“Heirloom Lodge was one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had (as well as our friends). Hands down. Period. From start to finish, the ambiance, the friendly wait staff, and, of course, the food [were] out-of-this-world excellent. The food took us on a journey, and it almost felt like (taste-wise) going from black and white to in color… Thank you for providing this experience!”
— Monique Bosjolie, Rezi reviews
Nestled in the tiny hamlet of Williamsville (at 286 Great Barrington Road/North Plain Road, between Housatonic and West Stockbridge), Heirloom Lodge was once The Williamsville Inn, a 1797 Colonial owned by Chef Erhard Wendt and known for its farm-to-table dining, organic gardens, and cozy atmosphere. (It was also voted Best Inn in the Berkshires by “Boston Magazine” in 2005.) That inn closed in 2014 and, despite several attempts to revive it, remained shuttered until Matt Straus and an investor bought the property in 2021. Straus’s vision? “Establishing a restaurant with ingredient-driven cuisine and a focus on classical wine, in a rural part of the world where virtually neither previously existed.” Although he admits it turned out to be “a monumental job, and one that has commandeered nearly all of my time and energy over the past year and a half,” he also considers it his greatest achievement.
Heirloom Lodge is now bringing “an intimate, elevated setting for life’s most meaningful moments” to the Berkshire culinary landscape in a new structure at the same location. You may want to book a reservation, but you don’t need to wait for a milestone to make your experience memorable. Straus has already taken care of that, offering the highest level of food, beverage, and service in a beautifully reimagined space that’s “designed to feel like home, but better.”
The name’s idea stems from the owner’s belief that some aspects of food and service were moving too fast, disregarding the things we take a long time to learn and practice—an heirloom or “classicism of craft” that guides both his overall vision and the day-to-day details. It also acknowledges his appreciation for old, rustic elements—from vintage materials like the William Morris wallpaper in the old Colonial to the philosophical inspiration of the Victorians—namely, poet Matthew Arnold and writer/theorist John Ruskin’s “dignity of work.”
Known for his award-winning sommelier expertise (as a two-time winner of Food & Wine Magazine’s Best Sommeliers in the U.S. award) and his San Francisco culinary masterpiece, Heirloom Café, Straus had been exploring the Berkshires for a short time when he visited the old Williamsville Inn and thought, “Perhaps this area could use a restaurant like this.” But the idea had been warming on the back burner much longer. Growing up as a working-class kid outside of Boston, Straus has been attracted to the table for as long as he can remember. His own recollections of “sitting around the table with family eating good food, engaging in conversation” led him to the restaurant industry initially and, over time, created a burning desire to open his own place “where a particular experience of food juxtaposed with a noteworthy wine program in a comfortable dining room” could be realized.
A circuitous culinary journey
In fact, Straus has been working in the restaurant industry off and on since he was 14, when he got his first job at McDonald’s in Braintree, Mass.—a starter job he credits with teaching invaluable lessons about collaborating with a team. “I’ve always been attracted to making and serving food, and have been working in food all my life, with the exception of a few years in my early 20s,” he says, noting a short stint out of the culinary pool post-college, when he worked in an English classroom, on Wall Street, and in a New York theater—all of which left him “feeling like a fish out of water.”
His buoyancy was restored when he returned to the restaurant industry in Boston shortly after, but something still felt off. “I didn’t know it then, but the relationship between people in New England and food/dining/going to restaurants was giving me hives,” he says, only half-jokingly. At 27, Straus moved to Los Angeles—a move that changed everything and paved the way for much of his career (notably the next eight years in L.A. and 13 in San Francisco). “California saved my life,” he says in earnest. “I landed at Campanile, which was the best restaurant I ever worked at.” There, under then-partners Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton (both world-famous chefs), he experienced the best of both worlds—front and back of house. “I gained background working in the kitchen and became fascinated with food and service, waiting on 40 to 50 guests a night, and talking to extraordinary creatives who loved food.”
“I learned so much,” he reiterates, adding, “In culinary training, many make the mistake of thinking 90 percent of the training is done with knife and pan in hand, but there’s so much more to cheffing than cooking skills. The mindset, curating flavors and recipes, managing the menu and the staff, those things all matter.” He recalls that Silverton would walk the line, taste everything in each person’s mise en place, and provide specific feedback. From there, Straus went to L’Orangerie (the highly acclaimed French fine-dining restaurant), Sona, and Grace, where he landed his first sommelier job. That role took him to Europe for the first time, and after a five-day culinary tour in France, he decided to attend cooking school to develop those skills and instincts himself.
