You never know what you’re going to stumble upon when heading out to eat in Vermont. It might be farm-fresh fare sourced from nearby growers or, increasingly, cuisines from distant lands previously found in short, or no, supply close to home.
Given the state’s small population, there’s also a good chance of encountering someone you know at a neighboring table or barstool. That happened to me recently, with fortuitous results you can read in this week’s Food Issue. The multicourse feast of themed stories illustrates all of the above handily — and often deliciously.
Jordan Barry’s story about how mentors are supporting young Vermont chefs proves the value of the state’s tight web of connections in seeding the next crop of restaurants. It inspired us to sample some newer entries to the restaurant scene: We tasted our way through seven dining destinations beyond Chittenden County, with menus that range from homestyle Peruvian in South Hero to creative vegan cuisine in Brattleboro.
Several spots on that tour serve locavore fare. We followed the farm-to-table trail, tagging along with Jericho Settlers Farm to see how chefs have helped power the organic veggie operation to financial stability. That goal, plus the drive to keep suburban land in agricultural use, prompted the formation of South Burlington’s Agrihood Collective, a novel collaboration that will also create farmworker housing.
In another cool collab, a pair of Upper Valley sisters can tell you what to do with all that locally grown goodness — check out The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook, out next month. Then head to Burlington’s City Market for ingredients; more than 50 years since the Onion River Co-op was established, the market faces a gauntlet of financial and managerial challenges. In a funny twist, a Seven Days intern happens to call its first warehouse home, on Archibald Street — read all about what it’s like to live in a former grocery store.
From co-ops to supermarkets, price hikes at grocery stores are hitting Vermonters hard. That makes free summer meal programs for kids even more critical.
Some of those meals will undoubtedly include bagels. It’s also likely that Vermont schoolkids have ideas regarding the proper way to eat a bagel, the subject of a recent Greater Burlington YMCA poll. Meanwhile, the expert guests on the new King Arthur Baking podcast have educated opinions on the proper way to make a bagel. And our expert film and TV critic, Margot Harrison, has thoughts on the first three seasons of “The Bear” ahead of the hit FX series’ fourth season this month.
Speaking of experts, a chef-sommelier and newly minted Vermonter shares her tips for pairing wine and cheese, which brings me back to a pairing I enjoyed at Putnam’s vine/yard in White River Junction recently, when I ran into former Seven Days food writer Corin Hirsch.
It turned out Corin had recently moved back to Vermont after a stint as a dining critic and drinks columnist for New York’s Newsday. Perhaps she would be interested in contributing to the Food Issue?
It’s a small world — and yes, of course.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Join Us at the Table | The Food Issue is a multicourse feast of stories about eating, drinking and farming in Vermont”
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This article appears in The Food Issue 2025.
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