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Southern Vermont Chantecleer Ask anyone to name the best restaurants in the Manchester area and the Chantecleer usually heads the list – absolutely tops, says an innkeeper whose taste we respect. One of Swiss chef Michel Baumann's strengths is consistency, ever since he opened his contemporary-style restaurant in an old dairy barn north of town in 1981. The rough wood beams and barn siding remain, but fresh flowers, oil lamps, good art, hanging quilts, shelves of bric-a-brac, and navy and white china atop white-over-blue calico tablecloths lend elegance to the rusticity. A pig tureen decorates the massive fireplace. The contemporary continental menu has Swiss and American touches. Except for staples like rack of lamb, it changes bi-weekly. Our party of four sampled a number of offerings, starting with a classic baked onion soup, penne with smoked salmon, potato pancakes with sautéed crabmeat and a heavenly lime-butter sauce, and bundnerfleisch, the Swiss air-dried beef, fanned out in little coronets with pearl onions, cornichons and melba rounds. Artichokes stuffed with crabmeat and a terrine of eggplant and roasted peppers with goat-cheese mousse are other favorites among appetizers. Caesar salad is prepared tableside for two. Entrées range from sautéed Atlantic salmon fillet glazed with dill and arugula compound butter to grilled venison and wild boar chop with truffle butter demi-glace. We savored the specialty rack of lamb roasted with fine herbs, veal sweetbreads morel, sautéed quail stuffed with duxelles and the night's special of boneless local pheasant, served with smoked bacon and grapes. Fabulous roësti potatoes upstaged the other accompaniments, purée of winter squash, snow peas and strands of celery. Grand marnier layer cake, bananas foster, Swiss tobler chocolate mousse and trifle were memorable endings to a rich, expensive meal. A number of Swiss wines are included on the reasonably priced wine list. Yodeling may be heard on tape as background music. (802) 362-1616. Entrées, $28 to $36. Dinner by
reservation, nightly except Tuesday from 6. Mistral's at Toll
Gate The other great restaurant in the Manchester area is Mistral’s, a delightful French restaurant with a difference. Long gone is the haute demeanor of the old Toll Gate Lodge, one of Vermont's original Travel-Holiday award winners with a tuxedoed staff and sky-high prices. In its place is a less intimidating dining room, a simpler menu and the hospitality of chef-owners Dana and Cheryl Markey. Both local, they met as teenagers at the Sirloin Saloon, worked their way through area restaurants and ended up here in 1988, living upstairs in the rustic structure that looks like Grandmother’s cottage in the woods. Although the two dining rooms seating 80 are country pretty with dark woods, lace curtains, blue and white linens, and gold-edged white china, it is the views through picture windows looking onto the trickling flume of Bromley Brook that are most compelling. After dark, when the brook and woods, accented in summer by purple petunias and brilliant impatiens, are illuminated, the setting is magical. The menu offers a choice of about ten starters and a dozen entrées, most classic French with some nouvelle and northern Italian touches. Tempting starters include French onion soup gratinée, crab cakes grenobloise, smoked salmon blini and escargots bourguignonne en croûte. Main courses range from breast of chicken provençal to grilled filet mignon with roquefort ravioli. Homemade bread and a house salad with choice of dressings accompany. The options could be roulade of sole with lobster and asparagus, sautéed Newfane trout stuffed with scallop mousse, crispy sweetbreads dijonnaise, and medallions of venison with black truffle cabernet sauce. The specialty châteaubriand béarnaise and rack of lamb rosemary may be ordered for two. The signature dessert is coupe mistral (coffee ice cream rolled in hazelnuts with hot fudge sauce and frangelico). Others include a complex chocolate godiva cake, praline cheesecake and assorted fruit sorbets. While Dana is in the kitchen, Cheryl oversees the front of the house and a growing wine list, honored recently by Wine Spectator. (802) 362-1779 or (800) 279-1779. Entrées, $24
to $34. Dinner nightly except Wednesday, from 6.
