The Hummingbird Room - About Us

Cental Stories – Caviar in Centre County By Gabriel Welsch

Claudia Sarnow leans onto the butcher-block table in the prep area of the Hummingbird Room in Spring Mills and comments on the half-hour drive that separates her from the nearest town of any size, State College.

“I think it's good that we're not closer to a big town,” she says of the five-star restaurant she and her husband, Eric, have established in an area better known for Amish buggies and a Grange Fair. “When you drive here, it takes long enough that the rest of the world falls away, you think about what you might eat, and you know that we are working very hard here to make it special.”

When my wife and I go to the Hummingbird Room, we drive, as if in a fairy tale, to a magical old house out in the woods and shadowed fields. A host guides us over creaking floorboards, perhaps up the walnut staircase and into one of the old bedrooms, where we might sit at one of only three other tables. We look through wavy old glass at the serenity of willow foliage or a brick church overtaken with wild grape. A waiter appears with rosemary onion bread, the flavor of which makes butter superfluous, and it disappears quickly. What follows is a blissful and sensual candlelit dinner, ephemeral and uplifting as the sight of the hummingbird.

When the Sarnows first arrived in Penns Valley from Philadelphia – Eric's last gig was working in the world-famous kitchens of Le Bec-Fin—they rented space at the Woodward Inn. When it became clear that they needed a larger place, the restaurateurs moved to a house once owned by Maj. Jared Fisher, the patriarch of one of Penns Valley's founding families. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the rooms are intimate because the Sarnows have left them intact.

Now, in rooms once swept by trailing Victorian gowns, table linens drape the floor and silverware glints next to Villeroy and Boch china (which Eric bought at a “goodwill” price from Le Bec-Fin). Where dinner was once cooked for a tidy family, Eric works magic in a space of roughly 36 square feet, including the stove. And with sous-chefs (one of whom provides the Hummingbird Rooms with the cut flowers on its tables), he now can comfortably –if frenetically—serve 100 people a night.

And they come, for the only menu in rural Centre County that features Russian ossetra caviar and salmon smoked on the premises with apple wood, along with other delights such as fresh game and interpretations of French classics. From surrounding soil with a richness rivaled only by Lancaster County's, Amish farmers deliver plump produce to Eric's kitchen. Food even comes serendipitously. “A few years ago,” Claudia recalls, “we found black-cherry trees nearby, so in the fall we offer duck in sour cherry sauce.”

What you should know about that duck: I have only every dreamed of two dishes in my life. One was the profound cheesecake at the Mendenhall Inn in Chadds Ford. The second, Eric's duck in sour cherry sauce. Dreams recurred over several months.

But that just underscores the mystery. One might expect dream-inducing cuisine in Chadds Ford - but Spring Mills? It still mystifies Eric and Claudia at times. When questioned, the genial, artistic couple roll their eyes, laugh and look at one another with the grins of conspirators who feel lucky. When they met, Eric was still working at Le Bec-Fin, having just finished his training in France; Claudia, an artist, waited tables. Dreaming of their own "place with a few tables," they sought property, but around Philadelphia, start-up costs were prohibitive. Plus, a son was on the way.

They learned the Woodward Inn was subletting restaurant space. Overhead would be small, and because of the lease, the restaurant needn't be permanent. They might make a go of it. Then, their son arrived earlier than predicted, forcing them to make a decision. "Had he not come into the world in such a dramatic way," Claudia speculates, "we may not be out here."

And if the Hummingbird Room had not come to Spring Mills in such a dramatic way, diners such as my wife and I might not go out there. But the Sarnows' love of artistry, of food, overcame the scary circumstances in which they started their business. And today, the gamble to start a five-star restaurant in a remote area of Central PA looks like genius.