The first meal I ate on Seven Days‘ dime was terrible. For a 2002 freelance article on church suppers, I choked down salty, gray meat and boiled potatoes at a St. Patrick’s Day dinner in Richmond. The food, in this case, was mostly beside the point; the story was as much about the culture and community around the table.
Until 2006, when the paper hired its first full-time food writer, cofounder Paula Routly chased most of the food news, including all the restaurant openings and closings that now go into our weekly “Side Dishes.” And freelancers such as myself contributed a smorgasbord of stories. They included Molly Stevens, who would later win multiple James Beard Foundation cookbook awards; nationally syndicated columnist Marialisa Calta; and food magazine editor Jim Romanoff.
Over almost two decades since, our seven food staff writers have eaten thousands of meals across Vermont, at snack shacks, high-end restaurants and everything in between. While some were as lackluster as my church supper, we’ve enjoyed plenty of excellent food and drink.
Here are our food critics’ picks for their most memorable meal.
— Melissa Pasanen
All Ears
“Swine Tasting: At Shelburne Farms, a Food Writer Goes Whole Hog,” October 31, 2007
Asked about dining at Shelburne Farms, many might mention the serene beauty of a preprandial lakeside stroll or the grandeur of the buildings. For me, it’s all about the crispy pig ears.
A year into my role as Seven Days’ first full-time food writer, I had yet to experience a nose-to-tail dinner. That night, with chef Rick Gencarelli and sous chef Aaron Josinsky in the kitchen — and Josinsky’s partner, Laura Wade, holding sway in the elegant dining room — I was treated to a mizuna salad with the aforementioned ears, peppered pasta with cured jowl and lard-enriched gingerbread.
Gencarelli later moved out of state, but I became a devoted Josinsky and Wade fangirl during their stints at Burlington’s Bluebird Tavern and especially their own Misery Loves Co. (After my tenure, they launched another Winooski spot, Onion City Chicken & Oyster.) Close to two decades after that first meal, I calculate that I’ve eaten more of Josinsky’s cooking than anybody else’s, save my mom’s and my own.
— Suzanne Podhaizer, 2006-2010
Related
Dining With Badass Women
“Alice Eats: A Food Writer’s Weekend,” September 10, 2013
Though I’ve gone on to larger publications in bigger cities, I met more culinary celebrities through my work at Seven Days than anywhere else. Chalk it up to the pull of Vermont, but I am proud to have shared meals with Judith Jones, Marian Burros and Alice Waters.
Still, the badass woman who looms largest in my memory is Ariane Daguin, the founder of D’Artagnan Foods, a premier meats distributor.
At the late, great New England Culinary Institute’s Chef’s Table in Montpelier, I watched Daguin facilely excise foie gras from a duck, which she and executive chef Jean-Louis Gerin then turned into three meaty courses, followed by an Armagnac-flavored pastis Gascon. Though the rosy breast was rendered crisp and almost absent of fat, my favorite course was a kale salad punctuated with crisp confit leg and gizzards.
— Alice Levitt, 2007-2015
Technicolor Surprise
“Savor SoLo Farm & Table’s Global Gastronomy in South Londonderry,” 7 Nights, 2013-14
In 2012, I visited SoLo Farm & Table barely a year after wife-and-husband team Chloe and Wesley Genovart (host and chef, respectively) opened the restaurant in a rambling colonial house in South Londonderry.
More than a decade later, the memory of that summer night still feels enchanted, from the lush outdoor garden at its August peak to the exacting, Technicolor experience at the table: the pop of a lime mignonette spooned over oysters; the neon of gazpacho dressed up with papery radishes, dill fronds and crispy jamón crumbles; the crunch of tempura zucchini blossoms beside a quail egg with a yolk of molten sunshine.
I hadn’t expected to encounter a chef at the very top of his game in a setting that felt more like a home than a high-end dining destination. That tucked-away SoLo still hums along 13 years later, when the world around it has shifted profoundly, feels like a small triumph.
