A cruise line in Alaska. A seafood joint in New Orleans. A restaurant in the North End of Boston. These are just a handful of the places Mark Fredette, owner of Hudson-based ice cream shop The Conery, has worked at since getting into the restaurant industry 30 years ago.
Fredette grew up in Charlton, Massachusetts. He started his career as a student at the CIA in Hyde Park, but moved around where the culinary opportunities led him. He returned to the Hudson Valley to finish up his CIA classes in the mid-2000s, and has lived here with his wife and his two sons ever since. “I’ve never not wanted to be a chef,” says Fredette. “At every turn, I always took the path that would take me closer to becoming a better chef.”
In that sense, the ice cream shop is a lark. Fredette’s true culinary vocation is as owner and head chef at Iron and Grass, the steakhouse which shares the property with The Conery. At Iron and Grass, Fredette’s food program showcases regional and regenerative farming, using produce from nearby farms, sustainably caught seafood, and grass-fed beef.
Fredette’s cooking philosophy bleeds into the sourcing for the Conery. The Conery serves small-batch artisanal ice cream from Jane’s, a Kingston-based company. “There isn’t a better option out there right now,” Fredette says. The ice cream is made using hormone-free milk from New York State cows and as many natural and local ingredients as possible.
“[Jane’s isn’t] going to sacrifice their flavor for a price point,” Fredette says, meaning the company and businesses like The Conery have to charge more than some others in the ice cream industry. “I think with the influx of people coming in [to the area] we fit right in with [their] mentality: most people don’t mind paying a little bit more for a better quality product.”
Both businesses sit slightly off Route 9 in Hudson. The ice cream is sold from a cheerful A-frame stand with a red roof, a one-minute walk from Iron and Grass. Next to The Conery, there is a playground, a few sandboxes, and a handful of picnic tables, making the location a perfect place for a family outing: get dinner at Iron and Grass, stroll over to The Conery, and eat your ice cream from the comfort of a picnic table while the kids play, all the while enjoying sunset mountain views.
The Conery has between 22 and 32 flavors available at any given time. They start with the flavors guaranteed to satisfy—killer chocolate, mint chip, and a birthday cake-flavored ice cream called unicorn cake are dependendable staples to cap off a day of hiking or exploring. Their bolder flavors include salted caramel pretzel, lavender, and passionfruit. They also serve a few sorbets, as well as two to three vegan options, made with oat milk. The Conery makes their own hot fudge and caramel sauce.
When Fredette first took over the property and opened Iron and Grass during the summer of 2021, it had an outbuilding that had been used as an ice cream store under previous owners. He decided to open it up again, despite the risk involved in opening not one but two new businesses during the pandemic. Despite that, he says they had a pretty good first year. When it comes to Iron and Grass, Fredette had a built-in support base from his previous restaurant, the Clermont Café, which he closed in order to pursue his steakhouse dreams.
As for The Conery, it was able to succeed because customers could order at the window from outside, and enjoy the property’s 12 acres. As a result, The Conery remained a socially distanced and safe community gathering space, and has now been in business for three years.
Fredette speculates that the pandemic has changed how people look at restaurants, and may have helped create a “new normal.” He suspects that diners have come to prefer big, outdoor spaces over being “crammed into sardine-style restaurants where everyone is sitting on top of each other.”
Right now, The Conery is open only on weekends due to staffing shortages. They plan to be fully staffed and open Wednesday through Sunday within two weeks. With a full team, they’ll be able to reintroduce their homemade hot fudge, ice cream toppings, and waffle cones.
Fredette has always focused his career on making people happy, and views working in the restaurant industry as a collaborative experience. “There’s a team mentality in my head. I don’t think I’ve ever used ‘I’ when it comes to the restaurant, it’s always ‘we,’” Fredette says, ascribing this way of thinking to his various industry mentors.
And when it comes to The Conery, he says simply, “It’s ice cream, and who doesn’t love ice cream?”