After completing the program at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts in Vancouver, British Columbia—boasting European instructors across all methodologies—Straus began looking for his dream restaurant at which to work in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, he found it didn’t exist. “So I cooked for another six months in three different locations and worked again as a wine director on the weekend,” he continues. During that period, he bought an “absurd quantity” of wine, and the idea that “mature wine is the only thing worth drinking” took hold, alongside the slow food movement. “My palette and body felt so much more gratified. I began to develop a taste for old wines, buying young, age-worthy wines and storing them,” he notes. In 2008, deciding it was time to leave L.A. and on the hunt for his own restaurant location, he packed up and moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a sommelier and server for chefs Traci Des Jardins and Michael Mina.
In the fall of 2009, he signed the lease on a corner jewel box at Folsom and 21st Street, in the middle of the Mission District. Fortunately for Straus, the landlord was a contractor. “I wanted a serious, curated wine program juxtaposed with an approachable, ingredient-driven menu,” Straus says. “By then, that was the only kind of restaurant I could imagine wanting to create and run.” He opened Heirloom Café in May of 2010—the restaurant he couldn’t find anywhere else.
A search for a different setting
While still in San Francisco, Straus took a life-changing trip to the Italian Alps in 2013 and stayed at La Cappuccina, the Tessari family’s agriturismo estate (with a restaurant and guestrooms in an agricultural region). “My urban hospitality aspirations gave way to a dream of an agriturismo, and I began searching for a setting similar to that,” he notes. He initially considered the Hudson Valley but quickly realized there was little inventory there (mainly B&Bs with galley kitchens). In 2018, he began having conversations with longtime Heirloom Café patron Hans Morris, who asked, “Would you consider the Berkshires?”
“We’ve been impressed by Matt since he opened Heirloom Cafe,” Morris says. “So, when he shared his vision for a very high-quality restaurant with lodging in a rural setting, we both really encouraged him to look here.” Recalling his first visit in December 2020, Straus stresses, “I liked the location and loved the property, but it had been untended for five years, so there was no way to do a little thing,” he stresses. Luckily, he had been introduced to a brilliant architect in the Hudson Valley (Allan Shope, known for his deep appreciation for craft, nature, and architecture), who looked at the structure in February 2021 and proposed “clearing out, but keeping, the old building and building everything else new.” The restaurant structure was subsequently designed and brought to life by Tessa Kelly and Chris Parkinson of Group AU architects.
In April 2023, following a grueling process of addressing neighbors’ concerns and securing town permits, the team began the heavy lift of transforming the old inn into Heirloom Lodge. “We were very intentional about everything throughout the project—the lighting, the seating, making the kitchen prominent and very open, all to give a different experience,” Straus states. He also wanted it to imbue it with a certain feel. “I love Tolkien, the spirit of the Shire—that speaks to me profoundly,” he explains. [Think lush natural beauty and deep connection to the land, warm hospitality, and simple pleasures (food, wine, community).] He regards the lodging element as essential to the business model, and Heirloom has a special permit from the town to add 14 guest rooms.
With the renovations completed, Straus turned to staffing and operations. “The Heirloom Café vision was realized in six or eight months, but that was in a big city, where it was easier to attract talented cooks and servers. Here, it was a lot more challenging,” he notes. Still, he managed to open just a year later (in May 2024). “We had a lot of turnover at the beginning, but I’ve since been very lucky with staffing,” he says. “We’ve found a half-dozen or so amazing people, with wildly different backgrounds, all high character and very smart, who care deeply about the restaurant.” Straus reports that the restaurant had a very successful summer and fall, though it has been incredibly challenging to navigate the off-season, going from six reservations on some Wednesday nights to more than one hundred guests on some evenings around the holidays. “Almost every single day, I feel exhilarated and hopeless. The last two summer seasons have been breakneck; the off-season is virtually impossible,” he sighs.
Investing in the culinary community
Throughout his career, Straus recalls “realizing that the food problem in the U.S.—our dependency on processed food and belief that good ingredients and time are too expensive—is slowly killing us physically, educationally, culturally, and economically.” In 2016, leaning back into his Skidmore creative writing degree, Straus became the founding editor of “Kitchen Work,” a literary journal about “what and how we eat and drink.” In 2021, he added the Kitchen Work Foundation (receiving nonprofit status in 2023), focused on encouraging the production of more fresh, local, delicious food. Both initiatives work together organically, sharing “stories from big and small kitchens, about cooking, the business of food and the state of restaurants, about family and friends and strangers.”
