My husband and I recently embarked upon our 41st year together. That feels momentous for many reasons. When we first connected, friends bet we wouldn’t last more than six weeks.
People often inquire about the secret to our happy union. The not-so-secret is that there isn’t one. Beyond the obvious — mutual respect, patience and luck — it feels impossible to predict if the person you fall in love with at 20 will still float your boat decades later. Stuff happens, and a lot of it is beyond our control.
One thing we can control is making time to connect. On days when we’re both working from home, Mark is really good at convincing me to tear myself away from my computer for an afternoon walk. We are devoted to collaborating on the New York Times word games every night. And given my career, we also eat out together a lot.
Dining on the clock with your partner is not all intimate relaxation, as my food writer colleague Jordan Barry detailed in an interview with both of our spouses for the 2024 Love & Marriage Issue. The need to check out restaurants does, however, mean scheduling regular date nights.
Valentine’s Day is the ultimate date night, but this long-married lady is here to tell you that any night can be perfect for a restaurant rendezvous.
To help broaden your date-night horizons, we checked out three romantic destinations in Burlington, Shelburne and Essex where you can reconnect with your sweetheart over sophisticated beverages, a shared plate of steak tartare or a pair of matching cannoli.
I will not dwell on the moment during my research meal at Pascolo Ristorante — recently relocated to its original subterranean Church Street home — when my husband dared to imply I didn’t deserve a $20 glass of Barolo.
Now that I think about it, forgiveness may actually be the secret to a long and happy marriage.
A Perfect Pairing
Salt & Bubbles Wine Bar and Market, 21 Essex Way, Essex, 662-4877
When it opened in 2021, Salt & Bubbles Wine Bar and Market in the Essex Experience quickly caught my attention for owner Kayla Silver’s thoughtfully selected wine list and light fare to pair with a flight. I admit, though, that I had it pegged more for girls’ night out than for date night. Then I went last summer with my date and was impressed by the sophistication of the small food menu and the wine bar’s warm, casual elegance, which easily allows you to forget you’re in a suburban mall.
About 18 months ago, Silver hired two young pros to head the front and back of house. Together, they have found their groove. Executive chef Jordan Atwood and general manager/beverage director Logan Patnaude have both cooked professionally. Atwood, who has farmed in the past, most recently ran the kitchen at Burlington’s Trattoria Delia. Patnaude spent several years working in the cellars of winemakers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and then in Portland at Division Wines, a nationally noted wine bar.
The two share a similar taste in food and wine, Patnaude said, and “Jordan makes a screamin’ wine dish.” By way of example, the general manager described “the saltiness, crunch and texture” of the Castelvetrano olive, cherry tomato and fennel salad ($14) that I had recently shared with my husband, with the optional marinated white anchovies called boquerones ($3).
With all of that going on, Patnaude said, “Wine just enhances the experience so naturally.”
To sip with our salad and the excellent caper-spiked, yolk-enriched beef tartare ($18), served with potato chips, we’d opted for the featured by-the-glass specials. The minerally grüner veltliner ($18) and softly fruity blaufränkisch ($18) were easy to drink but had enough personality to stand up to — and complement — the food’s complexity.
That pair of organic Slovakian wines from a tiny grower-winemaker called Naboso epitomized the kinds of wines and farmer-vintners that Patnaude seeks out, often from less familiar regions and made with what he described as more “esoteric” grapes. Patnaude is also careful to offer some equally compelling nonalcoholic beverages, such as a zero-proof, amaro-style spritz.
For our second round of shared plates, we’d picked that evening’s food special, named Year of the Cabbage ($16) in honor of Vogue magazine’s freshly anointed vegetable of 2026. To round out the meal, we had the raclette plate ($23) of roasted fingerling potatoes draped with melted Jasper Hill Farm Whitney cheese and served with pickles and a pile of rosy, thinly sliced speck ham ($6).
The classic Alpine raclette was simple but satisfying. The cabbage dish elevated the humble vegetable grown at Jericho Settlers Farm to fine-dining heights. Caramelized leaves were scattered with crumbles of chorizo sausage from Waitsfield’s Fifth Quarter and mushrooms from Ferrisburgh’s Blue House Mushroom, all on a bed of tangy goat milk skyr from Villa Villekulla Farm in Barnard. Neon-pink pickled onion and a heavy snowfall of toasted breadcrumbs crowned the dish.
