The Windjammer Restaurant Adds a Wine Bar in South Burlington

When the Windjammer Restaurant introduced in June 2021 that it might not supply its beloved salad bar, a interval of collective mourning ensued — or collective outcry, relying on which social media feedback you learn. As of mid-December, the longtime South Burlington restaurant has remodeled the boat-shaped house that when held that salad bar into a night wine bar.

“Doing one thing totally different after over 40 years of getting one thing the neighborhood cherished is a tough tablet to swallow,” common supervisor Dan Phelan advised Seven Days. The salad bar, he mentioned, “was a terrific draw, however the pandemic gave us the chance to have a look at the variables from a security perspective and a price perspective. It was time to do one thing new.”

The Windjammer group had mentioned including a bar to the downstairs eating room for numerous years, Phelan mentioned, “to create a distinct dynamic to the busy, vibrant Higher Deck Pub” upstairs. Somewhat than lose seats by repurposing a part of the Windjammer’s current eating room, they determined to renovate the salad bar house, preserving it boat-shaped with a mahogany bar constructed by Underhill firm Tom Moore Builder.

The brand new 12-seat wine bar gives the Windjammer’s full Wine Spectator Restaurant Award-winning wine listing, together with specialty cocktails, craft beer and premium spirits. Along with roughly 15 staple wines, a number of “higher-caliber” wines are served by the glass — and in additional approachable three-ounce pours — because of a temperature-controlled, pressurized Cruvinet system, Phelan mentioned.

Diners can order from the complete Windjammer dinner menu or select bar-only specials corresponding to charcuterie and cheese plates; chilly seafood appetizers with oysters, shrimp, lobster and crab; bone-in rib-eye steaks; wagyu steaks; and tomahawk steak for 2.

“We’ll supply belongings you’d see at a higher-end steak home someplace like Boston,” Phelan mentioned. “The aim is to create a mellow finer-dining environment.”