Ski-Town Eats: New at Restaurants Near Vermont's Slopes | Seven Days

I’m not a skier or a snowboarder. Despite having grown up in Vermont, I’ve always been more of a cozy-in-the-lodge person than a hurtling-down-the-slopes one. My idea of thrill seeking is finding the best snacks — you don’t have to do the “ski” part to enjoy après-ski, right?

Whether you find yourself on the lift or not, this winter’s sure to be a tasty one in Vermont’s mountain towns. We headed to new and newly reimagined restaurants near Stowe, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Smugglers’ Notch, Bolton Valley and Cochran’s Ski Area to survey the scene. If you’re hitting resort areas this winter — for whatever reason — be sure to stop for a bite. I’ll probably be at the bar.

— J.B.

Night Moves

Nocturnal, 140 Cottage Club Rd., Stowe, 760-6316, nocturnalstowe.com

Opening beside the Alchemist could put a lot of pressure on a brewpub. But for the team behind Nocturnal — which has run Nocturnal Brewing in Hayesville, N.C., since 2018 — that proximity was one of the draws.

“North Carolina and Vermont are two of the best beer states in the entire country,” general manager and operator TC McNeill said. “We wanted to feature our beer against some of the best in Vermont, give the beer nerds something else to enjoy, and serve it with some southern comfort and hospitality.”

Proximity to the mountain was another plus; Nocturnal owner Mike Plummer has long spent winters at Smugglers’ Notch, skiing and snowboarding with his family. After refreshing the longtime Sunset Grille & Tap Room space, his team opened Nocturnal’s Stowe outpost in March with a smokin’ hot barbecue menu befitting its North Carolina roots.

All the beer comes from the brewery, which is 1,000 miles away near the North Carolina-Georgia border. There, head brewer David Grace uses a 10-barrel system — upgraded from a 3.5-barrel system to supply the Vermont expansion but still a nanobrewery — to make “classic styles with a modern twist,” McNeill said. The lineup ranges from lagers to IPAs to imperial stouts, from flagship the Hayes (a hazy IPA) to Life on the Nautilus, a gose brewed with squid ink.

The Nocturnal team make the 18-hour drive to deliver the beer themselves. “It’s a very mom-and-pop operation,” McNeill said.

The 38-year-old Georgia native previously worked for Plummer at Southbound, a restaurant outside Atlanta. He quickly embraced the Vermont lifestyle and took up snowboarding last winter.

“I got, like, 22 days on the mountain and have all my gear and pass for this year,” McNeill said. “I’ve made many friends who promised to make this one a memorable season.”

His après meal of choice? Nashville hot cauliflower with white barbecue sauce ($14) to start, paired with a Sun & Life Mexican-style lager ($7), which is brewed with North Carolina malts and heirloom Bloody Butcher corn. Next McNeill would order the NOC smash burger ($16), with two four-ounce patties, American cheese, house sauce, onions and pickles. Like all of Nocturnal’s sandwiches, it comes with waffle fries.

On a late-lunch stop last month, I focused on the restaurant’s barbecue classics. The succulent smoked brisket sandwich ($16), stacked high on Texas toast, would be another ideal post-mountain (or anytime) meal. Hungry for more than a sandwich? The platter version ($32) comes with half a pound of meat and two sides.

Since opening, Nocturnal has shifted its menu from entirely barbecue to a lineup with broader appeal, McNeill said, though the meats still shine. Slather them with mustardy Carolina Gold sauce and sip a North Carolina-brewed beer. With late-night hours and live music planned for this winter, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to hang out and soak up that southern hospitality.

— J.B.

Global Terrain

Scrag & Roe, 40 Bridge St., Waitsfield, 496-3911, scragandroe.com

Most of the dishes on the recently relaunched menu at Waitsfield’s Scrag & Roe trace their roots to the six years that chef-owner Nathan Davis spent living in China. The soy-and-vinegar chicken adobo ($20) and fragrant, lightly sweet coconut curry ($22) are exceptions.

“I learned those in prison in the Philippines,” Davis, 43, mentioned offhandedly. “Three joints, six months, $12,000,” he continued, adding later that he had traveled there to celebrate his birthday. Instead, it was his first day in jail, busted for weed.

