Restaurants in Dunmore

The staff at Marley's Gotham Grill makes diners feel at home by serving up an extensive lunch and dinner menu of home-style entrees and grilled favorites. Handcrafted burgers are taken up a notch as hot sauce and pulled pork crown the beef patties, while paninis hold grilled and breaded chicken with marinara sauce and mozzarella between buttery slices of bread. The laidback eatery also puts a spin on traditional chicken wings by slathering them in forty types of sauce, from savory garlic parmesan to spicy red thai curry.

When not sating diners' appetites, the wood-accented restaurant stays busy sponsoring softball teams, hosting holiday parties, and running Texas Hold 'Em games, which involve using a deck of cards slathered in castor oil.

Captain Ernest Ditlew Knuth, a child runaway turned sailing-vessel captain, retired from the seafaring life in the 1920s and opened a restaurant in the bustling port of Brooklyn, New York with his wife Paula Uhl. After hearing the call of the rural life in the 1930s, the duo decided to take their culinary experience to the hills of Bucks County where they set up shop in a pre–Revolutionary War farmhouse. Since then, the Cascade Lodge's resident chefs have crafted a bevy of classic bistro dishes, many of which they flambé tableside.

Nestled into wooden chairs encircling the wood-burning stove at the center of the room, diners can savor succulent meats or fresh-trout flambé fished from the onsite trout pond as they telepathically commune with the majestic horses and deer speckling the surrounding Delaware Valley pastures.

Determined to pursue a career in the culinary arts, executive chef Evan Kechely mastered his craft in the kitchens of restaurants, country clubs, assisted-living facilities, farmers' markets, and other venues, opting to learn by doing rather than attending culinary school. His experiences shaped his ingredient-driven and sustainable approach to meals, leading him to fill Leaf's menu with farm-to-plate options built from locally sourced meats and produce. Kechely has also learned that beer and food go together as well as camping and boy-scout repellant, and his staff is able to recommend a brew for any dish on the menu. In addition to pairing suds with the various dishes, staffers can suggest premium cigars that can enhance flavor profiles. The eatery's advanced ventilation system even allows visitors to indulge in a puff without disturbing neighboring patrons or forcing them to stare at failed smoke-ring attempts.

Chefs at Wrap'd Tight hand roll every cold or grilled wrap, filling them with ingredients from tuna salad to the monster meat pizza's four meats, mozzarella, and tomato sauce. This melding of classic and creative combinations extends to the eatery’s baked potatoes, such as the All or Nothing, which carries eight toppings to the dining room, patio, or potato weight-lifting finals. Wrap'd Tight caters to offsite eaters with party platters, and keeps on-location festivities lively with open-mic nights and the occasional live band.

Speaking with Barbara Aichem-Koster, it's pretty clear that Black Forest Inn is a family business. "My father is head chef Heinrich. My brother is Heiner––short for Heinrich––and his two children are Heinrich and the other, Hansi. They're cooks too." Barbera and her kitchen full of Heinrichs have helped feed Stanhope for more than 34 years with what she calls German continental cuisine––a product of the elder Heinrich's rich culinary education.

"My father was born in Germany, learned to cook there and across Europe," she says. "He worked his way up in different restaurants. Then my brother went back to Germany and did the very same thing." It's this attention to tradition that Barbera credits to the freshness of the ingredients. "We try to use a lot of local produce in seasonal menus and specials. … We don't buy prepared items." Luckily for diners, that also means that the wurst sausages and the German-style pasta, or spaetzle, are housemade.

The elegantly rustic dining room has hand-painted stained-glass ceiling panels, exposed brick, and a hand-crafted bar stocked with a multitude of imported German beers. This, along with periodic live music, has helped bring a younger clientele to Black Forest. "I had a group of 20 young people in here for the Friday-night buffet. The staff pointed out what everything was, explained it to them. And one of the girls, she called later that week, wanted to say how fabulous it was. I grew up in this restaurant, so that was really nice to hear."