Waterbury’s Hen of the Wood Draws Fresh Energy From Its New Home 

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• Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Ricotta tortelli with confit tomatoes

Three years after the original Hen of the Wood opened at Waterbury's 92 Stowe Street in 2005, Mark Bittman of the New York Times penned an effusive love letter to what he declared "among the most beautiful little restaurants I know."

Bittman detailed the setting "in a former mill next to a rushing stream" where "outside seats, on fine summer nights, are downright Arcadian." He described the dining room, in which "layered slate walls are graced by votive candles, and the main structural supports are century-old beams."

As if that weren't enough, he went on to praise the restaurant's eponymous wild mushroom toast with "incredible" bacon, the "impossibly creamy and rich" housemade sheep's milk gnocchi, and the local rib-eye steak "cooked as it should be."

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• Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Hen of the Wood's new location in Waterbury

Hen of the Wood, Bittman noted, was among a group of Vermont restaurants making "concerted attempts to define themselves by using as many local ingredients as they can." Its memorable setting underscored those efforts. Guests were not only tasting the products of Vermont, they were doing so in a treasured, repurposed piece of Vermont history.

In mid-March, when the restaurant closed to move to new digs half a mile away, that aspect of the Waterbury Hen dining experience became history, too. It is a loss to the Vermont dining scene, for sure, but also, founder-owner Eric Warnstedt argued, a necessary step to ensure the viability and vitality of the restaurant into the future.

"Nothing will compare to the mill, and we'd never try to replicate it," Warnstedt told Seven Days in early March. But, he noted, the Stowe Street location had a number of operational limitations, including a tiny, outdated kitchen space and no bar or other space for guests to wait.

Warnstedt still has plans to develop and open a new, more casual restaurant in the historic mill space, but not until 2024, Kern said. It will become the fifth in Warnstedt's restaurant group, which includes Hen of the Wood's Burlington location, Doc Ponds in Stowe and Prohibition Pig in Waterbury.

"Eric thought [the original Hen] was ready for a change," said Emmi Kern, general manager of the Waterbury restaurant. "It was time to breathe some fresh energy into it."

Hen reopened to the public in a brand-new, custom-designed space at 14 South Main Street on April 7, only to close temporarily after service that same night when a sprinkler system malfunction caused serious water damage. It finally re-reopened on May 31.

As of press time, July 10 flooding had temporarily closed the restaurant yet again. Warnstedt texted that he hoped it would be for just a few days. When it reopens for the third time, fans of the original Hen, including Bittman of the New York Times will recognize the menu. But the restaurant's home has time-traveled more than a century.

The sleek, contemporary room with lush leather banquette seating and reclaimed oak flooring boasts huge windows and a glowing bar, plus a chef's counter with a full view of the wood-fired grill in the open kitchen. Unlike the original, the space feels closely related to its Burlington location, which opened in a newly constructed Cherry Street building in 2013.

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• Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Outdoor patio

The familiar and always beautifully executed food still includes the excellent mushroom toast ($18), infused with smoky bacon goodness. Chef de cuisine Antonio Rentas has continued the tradition of fine housemade pasta.

During a late June visit, my table of four vacuumed up a small plate of chewy gems of nettle cavatelli ($18) with pesto and aged goat cheese, as well as a large plate of ricotta ravioli ($34) complemented by green garlic and lemony spinach with a dusting of crunchy bread crumbs.

A rib-eye steak for two ($100) with crushed potatoes and tarragon aioli also remains on the menu, but we chose other large plates. They included moist striped bass ($40), seared dark golden brown and served with a punchy ginger-scallion salsa verde; a crisp-skinned chicken leg ($35) with tart pickled rhubarb and earthy celeriac; and slices of perfectly rare hanger steak ($45) with an ethereal red wine sauce and buttery parsnip purée.

As always, I left too little room for pastry chef Laura Schantz's elegantly crafted desserts, though we easily managed between us to dispatch the refreshing vanilla bean panna cotta ($14) with rhubarb and salted vanilla crumble.

Then we popped downstairs to what customers are already calling the Hen "speakeasy" for an after-dinner drink.

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• Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Nettle chitarra with zucchini and aged goat cheese

The new restaurant provides staff with a state-of-the-art kitchen and plenty of room to maneuver. For customers, it also offers room for different dining and drinking experiences.

At the original Hen, reservations typically filled weeks, if not months, ahead, and walk-in spots were as rare as hens' teeth. "Everyone sat down for a multicourse dinner," Kern said.

At South Main Street, in contrast, "It's a choose your own adventure: You can walk in and have cocktails and oysters at the bar. You can plan an anniversary meal. You can get a nightcap downstairs," Kern said. "There's a buzz, a lightness that comes with that."

With patio seating and a private dining room, the new restaurant can seat up to 95 people, or about 30 percent more than the original. That does not include eight seats in the subterranean bar (accessed through a door coyly labeled "crew"), where guests can nibble on the fabled Parker House rolls ($8), oysters (six for $24) or housemade country pâté ($15) while sipping a barrel-aged negroni ($15).

Or, Kern suggested with a laugh, "Pretend you're in your grandpa's basement and drink a Schlitz." The bar also has a turntable and, on random nights, Kern said, guests might find Warnstedt down there playing DJ.

The new spot's warm, easygoing atmosphere has much to commend it. One of my dining companions observed that the restaurant felt big-city sophisticated. "People say it's like they're in Montréal or in Brooklyn," Kern said.

No doubt many guests will miss the pastoral, uniquely Vermont version of Hen. But stasis is not always healthy, and people — as well as beloved institutions — deserve the opportunity to reinvent themselves.