The first time I dined at a restaurant while wearing mittens was October 16, 2025. It was closing weekend at the Yard, a seasonal outdoor eatery in Manchester, and both staff and customers were shivering despite a blazing wood-fired oven and an abundance of classy knitwear, some of which was surely procured from the town’s wealth of upscale outlet shops.
Despite knowing it would be uncomfortably chilly post-sunset — I couldn’t score a reservation earlier than 6:45 — I was irresistibly drawn to a bluefin tuna tostada drenched in green mole ($21); crab mixed with yuzu kosho aioli and piled on deeply toasted milk bread ($26); and a cast-iron skillet of cavatelli in caramelized onion béchamel sauce ($29), straight from the oven’s belly. After all, this menu was on the verge of disappearing forever.
By my next visit to Manchester, a month later, the restaurant had reverted to its indoor, colder-season incarnation, the Crooked Ram. In the dining room, with nary a parka in sight, a friend and I agonized over which dishes to order from the petite and enticing menu, eventually settling on almost all of them.
It would be hard to tell from the current setup, in which cooks work together calmly in a contemporary open kitchen, that the Ram wasn’t always a restaurant. Thanks to some prohibitive regulations, the spot began its life in 2017 as a wine shop. The business is owned and operated by Peter Campbell, 44, a project manager with a background in fine art and music, not food service. Campbell had observed that it was easier to find exquisite Vermont ingredients at restaurants in New York City than in Manchester, and he and his family hoped to help move the needle.
Since opening, the spot has pivoted as dizzyingly as the prima ballerina in a performance of Swan Lake. From its start as a bottle shop, the Ram shifted to a kitchenless eatery running on a pair of induction burners and a sous vide machine, then to pandemic-era socially distanced outdoor dining and, finally, to its current indoor-outdoor split. For the moment, there are also morning café offerings.
Through it all, the Ram has maintained its reputation as a spot that supports local producers, provides staff the freedom to blossom in their jobs, and treats diners to creative fare that’s worth a drive (and some shivers).
At the helm of the culinary team is chef Tiara Adorno, 35, a Johnson & Wales University graduate who spent three years at then-Michelin-starred Spruce in San Francisco. After taking some respite from kitchens and tending bar in Ludlow at what was then called Homestyle Hostel, Adorno was in the midst of lining up financing to open her own Manchester restaurant, she explained, when the pandemic altered her plans. Unsure what to do next, she dropped off a résumé at the Ram.
There, Adorno started pouring beer and wine but soon jumped into the kitchen as sous chef. By July 2021, she was running the show.
From a financial perspective, closing and waiting out the pandemic “wasn’t an option,” Campbell explained. “We needed to get to a [full-service] restaurant model to survive.”
When he looks back, he said, he sees how that challenging era changed the Ram’s fortunes for the better. The team bonded over struggles, and city folk who escaped to Manchester loved dining in the freshly built outdoor pavilion at a time when little else was open. “It was this romantic idea that we could be an outside restaurant,” he said.
Adorno’s indoor and outdoor menus are propelled by produce from Mighty Food Farm in Shaftsbury, her main source of vegetables. As its offerings change, dishes shift slightly in answer. Then, every few weeks, she makes more sweeping alterations.
Adorno builds her dishes on a backbone of European techniques and Vermont ingredients, layering in bold flavors, colors and textures from the rest of the world. By doing so, she avoids a common “global” pitfall in which each dish is plucked wholesale from a different region, resulting in a menu that feels like a game of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
On my second dinnertime visit, I encountered the prettiest salad I’ve ever eaten. Piled on one side of an earthenware dinner plate, the dish was composed of radicchio leaves ranging from shell pink to rich burgundy, cubes of roasted beet, blushing pink apple wedges, and bits of blue cheese and walnut ($18). The scarlet-tinged lyrics of Taylor Swift’s “Maroon” ran through my head as I ate.
Adorno’s classical training shows on a charcuterie board ($35), which on one evening featured a lush, rosy liver parfait sprinkled with sea salt; strands of zingy pickled fennel; spicy mustard with caraway; smoked pork loin; fresh Concord grapes; and dark, seedy crackers from the pastry chef.
