11 Best Restaurants in Manchester, Southern Vermont

This intimate, elegant bistro is owned by husband-and-wife team Mark and Melody French, who spent years in Puerto Rico absorbing the flavors of the island that are reflected in the eclectic international menu. After nine years in their original space on Main Street, in 2020 the couple moved their restaurant into the newly renovated, 123-year-old Skinner Library, fashioning a bartop from the 1897 wooden shelving. Reserve a table ahead of time, or sit at the wine bar for a casual and romantic dinner with a maple martini or a bottle from the impressive wine list.

Home of the World Famous Mrs. Murphy's Donuts, this beloved shop turns out fresh doughnuts daily from its small, white-clapboard storefront. Old-fashioned doughnuts come hot from the fryer in the wee hours of the morning, so arrive early for the best selection of flavors like cinnamon, maple cream, and cakey cider doughnuts loaded with warming spices.

There is something wonderful about eating by candlelight in an old barn; and with the rooster art above their rough-hewn wooden beams, Chantecleer's dining rooms are especially romantic. The international menu runs the gamut from veal schnitzel to New York strip to Dover sole.

Walk to the very back room of the Equinox's Marsh Tavern to enter this special, very expensive, and very delicious steak house, with aged corn- or grass-fed beef broiled at 1,400ºF and finished with marrow butter. The marble above the fireplace is chiseled "L.L. ORVIS 1832," and way before he claimed the spot, the Green Mountain Boys gathered here to plan their Revolutionary War–era resistance.

This classic French restaurant is tucked in a grotto on the climb to Bromley Mountain. The two dining rooms are perched over the Bromley Brook, and at night a small waterfall is magically illuminated—ask for a window table.

Originally a tiny bottle shop when it opened doors in 2017, the Crooked Ram has since transformed into a cozy beer-and-wine bar with an excellent restaurant and spacious summertime backyard serving wood-fired pizzas. It's now a destination for hyperlocal drafts, seasonal small plates, and brimming Vermont cheese boards, plus a thoughtful stock of unique ciders and natural wines to-go.

The dining room at this luxurious inn is a large, modern space where rich woods and high ceilings meld into a kind of "nouveau Vermont" aesthetic. The contemporary American cuisine emphasizes farm-to-table ingredients and has earned the restaurant "Gold Barn" honors from the Vermont Fresh Network.

This circa-1790 Colonial inn dishes up Yankee favorites along with plenty of New England charm, made all the more intimate by the candlelight. To learn more about the colorful history of the building, simply ask the manager, who makes a regular appearance at tables.