Don’t think twice; it’s alright 

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Anthony Do grew up watching his parents cook Vietnamese-French fusion cuisine in Bridgewater, NJ. Fifteen minutes away, Ellie Dolan was a nerdy, artistic kid who liked being outdoors. They didn’t know each other. More than a decade later, they met in Geneva, NY, while both working at F.L.X. Table.

Walking to work each day, they passed a pale blue brick restaurant that, though vacant, had been a venerated staple of the city’s food and drink culture. They bought it, kept the name and transformed the interior into a portmanteau of Japanese izakaya (the culture’s term for a casual bar), American dive bar and understated fine dining.

Do and Dolan (re)opened Microclimate in 2022.

“I think there was a lot of serendipity in how this happened,” said Dolan. “I just kind of followed the squiggly red line on the GPS (to Geneva) totally sight unseen, and I lived on the same street as Table and Provisions, so I kind of just came downstairs and was like, ‘Can I work here?”

Dolan had never been to the Finger Lakes region, but her sister had recently graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva and suggested Dolan seek refuge there from a COVID-addled New York City. At the time, Dolan worked at a restaurant checking coats and waiting tables.

“I was going to work there part-time while I looked for a ‘real job,’ but I became kind of addicted to the atmosphere,” she said. “I felt like I should try to learn about wine, which is how I started my job as the worst sales rep in New York City.”

Meanwhile, Do was completing his training at The Culinary Institute of America, which has a collaborative degree program with Cornell University. After leaving Ithaca, Do planned to work in Lummi Island, Washington until the pandemic dissolved his job before it began. After seeing a notice that Table was hiring, he applied. Like Dolan, his course pointed him to Geneva.

The two became friends as they drove together to Corning, where their employers were opening a new venture. They chatted while polishing glasses, and Do shared his vision of one day opening his own restaurant. Around the same time, Dolan said they saw the potential in the little vacant restaurant three storefronts down from Table when a wine group sponsored an event there.

“They did this weeklong pop-up, turned the lights down low, bumped the music and people were in here partying and drinking a bunch of wine and it seemed to have an amazing atmosphere,” she said. “Once we saw that we were like, ‘oh, somebody should do this.’”

When conceiving what exactly “this” meant, Do took a cue from seeing so many tourists dining at Table, and thinking he and Dolan could serve a different niche.

“When we opened Microclimate, we wanted to make it more community-oriented,” he said. “I'm surprised by how supportive the locals are to us, what we’re doing, especially since we were taking over an old business that had a lot of nostalgic feels to it.”

Do and Dolan also wondered at times if what they’re offering fits the local palate. For example, in December, they hosted a Feast of Seven Fishes prix fixe dinner.

“One of the dishes was a chirashi bowl — rice, a bunch of different raw fish, and a raw egg yolk on top,” said Dolan. “I was sweating bullets when we were serving it just because I was like, people are not going to go for this.”

She said every patron cleaned their plate.

“OK, I guess Geneva (surprised) me again.”

Rather than succeeding despite its hometown, Microclimate seems to have found a perfect home to become precisely its truest self. “I actually feel like this would only work in Geneva,” said Do, adding that the region combines a longstanding love of wine with an open mindedness that fits their menu.

In addition to a local clientele hungry for adventure, Microclimate also benefits from a region full of incredible produce. When they first opened, Do and Dolan sourced all their vegetables from Deep Root Farm. In owner Eric Houppert, they found a grounding presence during the final harried hours before opening their doors for the first time.

“It was extremely chaotic because the bar wasn’t set up,” said Dolan. “So the plumber, the electrician, the guy who built the bar, me, Anthony and my mom were there and it was just like there was not enough room for anybody … But then Eric came in with all his vegetables and my mom’s jaw was on the floor. She was like, ‘I have never seen lettuce like that in my life.’”

That moment seems to have set the tone for superior ingredients begetting superior cuisine. Though Deep Root has since scaled back production, Do curates a diverse array of food grown on farms surrounding Geneva. Vegetables from Stick and Stone Farm in Trumansburg, herbs from High Ground Gardens in Ovid, and meat from Rosencranz Natural Beef in Auburn and Bostrom Farms in Stanley (to name a few) all form the basis for his inventive, deeply flavorful menu.


“To be totally honest, right now the food is anything I want to cook,” said Do. At the moment, that includes sugar snap peas from Schenk Homestead Farm in Naples dressed with a blend of basil, mint, tofu and creme fraiche and topped with green garlic furikake, made by blitzing dehydrated green garlic tops (also from Schenk) into powder. Or there’s the yuzu caesar salad, made with lettuces from Glenn Scott Farms in Hammondsport, piave vecchio (a hard cow’s milk cheese), anchovies, toasted panko and yuzu in place of the traditional lemon.

Initially, because of an extremely limited workspace (which Dolan described to customers as “one guy and one hot plate”), Microclimate’s menu was restrained to oysters, ceviche, popcorn and bar mix. In time, Do hit a stride and in January 2024, the restaurant closed for a month-long renovation which created a much larger cooking area without sacrificing any customer seating and offering an airier, free flowing dining experience.

“I thought it was kind of miraculous,” said Dolan of the early days. “We had exactly enough space to get stuff done.”

Whether serendipity, luck or Bacchus himself is responsible for Do and Dolan finding their way to Linden Street and thriving at every turn remains unclear. It’s possible, however, that it’s all in their easy-handed approach, which is immediately evident when talking to either of them.

“I think if we had thought about it too much, like the gravity of the undertaking …” Dolan said, trailing off. “Just go to work. Don’t make any room for existential dread – that will just slow you down.”

Pete Wayner is a contributor to CITY.