Chalkboard Menu Monday
Entrees are $20 or less

Tuesday Wine Special
20% off any bottle of wine

Food & Wine Magazine Ten Best Restaurant Dishes of 2007
Winter in Vermont gets cold enough to freeze your eyelashes, and I was still defrosting as I looked over the regionally focused menu at Hen of the Wood in Waterbury. I ordered the duck breast with whole grain mustard spaetzle, not for the bird but because the 20-below temperature outdoors made me crave the spaetzle. The tiny dumplings were flawless: pillowy, nutty and clearly made fresh that day. However, its duck is what I still think about. Chef-owners Eric Warnstedt and Craig Tresser share the cooking, so it's unclear which of them brined, lightly smoked, then pan-seared the duck to give the moist meat wonderfully subtle juniper, allspice and pepper flavors and an extraordinary crispy-caramel skin. But I warmly thank whoever was responsible. (December, 2007)

Gourmet Magazine 100 Best Farm to Table Restaurants
That a small restaurant on a rural side road would dedicate a separate menu to cheeses tells you all you need to know about the aesthetic here. Among the dozen or so choices: a buttery, sweet, soft ripened offering made from raw Jersey's milk; a rich, crumbly blue from raw Ayrshire milk; a smooth, earthy Brebis from raw sheep's milk. Chefs Eric Warnstedt and Craig Tresser seek out premium ingredients, both foraged and farmed, then prepare them in ways that coax out maximum flavor. The brookside setting and the hand-hewn beams and fieldstone walls of this former grist mill seem to have been designed specifically to complement the food. (October, 2007)

Food and Wine Across America - Food & Wine Magazine
In 2005, chefs Eric Warnstedt and Craig Tresser opened Hen of the Wood in Waterbury, 25 minutes from downtown. The two alums of Burlington classic Smokejacks do wonderful things with local produce. I loved the zingy salad of Vermont-grown beets from Pete's Greens and the lamb shank from nearby Winding Brook Farm, served with a spiky, slightly sweet relish of parsley and Meyer lemon. (June, 2007)