When most restaurants are described as farm to table in New York City, the farms that produce vegetables, poultry or meat are usually located in Rockland, Putnam and Dutchess counties from 30 to 60 miles away. When The Restaurant at Hill Farm in Sunderland, Vt. discusses the same concept, its vegetable farm, producing a slew of home-made produce, is situated outside the kitchen’s door, a stone’s throw from its stoves and burners.

The Restaurant at Hill Farm has an inviting atmosphere that includes a chef’s table, where patrons can watch head chef Austin Poulin prepare his meals, a bar area with separate stools, and an outside dining patio, where patrons can smell the vegetables. And Poulin has excellent culinary credentials since he cooked for noted chef Dan Barber at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Westchester, serving as fish and meat cook for two years.

The restaurant is situated at Hill Farm, an inn with a main house with 7 rooms, a 1790 House with 5 rooms, and two cottages with 3 bedrooms each, perfect for families, with another inn across the road with 10 bedrooms, and a campus with 70 acres including 3 alpacas.

Located in Proximity to Manchester Vt.

The Restaurant at Hill Farm is located nearby Manchester, Vt, a quintessential jewel of a town that contains numerous inns including the upscale Equinox Resort and the Inn at Manchester, restaurants such as Mystic Restaurant and Silver Fork and serves as the headquarters of Orvis, the fly fishing, clothing, dry goods and travel company.

Because the eatery is located at inn, Poulin says most of its guests dine at least once at the restaurant. It also has a strong local following, which helps it withstand the slower months in winter, with heavy traffic during peak summer months, between tourists and locals.

Its goal in having the vegetable patch next door is to “implement a farm to table ideology across our whole menu, using Vermont and our surrounding resources to highlight local products,” explains Poulin. For example, of late it has been highlighting snap peas, purple-sprouting broccoli and home-grown lettuce.

A farm to table eatery in Southern Vermont, connected to an inn, is bringing the vegetable farm directly to the restaurant.

The Farm Is Right Near the Kitchen

He says many guests like to know where their food emanates from, so the garden is used “as an educational tool to peak guests’ interest and get them to ask questions about different varieties we are growing or using in the kitchen.”

For meat, poultry and fish, he taps local suppliers such as Sweet Pickins Farm that raises chicken and duck, buys beef from Woodlawn Farmstead in Pawlet, Vt, and fish from Wood Mountain Fish, such as striped bass.

Most of its entrees cost $40 to $45 each, which seems steep for southern Vermont or more appropriate to NYC’s Upper East Side. He says that many of its entrees could easy be shared and feed two to three guests.

In charge of the farm at The Restaurant at Hill Farm is Pablo Elliott, a graduate of Vassar College who served as one of its first interns at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project which started on Vassar’s land. He says guests can also wander over to the vegetable farm, outside of the restaurant, to “see something that may end up on their plate,” bringing the farm to the guest.

Lots of Vegetables In Its Farm Area

Indeed, it produces a slew of home-grown vegetables including squash, broccolini, potatoes, greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and garlic. He usually harvests the fields twice a week.

By bringing these vegetables directly into the kitchen the day they are harvested, “nothing is lost in the shipping, which is usually quality and flavor,” Elliott cites.

But the meat in the kitchen at Restaurant at Hill Farm must be acquired from nearby suppliers, so why not add cows? Elliott replies that “animals could be added, but as these projects become larger, they become more expensive. The vegetable garden plot keeps things simple.”

He considers the vegetable patch more a “guest amenity” than a cost savings venture. Costs are curtailed by having a “part-time farmer, under half acre total production and minimal labor costs,” he cites.

The night this reporter dined at The Restaurant at Hill Farms, there were only three entrees on the menu including the half-chicken, striped bass and pork chops, with numerous appetizers and small plates including pizza, fried chicken wings, charred snap peas, pita and hummus. The half-chicken with a spinach yogurt sauce was delicious.

And at the chef’s table, a couple from Scarsdale who were self-described “foodies,” grazed through the menu, ordering pizza and appetizers and were thrilled with the results.

Why keep the menu streamlined? Poulin replies that “We have an extremely small team here so in order for us to provide the best quality service and food, we keep it small.”

The restaurant is not open for lunch and is only open Wednesday through Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m., the usual hour when many Vermont restaurants close.

Reaction from one guest on Yelp was extremely positive. Aaron from San Jose, Calif, said the menu had “everything from pizza cooked in their woodfire oven to fresh caught wild bass or oyster mushroom risotto.” He called the interior “cozy and intimate with high ceilings and a lot of wooden beams,” and he added there were many local craft beers on the menu.

His only drawback was he found it a bit warm inside because of how the wood-fired pizza oven blended with the July heat.

Asked about its future, Poulin replies that it’s working on starting some culinary classes for next year and providing education on its farm to table approaches. And while there are no plans to add chickens immediately, he admits that “I’d welcome the opportunity.”

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