In Stowe this week, snow dusts Mount Mansfield, and the picturesque village below is relatively quiet. It’s stick season in Vermont.
During this liminal period, when naked tree branches reach up to often-gray skies as if pleading for substantial snowfall, many hospitality establishments in mountain towns close to rest and refresh before winter tourists descend.
Among those on stick-season break is Edson Hill, a family-owned boutique inn a few minutes off the busy Mountain Road. There, executive chef Matt Hiebsch is heading into his first winter at the restaurant’s helm. Since he came on board in June, Hiebsch’s menu has featured artfully presented, Japanese-influenced lobster hand rolls and a $78 steak from a sustainable cattle ranch in California.
Less than three miles away is Burt’s Irish Pub, whose owner, Janet Martinez, also made a recent big change. In June, she moved her bar and eatery back to the Mountain Road, where it first opened almost 50 years ago.
Beyond their summer news and unexpected global touches on their menus, Edson Hill and Burt’s couldn’t be more different. But each delivers to its clientele in its own way.
Even though Martinez and her small staff could use a break, too, Burt’s has never closed for stick season, she said. The pub crew is happy to pour a “proper pint” of Guinness or ladle up a hearty $17 bowl of Mama’s Beef Stew with scallion-cheddar biscuits for out-of-towners, but the heart of Burt’s clientele is locals — who stick around, even in stick season.
Low-Key and Local
Burt’s Irish Pub, 2160 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-6071. Note: Burt’s is a 21-plus venue and does not admit children.
Customers at Burt’s Irish Pub aren’t likely to know that its owner of more than two decades earned a pastry degree from the now-defunct New England Culinary Institute. Martinez, 59, plied her trade in Belgium, New York and Boston. After moving to Stowe in the late 1990s, the chef fell into bartending because it paid better than local pastry jobs and she was going through a divorce.
“People said, ‘You’ll meet some locals, make some friends. You’ll feel better,’” Martinez recalled. Working at Burt’s did the trick. In 2003, “on a whim,” she made an offer on the low-key watering hole, then at 135 Luce Hill Road.
Martinez wasn’t sure how to tell her parents their daughter had bought a bar. The fact that it was an Irish pub helped. The family had moved from Colombia to Long Island, N.Y., when Martinez was young; after church on Sundays, they frequented an Irish pub called the Stack o’ Barley.
“We’re not fancy.”
Janet Martinez
One of the first things Martinez did after buying Burt’s was call a Long Island neighbor — one of “my Irish grandmothers” — and ask how to make corned beef from scratch.
That recipe still stars in her Irish-meets-deli classic Reuben ($17), thickly stacked with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island dressing and slabs of fatty, fall-apart-tender pink meat. The dish is among what Martinez describes as her “comfort-food sandwiches,” which range from the best-selling Philly cheesesteak ($16) to fried buttermilk chicken with stuffing ($17) to meatloaf with crispy onions ($18).
But I was more drawn to the menu offerings inspired by the chef’s South American heritage. Martinez is quick to point out that the only “authentic” recipe she makes is her beef-and-potato empanadas ($10 for two), encased in sunny annatto-tinted cornmeal masa, fried and served with a perky, peppery sauce.
“They are the empanadas I grew up on,” she said.
Burt’s current brick building was most recently home to the Blue Donkey and for many years before that to Cactus Café. With the summer move, Martinez has upped the profile of her once under-the-radar haunt.
The new Burt’s is not much bigger, but it’s all on one level, complete with a backlit bar and pool and foosball tables. The chef said she was happy to gain “an actual, real kitchen,” unlike the “closet” she used to cook in.
Beyond that, rest assured: Burt’s is still Burt’s. “We’re not fancy,” Martinez said.
She’s also stuck with her 21-plus age requirement to maintain a rare adults-only establishment in town. The only exception she makes is for babes in arms: “If it’s on the boob, more than welcome. Happy to meet it. I might even hold it for you,” Martinez said.
Drink offerings are straightforward, with the thematic addition of a perfectly poured 20-ounce imperial pint of Guinness ($10.50) and Smithwick’s Irish red ale ($7).
As for food, Martinez is fond of saying, “I like to cook what I like to eat.” Alongside her sandwiches, Irish stew, and beef-and-bean chili ($7/$9), the menu offers several creative riffs on bar munchies.
Our table of three inhaled the elote fries ($11), a pile of French fries loaded with all the ingredients of Mexican-style street corn: charred corn kernels; two mildly spicy, tangy, creamy pepper sauces; finely grated cotija cheese; shaved jalapeños; and loads of fresh cilantro.
We also loved the pork “wings” ($14) in mojo sauce. Martinez and her fellow cook, Alycia Fayen, fry meaty nuggets of cornstarch-dusted, bone-in pork and serve them in a tangy green sauce simmered down from garlic, mint, cilantro, citrus and pineapple juices, and a sprinkle of brown sugar.
More classic, a plump vegetarian corn tamale ($9) enriched with queso fresco came with a well-seasoned, not-too-spicy sauce — the typical heat level of Colombian food, Martinez noted.