The Middlebury native and career cook returned to Vermont from China in 2017 and spent several years working for caterers and restaurants as what he called “a kitchen mercenary.”

Last December, Davis and a partner opened Scrag & Roe in the heart of Waitsfield. They named the restaurant for nearby Scrag Mountain and fish roe and served shareable plates, from seafood crudo to housemade gnocchi.

In mid-September, now steering the small restaurant solo, Davis shifted to pan-Asian cuisine with a focus on Chinese dishes, such as umami-rich, dry-fried shiitake mushrooms ($10) with bacon; smashed cucumbers ($7) with soy, chile and a slick of sesame oil; and spicy dan dan noodles ($22) electrified with chile and tongue-tingling Sichuan peppercorns.

“It’s the food that I love and I miss,” he said.

Scrag & Roe currently serves Thursday through Sunday, from noon to 8 p.m., and Davis expects to add another day or two this winter, he said. While he appreciates the area’s steady flow of tourists, including those who come to ski or ride at nearby Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, he hopes the new menu and other changes, such as adding a TV and high-top tables in the bar, will also appeal to locals.

“I don’t want to be the fancy place,” Davis said.

Davis started snowboarding at the Middlebury Snowbowl as a teen, around the same time he began working the dish pit at his hometown’s Fire & Ice Restaurant. Sugarbush soon became his mountain of choice, one of the reasons the restaurant’s location appealed to him.

The regularly changing menu includes dishes influenced by his time living in Shenzhen and his wide travels through Asia. “Whenever I’m anywhere and people are cooking, I’m watching,” Davis said.

After a powder morning, he said, it’s a toss-up whether he’d want to eat the dan dan or the adobo, but he’d wash either one down with a $5 Tsingtao beer.

During a recent late lunch, a dining companion and I relished the dry-fried shiitakes, especially when we offset their salty intensity with mouthfuls of tiger salad ($11), a pick-up-sticks pile of lightly vinegary raw leek, cucumber and carrots. The combo paired perfectly with a refreshing plum wine spritz ($15) from the bar’s small but on-point cocktail list.

Bouncy dan dan noodles with ground beef packed prickly heat, but the spiciness didn’t KO the underlying flavors of garlic, sesame, black cardamom, orange peel and fermented mustard root. “I’m gonna crave this dish,” my friend said.

Perfectly grilled flank steak ($23), with a fresh, acidic herb and cucumber salad and touch of fish sauce, was equally compelling in an understated way. Davis explained it was a riff on Thai beef salad. He claims only “some semblance of authenticity,” he cautioned with a grin.

“At the end of the day, I just want food that slaps,” Davis said.

— M.P.

Parking Lot Beers

Lot Six Brewing, 4087 Route 108, Jeffersonville, 335-2092, lotsixbrewing.com

On a blustery Saturday in late October, I saw the roof come off the shed behind Lot Six Brewing, lifted not by the wind but by a crane. A week later, longtime Burlington-area brewer Justin McCarthy was staring at a hole in the ground when we spoke on the phone. By spring, he’ll be working in a brand-new timber-frame brewery with a seven-barrel brew system.

McCarthy and Adam Shirlock opened Lot Six right at the base of Smugglers’ Notch Resort in May. The duo renovated the former Brewster River Pub & Brewery top to bottom, contract brewing a small selection of beers at Zero Gravity Craft Brewery, where McCarthy was formerly director of brewing operations, while they waited to tackle the second phase of the project.

Inside the warm and welcoming brewpub, head chef Jeff Silver’s beer-friendly menu hits the classics. During that late-October visit — expressive toddler in tow — my husband and I devoured the excellent wings (both chicken and cauliflower in various sauces and rubs, $14) and tater tot poutine ($14) loaded with rich mushroom gravy, cheddar curds and toasted black sesame seeds. We ate quickly, partly because it was good and partly to contain the toddler. A downstairs game room with a top-of-the-line foosball table and a very kind staff helped with the latter effort.