Some of the area’s most exciting food is offered by Henry and Dina Bronson, who met in the kitchens of top Manhattan restaurants and moved to Vermont to pursue their dream. They first opened Dina’s, a contemporary American dining room in an inn north of town, and then resurfaced in a motel dining room they called Bistro Henry. In 2003, they moved up the road to a green farmhouse they could call their own. With seating for about 100, it’s the perfect spot for what Henry calls “a restaurant for today,” as well as a home for Dina’s growing Vermont Baking Co. business. Dining is in cheery bistro-style rooms with salmon-colored walls accented with framed European posters. Tables are topped with white butcher paper over white linens and centered with bottles of S. Pellegrino water. Henry executes a contemporary Mediterranean bistro menu, based on the food they enjoyed while living and working in France. He has elevated the classics to 21st-century tastes, and his food sparkles with authenticity. Recent examples were grilled rare tuna with wasabi and pickled ginger, Moroccan grilled chicken with couscous, merlot-braised lamb shank, steak frites and grilled veal chop with mushroom sauce. As always, the menu was supplemented by tempting specials, among them soft-shell crab sauté, red snapper with orange-basil butter, organic Pacific salmon with pinot noir sauce and beef wellington with truffle sauce. Start with a classic onion soup gratinée or the more innovative sweetbread éclair with madeira cream. Finish with one of Dina's great desserts, perhaps her ever-famous fruit crisp, grand marnier crème brûlée, bananas foster cheesecake or lemon sorbet. She sells them retail and wholesale from her bakery. (802) 362-4982. Entrées, $21 to $36. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday from 5. Two Tannery Road The first frame house in the town of Dover has quite a history. Built in the late 1700s and moved “stick by stick” from Marlborough, Mass., it was the summer home in the early 1900s of President Theodore Roosevelt's son and daughter-in-law, and the president is said to have visited. In the early 1940s it was moved again to its present location, the site of a former sawmill and tannery. It became the first lodge for nearby Mount Snow and finally a restaurant in 1982. Along the way it also has been transformed into a place of considerable attractiveness, especially the main Garden Room with its vaulted ceiling. It’s a many-windowed space so filled with plants and so open that you almost don't know where the inside ends and the outside begins. A wall of windows looks onto the Garden Room from the Fireplace Room, which along with two smaller interior dining rooms has beamed ceilings, barnwood walls and wide-plank floors dotted with oriental-patterned rugs. Charming stenciling and folk art are everywhere. A pleasant lounge contains part of the original bar from the Waldorf-Astoria. A light tavern menu is offered here Friday-Sunday from 6 to 9. Longtime chef Brian Reynolds has spiced up the continental/American fare with starters like Acadian pepper shrimp, grilled cajun steak tips and Thai chicken satay. We enjoyed the garlicky frog’s legs as well as the duck livers with onions in a terrific sauce. Nearly two dozen entrées plus nightly specials range from seafood udon to spice-crusted lamb chops with apple-currant chutney. “Tannery Two” might pair jumbo Acadian shrimp with cajun steak tips. Veal is a specialty, so we tried veal granonico in a basil sauce as well as grilled New Mexican chicken with chiles, herbs and special salsa, accompanied by a goodly array of vegetables – broccoli, carrots, parsley and boiled new potatoes in one case, rice pilaf in the other. A four-layer grand marnier cake with strawberries – enough for two to share – testified to the kitchen's prowess with desserts. They include a renowned mud pie, frozen black and white mousse with raspberry sauce, apple crêpes and homemade peanut-butter ice cream. Colombian-blend coffee and espresso end a pleasant meal. And if the dining room is a wondrous garden retreat with rabbits running around the lawn in summer, think how lovely it must be when the lawn is covered with snow in winter. (802) 464-2707. www.twotannery.com. Entrées, $24 to $32. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday 6 to 10.
"Uptown dining" along a side street in Brattleboro is how chef-owner Michael Fuller bills this choice little black, red and silver diner with intimate tables for up to twenty lucky patrons. The setting is charming; the food, creative and highly regarded. The city slicker from Cleveland, who came to Vermont more than two decades ago to ski and to apprentice with René Chardain at the Four Columns in Newfane, does everything here himself, except for some of the prep work and serving. He usually offers four entrées a night at a fixed price of $30 to $35, which he's quick to point out includes rolls, vegetables and a zippy salad of four lettuces, endive, radicchio and marinated peppers dressed with the house vinaigrette. At one visit, Michael was preparing a neat-sounding shrimp and clam dish with a purée of roasted plum tomatoes and dill oil with shaved fennel and slices of reggiano, to be served with polenta. Other choices were roasted halibut with wild rice risotto and a lobster stock reduction, roasted guinea hen, and grilled beef tenderloin with portobello mushrooms and red wine sauce. Typical appetizers include an elaborate country pâté of veal and pork garnished with all kinds of fruit, a smoked trout tart with chèvre and a four-cheese tart that resembles a pizza. For dessert, look for a lime-macadamia tart that's very tart, a rich but not terribly sweet chocolate-hazelnut torte and a trio of sorbets: kiwi, blood orange and pineapple. Only beers and wines are served. Red roses grace the linen-covered tables in wintertime, and other flowers the rest of the year. They add a touch of elegance to this tiny charmer. (802) 257-4922. Prix-fixe, $30. Dinner,
Wednesday-Sunday 6 to 10. No credit cards. Peter
Havens “Established
1989,” says the logo of this highly regarded but low-key restaurant
that borrows the first and middle names of chef-owner Gregg
Vaniderstine’s father. The handsome white dining room has high
ceilings, cane and chrome chairs, beige-clothed tables with pottery
lamps crafted in The short menu emphasizes fresh seafood, perhaps sea scallops provençal, jumbo shrimp sautéed with pernod and fire-roasted red peppers, and poached grouper with lemon-cilantro béchamel sauce. Filet mignon usually is fired with a green peppercorn-bourbon cream sauce, and roasted duck might be sauced with sour cherries, black currants and port wine. Escargots, clams casino, duck-liver pâté and smoked salmon with a popover and horseradish-dill sauce are typical starters. Among desserts are chocolate truffle cake, pot de crème, white chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sauce and assorted cheesecakes. The chocolate-butternut sauce that tops the ice cream proved so popular that the owners bottles it to sell at Christmas. (802) 257-3333. Entrées, $24 to $28. Dinner,
Tuesday-Saturday from 6.
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