On a recent evening, a couple shot pool, a woman nursed a beer at the bar and four people at a high-top table sipped beers while playing a card game. Another pair walked in, looked at the menu and were about to leave — until they saw the spread of food Martinez delivered to our table.
The local friend we met at Burt’s admitted that, over 24 years in Stowe, she’d never visited the pub, thinking it was just a bar. But, she said, licking her fingers, she will definitely be back.
Lap of Luxury
Edson Hill, 1500 Edson Hill Rd., Stowe, 253-7371, edsonhill.com. Note: Edson Hill is on break and will reopen on November 26.
My husband used to speak at an annual winter meeting in Stowe for which the organizers paid for an overnight hotel stay. I always lobbied for Edson Hill. The intimate 22-room inn perfectly balances luxury with coziness. Its small, elegant restaurant could be relied upon for very good food, and the fireplace-anchored tavern room delivers the ultimate ski-town vibes.
As one might expect, the bill brought more of the same vibes. Still, I have recommended the inn to friends seeking a nearby getaway indulgence.
This summer, the family-owned property hired a new executive chef with good buzz. Matt Hiebsch first hit our radar for Kitsune, a well-regarded Japanese-style food pop-up that he and his wife, Alina Alter, ran for five years with seasonal residencies at a couple of Stowe hotels.
Crisp seaweed slings cradled sweet lobster in a light mayonnaise jazzed up with yuzu juice.
Hiebsch started his restaurant career as a dishwasher and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. Over the years, he worked his way up to chef de cuisine at the Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia and cooked modern Asian fusion at Buddakan in the same city.
The New Jersey native and his wife moved from Philadelphia to Stowe about seven years ago to raise their kids in a more pastoral setting. Hiebsch initially worked as a private chef before launching Kitsune. Much as the couple enjoyed doing their own thing, the 45-year-old chef said, running a transient restaurant wore them down. The chance to root himself once more in a kitchen appealed.
Hiebsch said he gravitates to Asian flavors and technique, particularly those of Japan, where he has traveled several times. Though a fully Asian menu does not suit a Stowe country inn, he makes a few dishes at Edson Hill that nod in that direction. Two of those were among the highlights of a recent dinner with my husband, ensconced on a couch facing the fireplace in the downstairs tavern dining room.
We began our leisurely meal with a Ten Bends Beer Side Porch ($9) and an expertly mixed twist on a paper plane cocktail called a Model Plane ($17), while contemplating our food choices.
Although I was tempted by the foie gras mousse ($24) — with seasonal accents of roasted strawberry and thyme — we went for a pair of Asian-inflected small plates in light of Kitsune’s reputation.
Two Maine lobster hand rolls ($26) arrived open-face, rather than rolled into a cone, in a traditional Japanese wooden holder. Crisp U-shaped seaweed slings cradled sweet lobster in a light mayonnaise jazzed up with yuzu juice and a fermented paste made with the same citrus fruit and chile peppers, with rice, delicate herbs and microgreens. I agreed with a neighboring diner whom I overheard exclaim, “This is one of the best things I’ve eaten.”
Our second appetizer, featherlight, crunchy-shelled trumpet mushroom tempura ($16) showered with Parmesan and basil leaves, arrived piping hot. The dish changes with the fresh produce available, Hiebsch later told me: During the summer, it featured shishito peppers from Stowe’s Long Winter Farm. He noted that the marriage of tempura with Italian flavors and a citrus vinaigrette evokes “the dirty word: fusion.” But it worked beautifully, so let’s not get hung up on that.
I did, however, get a little hung up on the $78 charcoal-grilled prime rib eye.
When I asked our otherwise very competent server about the steak, he simply said it was 11 ounces and “speaks for itself.” I would have preferred him to speak on its behalf, but maybe I’m unusual among Edson Hill’s clientele in even noticing a price. I had to see and taste $78 worth of steak.
Hiebsch later told me that portions are actually 12 ounces, and the meat is sourced from a sustainable and humane-certified ranch in California. He also reminded me that beef prices are at an almost-all-time high.
The steak was as tender as butter, fat-marbled and delicious — sliced thin with a charred exterior and medium-rare interior, as requested. It came with solid (but not $78 steak-worthy) French fries and a small but delightfully bitter, brightly dressed arugula and radicchio salad that complemented the meat’s richness.
Beyond the steak, three of the menu’s five “big plates” were seafood. We chose the seared yellowtail ($50) with a rainbow of vegetables, all swimming in a light, Thai-style coconut curry sauce. It was good, but its meatier menu mate may have overshadowed the relatively delicate flavors.
The fire crackled warmly as we finished our meal with an ethereally light maple pot de crème ($15) and a slice of dense and creamy Basque cheesecake ($15). The latter had the traditional almost-burnt top but was served, against custom, with superfluous chocolate sauce, as if the chef realized at the last minute that he lacked chocolate on the dessert menu.
Quibbles aside, we felt coddled and satiated. I wished we could just trundle a few feet to bed in the inn, rather than driving 50 minutes home. At least the roads were clear — one of the advantages of heading to the mountains in stick season.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Two Sides of the Mountain | In Stowe, Burt’s Pub has a new location and Edson Hill a new chef”
This article appears in The Winter Preview Issue 2025.
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