What makes a multilayered plate such as this even more impressive is that Atwood and his small team do not work out of a standard restaurant kitchen. The cooking “line,” such as it is, is squeezed behind the bar: a small convection oven, a panini press, two induction burners and a sous vide machine. “It forces creativity,” the chef said, with zero sign of frustration.
On my summer visit, I relished one of Atwood’s seasonal tartines ($14) topped with creamy stracciatella cheese, herb oil and toasted pistachios, as well as meltingly soft baked zucchini ($16) with an herb salad and cashew cream. In the winter, his rotating specials might lean meatier, to braised short ribs or bangers and mash with a caramelized leek gravy, he said.
For Valentine’s Day weekend, Atwood may bring back his version of Italian vitello tonnato, but with shaved Fifth Quarter capicola instead of veal under a creamy tuna sauce with salad and pickled vegetables.
Atwood was married in October to a sommelier who works at Stowe’s Lodge at Spruce Peak. His wife, Olivia, has a big influence on his menus, he said. She especially loves salads like the one made with Castelvetrano olives, which the couple call “goodie” salads: “all of those things that make a salad great,” like nuts, fruits, and pickled or cured ingredients without the lettuce, Atwood explained.
On their first date, Atwood said, they went out to dinner and each ordered their own dish plus a third to share. “Then we just ended up sharing everything,” he continued. It was an auspicious early sign and a practice that became fundamental to their relationship. Take note.
Love Potion
Fig, 5573 Shelburne Rd., Shelburne, 489-5390
When you have a toddler, date night looks a little different. Sure, you can go all out and add $25 per hour for a babysitter to the night’s bill. But more often than not, my husband and I opt for the “bring the kid along” approach.
Romantic? More so than not having date night at all, I guess. And with enough tiny construction vehicles, we even get to have adult conversation.
On a recent Thursday evening at Fig in Shelburne, we joked that the band MGMT — playing at a reasonable volume from the speaker above us — might be millennials’ version of “Margaritaville.”
Our joke subliminally inspired what my husband ordered that night: While I had a floral mocktail, he sipped a Mr. Serious ($16). A zhuzhed-up margarita with house-infused sage mezcal, it was a logical pairing with our plate of nachos ($14).
Fig opened in October 2024, taking over the bar and dining room of what was once Peg & Ter’s. Now, the right-hand side of the house-like building is home to the Shelburne location of Mirror Mirror, founder Lindsay Chisholm’s longtime Burlington beauty biz. Behind it is a day spa, where one can get a facial, a wax or a lash lift.
If you hang a left at the display case stocked with Gucci sunglasses, you’ll find Fig, which Chisholm co-owns with Kirsten Dwyer.
I’ve always loved the layout of this particular dining room. It boasts banquette seating down the entirety of one wall, a cozy-for-a-group corner table and, most importantly in its current iteration, a big central bar.
We had our pick of seats when we arrived before 5 p.m. and chose one near the window, so our son could spot trucks on Route 7. We’d promised him pizza on the way home, so this date night was just for a quick drink and a snack.
Fig offers a leather-bound book of cocktail, mocktail, beer, cider and wine options. A special caught my eye: the Flower Float NA mocktail ($10) with nonalcoholic gin, lemon, butterfly pea flower powder, lavender and egg white.
Garnished with a dried dandelion blossom, the purple drink — designed by bartender Grace Wilson — matched the dainty flower arrangement on the table. It’s one of several drinks on the menu made in the style of a flip, a classic cocktail move where bartenders dry-shake ingredients with egg to frothy, creamy results.
Using the method for a mocktail “makes it more special than just fancy juice,” bar manager Kailee Atkinson said.
Atkinson has been at Fig for about a year; she previously worked at the Bench in Stowe and at Electra’s Restaurant, just down the street in Shelburne.
At Fig, Atkinson creates drinks that appeal to her loyal local crowd, tweaking an ingredient or flavor to put her own spin on it. The most popular is always “something that resembles a margarita,” she said. But her menus include a chai hot toddy and the Ube Mama, another purple drink made with ube cream liqueur sourced from the Philippines.
Two months ago, chef Damien Crowley Hellen — a former personal chef and breakfast cook at the Shelburne Farms Inn — joined the Fig team. Since then, the most popular items on the succinct food menu have shifted from deviled eggs and pretzels to sliders and roasted carrots topped with spicy honey.
With the team finding its stride, more dishes and specialty drinks will be added soon, Atkinson said.
“You never really come back to the same place,” she noted.
