Memorable | One of the Best
Depot 62
Review by: Michael Stern
I’ve always been intrigued by restaurants that do double duty. Jane and I have eaten well in bait and tackle stores, upholstery shops, bowling alleys, gas stations, and a pistol range diner. On a recent trip through Vermont, we came across a novel hybrid: Depot 62, which is a restaurant in a furniture store. Buffetbuster has noted that Ikea’s meatballs may qualify it for this category, but at Depot 62 you don’t just snack. You dine. You dine surrounded by lamps, settees, tapestries, tote bags, and piles of rugs, as well as customers shopping for those things. What makes it even more interesting is that the cuisine has a Turkish accent.
Depot 62’s signature dishes are cooked in a wood-fired oven. That includes stylish, thin-crust pizzas available with toppings that range from a classic tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperoni to the “Taste of Anatolia,” which is Vermont lamb, onions, and parsley. I swooned over the Hajro’s Special pie: freshly roasted asparagus (I could see into the kitchen as the stalks were cooked to order for my pie), feta cheese, and a punchy Kalamata olive tapenade. Jane went for the wild mushroom pie, which was topped with a variety of mushrooms, caramelized onions, and mozzarella.
Beyond praiseworthy pizzas, Depot 62 offers kabobs, brick-oven chicken and salmon, and brilliant salads. We love the garlicky humus, served with extraordinary pita bread that is chewy, full-flavored, dotted with peppery little seeds.
If you have sweet tooth, leave room for dessert. Baklava is honey-drenched and nutty. Side it with a cup of true Turkish coffee and you will be up all night reminiscing about a really good meal in a really interesting place.
Directions & Hours
Information
| Price | $ |
| Seasons | All |
| Meals Served | Lunch, Dinner |
| Credit Cards Accepted | Yes |
| Alcohol Served | Yes |
| Outdoor Seating | Yes |
What To Eat
Depot 62 Recipes
Discuss
What do you think of Depot 62?
One Response to “Depot 62”
David Lasday
August 23rd, 2015
Just came back from a meal at Depot Cafe after reading the review here.
Really nice store and eclectic seating options. A harried and curt woman (proprietor?) took our order. She redeemed herself later…but who said everybody needs to be sweet at every restaurant? And I dont believe there’s any correlation between loveliness and knowing how to cook.
And then the food came out — we had humus, baba ganoosh, and leeks w/rice to start…they were all very tasty. Noticeably light in the use of tahini (is this a Turkish thing?) – a nice change. Of course, accompanied by pita that was…perfect. Both soft and blistered and covered with those black seeds known as black onion, black cumin, nigella and a few others. When I asked the harried owner after the meal, she was much softer and she seemed to appreciate my interest.
But ….I was talking about the pita….wow — really perfect/what you’d expect from somebody who knows how to use wood oven. And then the pizzas came out — it makes perfect sense if you feel in love with the the pits you’d fall harder for the pizzas. Perfect crust. We had the asparagus feta olive one and wild mushroom carmelized onion. The former was very good, but the latter was extraordinary. Amazing stuff/a memorable pie.
We also had chicken adana that came in a small steaming cassarole dish. It came with a side of the yogurt sauce, which I believe was the same sauce the chicken was cooked in. This was tasty and fine…but not approaching extra terrestrial good. They had three lamb entrees that I’d return for. I’d trust the salads too.
And it makes perfect sense that there was a chopping block and axe immediately outside the parking lot entrance – that’s where they break up wood for the wood oven.