click to enlarge - Suzanne Podhaizer
- Home Plate
Ashley and Matt Woods and Don Wenner didn't choose the name Home Plate for their Waitsfield restaurant because they're baseball fans, although all three of them are. The trio wanted to let people know that their eatery — which opened earlier this summer in the old Phantom space in the Mad River Green Shops — offers unpretentious home-style fare, such as spaghetti and meatballs, steaks, and burgers.
What the name doesn't tell you is that the comfort food is made from scratch in-house, with lots of local ingredients. Steaks — which, in true American style, come with a trip to the salad bar — arrive from nearby farms such as North Hollow Farm and Neill Farm. Pork may come from von Trapp Farmstead's whey-fed pigs.
Ashley Woods, a baker and a caterer who founded and later sold the Very Small Donut Company, makes all the baked goods, including sesame-seed buns for the burgers, fruit pies and fresh naan, which is served with hummus or alongside falafel.
Chef Tristan Stoughton, an alum of the much-lauded Pitcher Inn, crafts the savory food, bringing a fine-dining ethos to a restaurant that isn't fancy, Woods says. Stoughton's bailiwick includes items such as summer rolls served with spicy cilantro soy sauce, barbecue sauce for the BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger, and a curry of the day. He also makes the dressings for the salad bar.
Diners can wash it all down with Vermont beers on draft, a French press of Vermont Coffee or Speeder & Earl's coffee, or an ice cream float.