6 Best Restaurants in Middlebury, Central Vermont

This sunlit café and bakery overlooking Otter Creek houses some of the best coffee and pastries in the state thanks to chef--owner Caroline Corrente, who honed her skills at pastry school in France before zeroing in on a love for brioche dough. Corrente's specialty sweet and savory buns change daily based on what is available locally—many ingredients are found within a few miles of Haymaker's doors. The OG Bun, always on the menu, is a cinnamon-spiced ode to the classic sticky bun that draws Vermonters from all corners of the state. Corrente added a location in Burlington's hip Soda Plant in 2024.

Worth the drive from Middlebury to the small town of Bristol, the Bobcat is fun, funky, and hip—just like the inventive comfort-food menu. Wash your meal down with nearly a dozen excellent house-brewed beers.

Also the home of award-winning jam company V Smiley Preserves, this all-day café serves house-made pastries, coffee, cocktails, biscuit sandwiches, huge salads, creative vegetable dishes and savory yogurt with crispy lentils and poached eggs.

After a decade of fine-tuning their skills and tastebuds in the coffee industry, Royal Oak co-owners Alessandra and Matthew Delia-Lobo opened their own café on Seymour Street, a cozy spot to hole up for a while. The menu, featuring beans from Burlington-based Vivid Coffee Roasters, is known for shaken ice maple lattes in the summer and frothy cardamom-vanilla lattes in the winter (a seasonal special that, say the Delia-Lobos, now never leaves the menu due to popularity).

Partially hidden in Middlebury's historic Marble Works district, this oasis of tea brews made-to-order spiced chai, house-roasted oolong, and loose leaf teas imported from small farmers in China, India, Nepal, Japan, and Taiwan.

New owners have transformed the longtime Inn at Baldwin Creek and Mary's Restaurant, giving the 1790s farmhouse a chic update from head to toe. Pizza isn't the only thing that comes out of the new wood-fired oven, though it was named one of the 22 best pizza spots in the U.S. by the New York Times. Locally sourced roasted vegetables and smokey meatballs complement the fire-kissed pies. Live music fills the parlor on Wednesdays in winter and heads outside for a lawn party in warmer months.