Franconia/Northeast Kingdom, VT
Dining Spots

Rabbit Hill Inn
Lower Waterford, VT

The doors to the Rabbit Hill dining room are kept closed until the dinner hour, so that first-time inn guests will appreciate the drama of a candlelit room, silver gleaming atop burgundy mats on polished wood tables and napkins folded into pewter rings shaped like rabbits. Even the electrified lanterns and chandeliers look like candles. Miniature oil lamps and porcelain bunnies on each table lend to the charm. In the winter, the glow of the large fireplace adds to the allure.

Chef Matthew Secich implements a seasonally changing, three-course menu in a style he calls “nouveau French country with a local flair.” It offers a choice of appetizer, soup, or salad, entrée, dessert and coffee or tea.

You know you are at Rabbit Hill when you are presented a loaf of oatmeal molasses bread served with butter cut in the shape of a bunny with a parsley tail.

The meal starts with an amuse bouche – perhaps a seared lamb carpaccio with truffle oil and merlot granita. That might be followed by a roulade of rabbit confit in puff pastry served with nicoise olive puree, date chutney and riesling butter. Crispy-skin cognac-marinated quail plated with a foie gras-quinoa filled pastry basket, wilted spinach, and balsamic syrup is another appetizer favorite. 

Then it is on to an entrée like pumpkin seed-crusted sea scallops with goat cheese whipped sweet potatoes, gingered salsify, and a pea and lavender tart with red wine pumpkin seed oil.

The chef does his own house aging of beef, which might be served with potatoes dauphine, spring pea puree, shallot-morel sauté, and truffle compound butter. 

He doubles as pastry chef with tantalizing dessert offerings such as warm blueberry strudel with cinnamon ice cream and a drizzle of orange caramel. Or perhaps you might prefer a dark chocolate pot du crème topped with fresh berries and chantilly cream. All the ice creams and sorbets are made in-house. In lieu of sweets, a sampling of international or locally made artisan cheeses with fruit and house made breads and crackers is offered.

Light jazz and standards play in the background. This is an elegant yet serene and unpretentious dining room – one in which no detail has been overlooked and solicitous service is well paced.

(802) 748-5168 or (800) 762-8669. Prix-fixe dinner, $44 for three courses. Dinner nightly by reservation starting at 6.  Closed early April and early November.
 

 Tim-Bir Alley
 7 Main Street, Littleton

For its first ten years, this little establishment named for its owners, Tim and Biruta Carr, was a culinary landmark in the basement of a building down an alley in downtown Littleton. It moved in 1994 from the alley to a 200-acre rural estate and two small and elegant dining rooms on the main floor of an inn called Adair. In 2007, they moved back to Littleton's Main Street, where the Carrs continue to serve some of the area’s most sophisticated and inventive food.

Their menu, which changes weekly, offers six entrée choices from garlic-basil tuna with roasted Mediterranean relish to ginger and soy-scented grilled quail with molasses barbecue sauce.

Our latest dinner here began with fabulous chicken-almond wontons with coconut-curry sauce and delicate salmon pancakes on a roasted red pepper coulis. For main courses, we enjoyed the breast of chicken with maple-balsamic glaze and plum-ginger puree and the pork tenderloin sauced with red wine, grilled leeks and smoked bacon.

Follow this assertive fare with, perhaps, peach ricotta strudel with caramel sauce, mango cheesecake with banana-coconut compote and honey-caramel sauce, and carrot-hazelnut cake with warm brandy sauce. The well-chosen wine list is affordably priced.

(603) 444-6142. Entrées, $18.95 to $24.95. Dinner by reservation, Wednesday-Sunday 5:30 to 9. Closed in November and April.
 

 Sunset Hill House
Sunset Hill Road, Sugar Hill

Four elegant dining rooms seating a total of 100 are strung along the rear of this refurbished inn, their tall windows opening onto the Franconia, Kinsman and Presidential ranges. The rooms are handsome with yellow Schumacher bird-print wallpapers, oriental print carpets and well spaced tables set with white linens and china, candles in hurricane chimneys and vases of alstroemeria.

Veteran chef Joe Peterson’s contemporary fare and the staff’s flawless service are the match for a mountain view unsurpassed in the area. We were impressed by starters of grilled boar sausage, served sliced with a soothing maple crème fraîche, and the seared ahi tuna steak with spicy mango-habañero and sweet ruby grapefruit sauces. The unusual house salad was tossed with a tequila-jalapeño dressing. Main courses included a superb filet mignon with a lemon-spinach peanut sauce, served with shiitake mushrooms and roasted new potatoes, and juniper-accented medallions of venison in a pinot noir reduction. Innkeeper Nancy Henderson’s favorite baked chicken stuffed with goat cheese and a mixed grill of duck sausage, pork and lamb loin proved good choices at another visit. Broiled rainbow trout with horseradish-apple cream, cider-brined Iowa pork and duckling Bombay are other signatures.

White chocolate cheesecake, iced lemon soufflé cake and bananas foster were among sweet endings. The wine list is ranked among the best in the state.

(603) 823-5522 or (800) 786-4455. Entrées, $22 to $27. Dinner nightly except Monday, 5:30 to 9, Memorial Day to foliage; nightly in foliage and holiday weeks. Rest of year: Thursday-Sunday 5:30 to 9.