striped tomatoes and grows currants, gooseberries, elderberries, raspberries, blueberries, beans, cabbage, celery, and onions; his garden has apple, fig and pear trees. He also finds time to help coach junior high school wrestling.

Haviland and his wife Claudia, who he met when both were students at Morrisville State College, live in Trumbull, CT and have three children: Dillon, 16; Paige, 15; and Tristan, 11, who help to maintain the garden. 

The Castle on the Hudson is located at 400 Benedict Ave., Tarrytown, NY. 914-631-3646. Open seven days a week. Breakfast: served from 7 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Lunch: from noon to 2:00 p.m. Dinner: from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (except Saturdays from 5:30 to 10 p.m.). Sunday: champagne brunch: from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. www.castleonthehudson.com

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