8 Best Restaurants in Central Vermont, 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.

Since 1923, Jones' has been a destination for doughnuts and baked goods made fresh each day in the earliest hours of the morning. Fill a box with cinnamon rolls, pie squares, apple turnovers, and some of the best doughnuts in the state.

This cerulean blue A-frame is a mountainside gem for morning baked goods, award-winning chilli, and specialty drinks like the Mounds latte (espresso, steamed milk, coconut, and chocolate syrup). It also doubles as a local art gallery, so you can peruse the work of Vermont artists over a pick-me-up.

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.

This charming two-story café in the center of Woodstock sources most of its ingredients in state. It's the perfect stop for a Vermont maple latte with local dairy, produce-laden salads, and wraps or egg sandwiches worthy of a long line.

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.

This emporium of Vermont edibles has great sandwiches, cheeses, local beers, and delicious baked goods—perfect for a picnic or for lunch on the go.