Another standout was buttery hamachi crudo layered with slices of pickled pear and finished with herby olive oil and drifts of almond and garlic purée ($24). This arrived along with seared red cabbage perched atop a slick of tahini, then adorned with a generous portion of crunchy cashew salsa macha and brassica shoots ($18).
At the moment, Adorno explained, that gussied-up cabbage is one of several plant-based dishes available. The chef’s bestie and housemate, Alli Ford, is vegan and gluten-free, and Adorno wanted to make sure there was something on the menu for her.
“Part of being a professional restaurant is taking [customers’ dietary] parameters into account and creating something so that they can have a great experience,” she said. The same holds true for staff; Ford, who attended culinary school with Adorno, also happens to be the Ram’s pastry chef.
Despite the fact that she doesn’t consume butter, milk or eggs, Ford offered up a swoon-worthy sweet potato Basque cheesecake festooned with tufts of homemade marshmallow ($13), which ended my indoor meal. Outdoors, despite the cold, I’d ordered a wonderful chocolate-dipped cannoli ice cream sandwich ($13).
Soon, Ford, who’s also 35, will run the kitchen at the Bondville Bodega, the team’s forthcoming grab-and-go spot at the foot of Stratton Mountain, tentatively slated to open in January. There, she’ll be in charge of pastries, sandwiches, ready-to-eat prepared foods and frozen dishes that can be enjoyed at home or in a rented ski chalet.
The opening of the bodega will represent yet another significant shift in the Ram’s business model. When he hired Ford, to make the best use of her talents, Campbell agreed to add a café — complete with breakfast sandwiches, pastries and a full coffee bar — to the business model. When the new spot opens, the Ram’s pastries and other breakfast items will shift over to Bondville, freeing up more space for the preparation of the evening meal.
Although he’s anticipating pushback on the change, as faithful morning patrons will no longer be able to enjoy the restaurant’s fresh-pressed juice or orange-scented almond croissants without leaving Manchester, Campbell is sure the team is making the right move.
“We’ve had quite the journey, given all of the changes that we’ve made.”
Tiara Adorno
So is Adorno. “We keep going, and we keep growing,” she pointed out. “While it’s special to see the café busy and buzzing, it’s challenging for us to prepare for evening service. Space is pretty tight in the kitchen.”
Shifting morning and afternoon operations to Bondville, she continued, will give everybody some breathing room. “Alli will have all the space she needs. She’ll be able to fill up the freezers with croissants, and she’s always had ideas about amazing sandwiches and wraps, so for that to shine in its own space will be very exciting,” Adorno said.
Giving each staffer room to grow and evolve with their passions is part of the Ram’s mission. Campbell and Adorno credit the business’ strength to its deft and committed leadership, including bar manager Beth Horton, general manager Emily Shore and wine director Kim Demeo, all of whom have been working together since the pandemic. During that period, “All of this amazing talent came to the area, and we just kind of found each other,” Campbell said.
“We’ve had quite the journey, given all of the changes that we’ve made, and this is the most complete and strongest that the restaurant has ever felt,” Adorno added.
“Restaurants are really a sacred space in communities,” Campbell mused. “Outside of sports or religion, [eating together] is one of the last communal things we do together in public, and how you practice hospitality has to be a reflection of that. We’re trying to introduce moments of beauty into everyday life.”
After delighting in Adorno’s wood-fired mushroom and salami pizza ($28) outdoors, her housemade lumache pasta in a deliciously smoky tomato-and-Parmesan broth ($35) indoors, and a host of Ford’s perfectly crafted flaky pastries and breakfast dishes across many Manchester mornings, I’m eager to see where the next bend in the road will lead.
The Crooked Ram, 4026 Main St., Manchester, 417-5049, thecrookedramvt.com
The original print version of this article was headlined “A Crooked Path | Through constant evolution, Manchester’s Crooked Ram serves up creative fare worth the drive”
This article appears in Dec 3-9 2025.
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