With Hotels With Great Taste, we're pulling back the curtain for a peek at the “special sauce” that hotels use to create memorable, meaningful culinary experiences for their guests.
When you live in New York City, the weekend getaway is an art: a precious, limited-time escape from the trash-laced sidewalks and pee-scented subways we love and hate in equal measure. A proper weekend getaway must wrench us free from the endless parade of increasingly dubious Partifuls, remind our tree-starved souls that quiet places where we can see the stars at night do in fact exist, and also deliver the level of quality we’re used to, because we are snobs.
Enter Weston, Vermont, a peaceful little town four hours north of NYC that checks all the boxes, thanks in large part to its eponymous crown jewel of dining and hospitality, The Weston.
This boutique hotel is the kind of place that makes your blood pressure drop the moment you arrive. The exterior is a portrait of buttoned-up New England humility: a white clapboard colonial with dark green accents and a manicured lawn. Inside, its eight rooms are a study in cozy luxury: working fireplaces, big porcelain bathtubs with the good soap, plush four-poster beds, mini-bars stocked with local delicacies, and decor sourced from the owners’ personal collection of art and antiques. Notably, those owners are the Sharps, a multi-generational family of NYC hoteliers known for the haute bohemian grandeur of Gramercy Park Hotel and the Carlyle, which should tell you all you need to know about whether this place will live up to your city-dwelling standards. (It will.)
Surely, the Weston could rest on this arcadian glamour alone. It’s also in close proximity to some of New England’s best skiing in the winter, hiking in the spring and summer, and leaf-peeping in the fall. There’s an onsite spa with very good massages and a sauna and steam shower to use at your leisure. And let’s not forget to mention Hildene, a nearby Lincoln family mansion and goat farm you can tour (with baby goats if you’re lucky!), and Manchester Hot Glass, where you can blow your own technicolored tumbler with a quirky dude named Andrew and take it home the next day. But what really catapults the Weston into the “must-visit” stratosphere is its truly excellent farm-to-table dining program, one that takes that oft-abused term (what farm? which table?) to its most literal heights.
Fueled by a deep connection to the land, the Weston runs its own 50-acre regenerative farm that, in peak season, supplies 90% of the produce served at its onsite restaurant, the Left Bank. Meaning pretty much everything but the citrus comes from just a few miles away.
“The first person I talk to in the morning is our farmer, Briana Grosodonia,” says executive chef Bretton Combs, an alum of San Francisco’s SPIN and Cat Cora’s Kitchen. “I’m there at the farm as much as possible to discuss the weekly plan, and Briana delivers all the produce and is in the walk-in cooler each morning. Our partnership moves beyond a simple transaction…both parties help educate each other on farming and culinary possibilities.”
The sprawling farm features a 100x150-foot outdoor space as well as two separate 20x100-foot greenhouses designed for four-season farming. An immersive tour, offered free to spring and summer guests, highlights the level of commitment Grosodonia and her team have to sustainability, with ecologically restorative growing techniques, a robust seeding plan, and zero pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or herbicides.
Because the relationship between farm and kitchen is so strong, specialty items and heirloom varieties tailored to menu needs are common. The rotating “Daily Vegetable” at the Left Bank is the best way to experience what Combs and Grosodonia are most mutually excited about at any moment—roasted salsify in the winter, perhaps, or a salad of beautifully marbled black strawberry tomatoes in late summer.
“Many people expect Vermont dining to be all maple syrup and cheddar,” says Combs (and to note, there is an adorable Vermont Country Store just a few steps from the hotel that supplies both in abundance). “We celebrate our local roots but also do steak tartare prepared tableside, offer full caviar service, and have a monthly chef’s tasting menu in our Wine Cellar private dining room. We offer traditional French-inspired cuisine but it never feels out of place here because the hospitality is entirely Vermont. Warm, personable, unpretentious.”
When you order, opt for a blend of produce-heavy dishes (speaking from experience, the Daily Vegetable should never be skipped) and French classics like perfectly-executed steak au poivre, chicken liver mousse, celeriac remoulade, and of course that tableside steak tartare. The wine pairings are also excellent, earning the restaurant a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence for two years running.
Pro tip: Make the most of your surroundings by ordering room service at least once. The menu is a pared-down version of what you’ll find in the restaurant but also includes bottles of wine, which you can enjoy by the fireplace, in bed, on your private balcony if your room has one, in the bathtub (my personal pick), or even with a picnic packed to-go.
Last month,the Weston also unveiled a brand new culinary project: The Green Cat, part bakery, part cafe, part gourmet grocer, part culinary classroom. Helmed by pastry chef Mary Pisanelli, it features a rotating menu of sweet and savory offerings and a robust bread program with 11 different varieties on daily rotation. Don’t miss the mini sourdough boule flights or the signature Fat Cat bialy filled with seasonal delicacies. Produce from the farm is on sale at the grocer counter and woven throughout the menu—including a Green Cat tea blend curated from farm-grown herbs. And then there’s the Demonstration Kitchen, an immersive classroom tucked behind the bakery where guests can master techniques like laminating croissants under Pisanelli’s instruction.
On my trip to Weston, I was struck by the fact that it hit every mark: luxurious accommodations, plenty of nature (try Emerald Lake Loop for a gentle stroll and a swim), a very good massage, and truly excellent food. I came back to my trash-lined street in Brooklyn wondering what I always wonder: Do I really want to live here?
But that’s the beauty of a great weekend getaway. It’s always just a car ride away.