“Our menu changes with what’s in season locally, and we’re very strict about that. We use local produce and local meat. I mostly go pick it up – I have to be close enough to go get it and come back. We have some ranchers that deliver, but a lot of people I meet at the farmers’ market. I want to know who they are – I want to have a relationship with them. We spend years becoming friends. The goal is, if you look at a plate, you know what season it is.”

Spring: asparagus salsa with fresh mozzarella, sorrel and green garlic; Summer: chèvre soufflé with corn sauce, salad of shaved fennel, peaches, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and basil; Winter: cassoulet with cannelini beans, lamb, smoked ham, garlic sausage, and rich meat broth.

Start with top-notch ingredients gleaned from local farmers, and build a menu around that. This is Potager’s philosophy. An open kitchen and farmhouse sensibility, paired with well-executed simplicity and deeply seasonal cooking charms diners.

Owner Teri Rippeto puts community at the center of her business: she buys food from people she knows, she instills work-life balance in her staff by requiring them to work only four days a week, and she encourages her patrons to follow her lead by hosting a CSA pick-up for one of the restaurant’s farms.