The foundation provides financial support and professional mentorship to food entrepreneurs working to establish new restaurants, markets, cafés, bakeries, and local food businesses. “I’m trying to shine a bright light on how much it makes sense to support young, ambitious culinary professionals,” Straus says. “Cooks who invest in expensive culinary educations often earn very little and have a hard time putting a roof over their heads, even in parts of the world with plenty of money that are crying out for good food.” His first official action, beyond extensive fundraising, was to host a residency award at Heirloom Lodge—a chance for the culinary artist and community to come together. “We put out an open call for applications and selected Hannah Wong of Chatham, N.Y., who took over the kitchen for a week,” he says, with admiration. (Iin Purwanti and George Cox made a short documentary about the experience titled “A Delicious Experiment”.)
Intentionally not something for everybody…
Jon Sterrett (executive chef at The Red Lion Inn for four years) came to Heirloom to be part of “the best restaurant in the Berkshires” in terms of food, wine, and service. “Matt and I align on a lot of things, including the style of food and our core values. We’re looking to change the reputation that the restaurant industry is a place for temporary jobs, and instead help people build careers by paying them well, treating them well, giving them a voice, helping them grow and develop,” Sterrett explains.
Describing the menu, both agree that all offerings are highly thoughtful, intentional dishes—there are no wrong choices. “We try to serve balanced, very delicious meals, with a lot of flavor and without a ton of fat, and you get a completely different experience sitting in different parts of the restaurant,” Straus emphasizes. His advice to customers coming to the lodge for the first time is simple: “Just order a bunch of plates and share them around the table” (a common practice on the West Coast and in Europe). Some of his favorite culinary experiences have been in convivial cultures such as Madrid, Rome, and Mexico City, where servers often put big bowls of food on the table to share—a re-education about how to live and be ‘at table’.
Sitting at the bar, it’s easy to see that the vision is working. Despite the added pressure of being fully visible, the team clearly demonstrates its passion for preparing memorable plates and working together. “I hope people know how collaborative the spirit and creativity are, from the chef to the dishwasher,” Straus says. The guests are clearly appreciative—including pianist Emmanuel Ax, who posted “This is by far the best and most friendly restaurant in the Berkshires—we love it and wish we were here every week so we could come.”
A single floating glass shelf serves as a “12 bottle bar” (“Spirits don’t always need to be a focal point,” according to Straus), but the cellar is filled with brilliant wines from many of the greatest family-run wineries in the world. The website attests, “We regard the role of restaurants in communities as being vitally important, and take seriously our dedication to hosting and cooking for our friends and neighbors, from near and far.” Straus adds that they take cultivation of the clientele just as seriously. “We hope our customers value the food and the experience.”
If you can’t dine without a Cosmopolitan cocktail or a bottle of ketchup, this may not be the place for you. But if roasted pear soup, bacon and onion tart, or housemade potato gnocchi with fennel sausage and cremini mushrooms sound enticing, you won’t want to wait to check out Heirloom Lodge’s hyper-seasonal menu offerings. Come during the winter when reservations aren’t always necessary and experience the cozy alternative to its summer all’aperto feel. Come anticipating everything you’ve been told, plus an element of surprise—the intangible quality Straus considers necessary to “elevate the pleasure of sitting down in a restaurant” even more.
“To me, one of the best things about a restaurant like Heirloom is that it’s a great place to spend a cold Wednesday night,” Morris contends. “For a very reasonable price, you can enjoy an intimate dinner (a great burger or pasta and a remarkable glass of wine) sitting at the bar and talking to Matt and the well-trained staff (sophisticated, but not intimidating).”
Any doubts? Ingest this high praise from Terry Coughlin of Granville House (previously with Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Hospitality Group): “We are so proud to have a restaurant like Heirloom Lodge right down the road from us. The food is outstanding, the service warm and caring, and the wine list truly extraordinary—rivaling some of the top programs in the country, particularly when it comes to hidden gems and vintage depth. We’ve invited a few friends in the industry to join us for dinner, and each time their jaws drop at the sight of Matt’s cellar. It’s always fun to watch when it happens!”
For reservations, current menu offerings, and unique celebration options—“from elegant corporate functions to cozy family dinners to wine-focused bridal showers”—visit their website.