Next time we go, I’ll spring for a babysitter. Atkinson just added a Peanut Butter & Jelly Negroni to the menu, and it’ll go great with those carrots. Her combo of peanut fat-washed gin and blackberry-infused Campari creates an aroma that’s all PB&J, like opening a toddler’s lunch box. On the palate, it’s a hint of jammy flavor, leaving room for a Negroni’s bittersweet goodness.
It’s special enough for a special night — and it’s garnished with a torched twirl of bacon for a bonus snack.
Another bonus? The Fig staff is all trained on Mirror Mirror’s point-of-sale system, so if you’ve forgotten a Valentine’s Day gift (or want to treat yourself), you can grab some luxurious skin care or a gift certificate for a facial on the way out.
Home Is Where the Heart Is
Pascolo Ristorante, 83 Church St., Burlington, 540-1317
Contrary to novelist Thomas Wolfe’s assertion, sometimes you can go home again. This could figuratively describe returning to the arms of a former lover. It also applies, literally, to the January 2 reopening of Pascolo Ristorante in its original 83 Church Street home, following a three-year stretch in the much bigger 120 Church Street space that was — and will again be — Sweetwaters.
Pascolo first launched in 2014, one of the Farmhouse Group restaurants owned by Jed Davis. With its 2023 move into the high-ceilinged, historic Burlington Trust bank building, Davis saw an opportunity to expand and raise the profile of his subterranean Italian spot. But, he acknowledged, “Every guest said they preferred it back at 83 Church, like a constant chorus.”
Part of the issue, Davis said, is that people tend to identify a restaurant with a specific space. In this case, he said, Pascolo’s home for its first nine years was cozier and guests missed that ambience as they twirled housemade spaghetti and popped calamari rings into their mouths.
“I should have listened to my wife,” Davis said with a laugh. (Another relationship tip, perhaps?)
As I descended the stairs to see the brick arches, red-stone cellar walls and long central bar, the new-old Pascolo felt very familiar. Then I saw a wall where previously the open kitchen was anchored by a wood-fired pizza oven. The wall was built, the oven removed and its venting system decommissioned during the space’s brief eight months as an outpost of Riko’s Pizza, a regional chain.
Other than that notable loss, Pascolo looks and tastes very much the same, with a return to its previous cozier, more intimate feel — definitely date-night-worthy.
Davis said the menu, under the direction of executive chef Mike Crowell, has not changed substantially in the move, though he especially recommended Crowell’s new risotto offering: “He knows how to do it the right way.”
Tucked in a corner table, my husband and I perused the extensive list of wines by the glass. I ordered the Franco Serra Barolo despite — or maybe because of — his raised eyebrow at the $20 price. The wine’s velvety texture was draped over a firm backbone of tannin and tart cherry. Mark ordered the Zenato Valpolicella ($13). It was lighter and lovely, but he agreed the Barolo was better.
We also agreed on starting with the Anchovy & the Rose pizza ($24), topped generously with the little cured fishes, tomato “petals” and two cheeses, including freshly grated ricotta salata. (If you, too, fancy salty, briny anchovies, finding a partner who shares your appreciation is promising.) Now baked in three minutes in a new deck oven imported from Italy, the pizza has an almost-fluffy, pleasantly chewy crust. Pies come whole with a pair of pizza scissors, a novel and fun twist that Davis introduced after some recent trips to Italy.
Pascolo has always made its pastas in-house, and they are reliably well cooked and sauced. We went for a couple of classics: rigatoni Bolognese ($28) and spaghetti vongole ($28). The meat sauce boasted local beef and pork and was deliciously savory with a low hum of chile heat and touch of sweetness. The clam sauce was lively with white wine and garlic, and the shellfish plentiful if a tad chewy, especially the four presented decoratively in the shell.
The sleeper hit of the meal was the eggplant Parmigiana ($24), which comes with either a side of spaghetti pomodoro or garlic broccolini. Rather than heavy, soggy slabs of eggplant smothered in cheese and sauce, Pascolo’s version layered thin, crisp eggplant slices with seasoned ricotta and sauce under a restrained throw blanket of melted fresh mozzarella. The sauce and cheeses complemented but did not overwhelm the eggplant.
For dessert, a pair of cannoli ($9), with ends dipped in chocolate chips and pistachios, came crisscrossed on the plate like a kiss. We happily crunched through their crisp shells filled with lemon-scented ricotta and inscribed Pascolo redux onto our list of go-to date-night spots.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Restaurant Rendezvous: Three Chittenden County Destinations Worthy of Date Night”
This article appears in Love & Marriage Issue • 2026.
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