So when Ardor Park joined us for Eat Local New York Restaurant Week, it was the perfect opportunity to go back and give it the coverage it deserves.
I’m thrilled to say that Ardor Park is participating at both locations, Rochester and Canandaigua, this year. Eat Local New York Restaurant Week is back for its second year, running April 13th through the 26th, and presented by our friends at Summit Federal Credit Union.
A Visit With a New Friend
I made this trip to Ardor Park’s Canandaigua location with my new friend Jenn, who is the owner of Sights and Shades in Canandaigua. I met Jenn about a year and a half ago when she and her friend Katie reached out to style me with some new glasses. If you’re in the Canandaigua area, go check out them out.
The Spinach Artichoke Dip: Order One Per Person
Ardor Park makes incredible wood-fired pizzas with wonderful flavors. But on this trip, I was locked in on their spinach artichoke dip. I knew going back that this was the thing I had to have.
The menu describes it as confit garlic with basil and Parmesan, and that’s accurate — but it doesn’t quite prepare you for what actually arrives. Whole cloves of confit garlic are mixed throughout the dip. It comes out of the wood-fired oven in a cast-iron pan, and when it hits the table it gets topped with torn fresh basil and then a mountain of freshly shaved Parmesan cheese.
There’s no cheese pull here — and that’s because there’s no cheap cheese in it. The quality shows. This dip is so thick that you can pull a huge chunk onto a chip and hold it upside down for up to a minute before it falls. It’s savory, garlicky, and deeply flavorful in a way that’s hard to describe until you’ve had it. It has that umami quality that kind of creeps into the corners of your jaw — the thing that tells you the person who made this really knew what they were doing with the balance of flavors.
My only complaint is the chip. The tortilla chip it comes with feels like an afterthought next to a dip this good. Something higher quality — a better tortilla chip, a pita chip, anything — would be a worthy upgrade. The dip deserves a better vehicle.
Honestly, I’d say order one for every person at your table. Sharing is going to be hard. And if you’ve never been to Ardor Park, this spinach artichoke dip alone is reason enough to make the trip.
📍 Ardor Park — 123 S Main Street, Canandaigua, NY
🗓 Eat Local New York Restaurant Week: April 13–26, presented by Summit Federal Credit Union