The menu has a subtle Asian influence, with pickled cabbage and katsu on the nachos ($14), a seared broccoli snack with chile crisp do chua ($8), and karaage fried chicken on the club sandwich ($17). Silver is in the process of tweaking things for the upcoming season, and Shirlock is winterizing the surprisingly extensive cocktail list. Family- and dietary-restriction-friendly offerings will remain plentiful, including nonalcoholic drinks, a kids’ menu, and well-labeled gluten-free and vegan options.

On the beer side, Lot Six’s house offerings are now four: La Moule lager, Prefunk pale ale, Freefall IPA and Drivetrain IPA. The selection is hop-heavy, McCarthy said, largely due to the confines of brewing elsewhere. Once the on-site brewery is up and running, he’ll add stouts, porters, saisons, and Belgian- and German-inspired lagers.

“It opens us up to the world of whatever I feel like brewing,” he said.

Brewery construction means the patio is on hiatus for now, but it should be back “for some springtime enjoyment,” McCarthy said. Lot Six started last season, pre-opening, by throwing outdoor parties with an up-close view of the mountain where the patio is now.

“The Smuggs crew, we’re all used to drinking beer in a muddy parking lot,” McCarthy continued. “Why not just do it outside behind the bar?”

Meanwhile, the team is “psyched” for their first full winter, he said. “We’re all skiers, so we’re selfishly excited. But it’s our bread and butter up here, and it livens up the town.”

Lot Six will soon be open later to accommodate the après crowd, but not too late: They’re shooting for 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

“We’ve got to get up and catch first chair at 8:30,” McCarthy said with a laugh.

— J.B.

‘App-rès’ Appeal

Hatchet Tavern, 30 Bridge St., Richmond, 434-3663, hatchetvermont.com

Like many Burlington-area kids, our two boys started skiing and snowboarding at Bolton Valley. My short-lived attempt to become a downhill skier also started and ended there, but that’s another story. Our varied appetites for zipping down the slopes aside, I think we would agree on a refueling pit stop at the new version of Hatchet Tavern.

The Richmond eatery is getting a jump on winter this week with the launch of an “app-rès” menu designed to take advantage of its location near Chittenden County’s only downhill ski destinations: Bolton and Cochran’s Ski Area.

Hatchet owner Gabriel Firman, 51, said his almost-10-year-old restaurant has always seen some post-ski traffic, but “we’re going to lean into it this year.”

From 4 to 5:30 p.m. every day the eatery is open, all the small plates will be $10, as will the very good marinated tempeh Reuben and a single-patty version of the satisfying Tavern smash burger with fries or salad.

Recently appointed culinary director Christian Kruse and his chef de cuisine, Chase Dunbar, crossed Bridge Street to Hatchet in October after Firman closed his second Richmond restaurant, the Big Spruce. The pair previously cooked together at Black Flannel Brewing & Distilling in Essex, where Kruse, 40, earned a 2022 James Beard Foundation semifinalist nod for Best Chef: Northeast.

But the Westford native is no fine-dining snob. Kruse’s revamp of the Hatchet menu is down-to-earth while bringing flair to the details. The kitchen prides itself on accommodating dietary needs: The fryer is gluten-free, and several dishes can be made vegetarian or vegan.

I’d happily make a meal of small plates, especially with the pricing incentive.

The deliciousness coming out of that fryer includes light, crunchy calamari rings and tentacles ($16), scattered with pickled onion and chile and served with housemade black garlic aioli. Bronzed fried Brussels sprouts ($15) come with a creamy, citrusy version of the aioli. Crisp-shelled arancini risotto balls ($14), rich with Cabot cheddar, are paired with a tangy, emulsified roasted red pepper sauce.

To balance the richness, I’d add the roasted beets ($14), which are served with excellent lemony hummus, dusted with crushed pistachios and enlivened with the pop of pickled mustard seeds.

My now-grown sons would definitely appreciate the extensive après drink options at Hatchet. The bar boasts 24 taps and a standout cocktail program with housemade syrups and infused spirits. On a recent evening visit, my husband and I found two stools at the busy bar, and I watched bartender Henry Sheeser expertly shake up my Really F’in Good cocktail ($14).

With its tart, bitter edge and egg-white froth, it lived up to its name and even conjured visions of powder days ahead.

— M.P.