— Corin Hirsch, 2011-2016
Waste Not
“Dumpster Dining: At a Gourmet Event in Waterbury, a Taste of Food Waste,” August 22, 2018
A few weeks ago, before I threw out my food waste, I weighed it. The six-pound haul included stale bread, rotting fruit and expired cottage cheese. Where was Francis Stellato when I needed him?
A former chef at Prohibition Pig, Stellato demonstrated one night seven years ago that food scraps and would-be compost can be used to make a first-rate, nutritious meal. At a Waterbury event called Salvage Supperclub, Stellato made pâté from mushroom stems and beet pasta from veggie seconds and flour previously used to test a millstone. Cocktails were infused with the juice of spent fruit.
But the evening’s main pairing referenced excess and waste: We ate at a communal table (built from a tree downed in a storm) in a dumpster, the setting a not-so-subtle reminder that too much food is thrown out.
— Sally Pollak, 2017-2023
New Neighbors
“High-Low Fusion: Food as Geography at Maya’s Kitchen & Bar,” April 16, 2019
Of the roughly 1,300 meals I ate on the job, few stand out like those at Maya’s Kitchen & Bar in Burlington’s New North End.
The food was riveting. Sunny yellow mango lassis, rich with yogurt and tropical fruit, cooled the burn of chile-laden chopped chicken stir-fries and tomato-tinged flat-noodle sautés.
Through their menu, married co-owners Maya Gurung-Subba and Suk Subba shared their lives in the political and tectonic hotbed where India, China and Southeast Asia meet. I loved everything about their story: how the two met as Bhutanese kids in a Nepali refugee camp; how they reconnected after emigrating separately; how Maya learned professional cooking at the Vermont Foodbank’s Community Kitchen Academy while Suk cooked at A Single Pebble.
Maya’s closed in early 2021 (thanks, COVID-19), but it served as a textured, gorgeous reminder that food is lives and livelihoods, geography and stories. It’s so much more delicious when we welcome new neighbors — and eat at their tables.
— Hannah Palmer Egan, 2014-2019
Pizza Is Forever
“Granite City Strong: Inundated Barre Restaurants and Bakery Dig Out — With Help,” July 19, 2023
There’s a lot of pizza. Our first issue, in 1995, rated nine Burlington-area pizza spots; four of six local brands are still at it. In 2021, we did a similar review of 13. Much of the pizza is adequate but not memorable. Occasionally, a pizzeria stands out.
Shortly after opening in Barre in 2022, Pearl Street Pizza earned our kudos for its chewy-crusted, wood-fired Neapolitan pies and pan-baked, grandma-style slabs boasting a pillowy crust with a crunchy, oily bottom.
A couple of days after July 2023’s devastating flooding, I drove to Barre. River silt caked the sidewalk in front of Pearl Street Pizza, where the basement storage had been trashed. Thankfully, upstairs was spared, and co-owner Stefano Coppola had fired up the ovens to make some money and feed people. I bought a grandma pie topped with tangy-sweet housemade sauce, the signature cheese blend and lightly charred pepperoni.
Pizza will survive the apocalypse. We can only hope it’s this good.
— Melissa Pasanen, 2020-present
Deep History
“A Penny Saved: Burlington’s Favorite Brunch Is Now at Deep City,” April 30, 2024
In November 2022, co-owners Charles Reeves and Holly Cluse closed their landmark Burlington breakfast and lunch spot after almost 25 years. There was no more Penny Cluse Café.
Technically, there still isn’t. But I’ve never felt relief so profound as when I walked into Deep City in April 2024 and saw Reeves in the kitchen — and the chile relleno, tofu scram and biscuits slathered in herb-cream gravy on the menu.
Now food director for both Foam Brewers and Deep City, Reeves revived all the hits, some renamed to fit their Lake Street location. (I will never order the Bucket-o-Spuds as House of Spudology.)
That first meal back, I shared a table pancake with my 10-month-old and whispered, “You don’t know what this pancake means.” He certainly hadn’t been around long enough to get the 24 years of nostalgia baked into it. But he really liked the pancake.
— Jordan Barry, 2019-present
The original print version of this article was headlined “Memorable Meals | Food writers past and present share unforgettable eats from Seven Days’ 30 years”
This article appears in 30th Birthday Issue.
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