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Reviews:

Boston Magazine's Best of New England Travel & Life - 2006
Best Restaurant, New American
"Glassblower and potter Simon Pearce is beloved for his airy interpretations of classic forms. So it's no surprise that the food served inside the blond-wood dining room echoes his contemporary style. Chef Joshua Duda draws inspiration from Ireland and France when imagining his regional specialties, which include a butternut squash risotto croquette with pistachio cream and pumpkinseed oil and a horseradish-crusted cod that comes with herb-mashed potatoes."

New York Times - Glassmaking in Vermont - March 24th, 2006
"It doesn't get any more Vermont. Warmed chèvre, roasted beets and fresh focaccia, served in an old millhouse over a rushing river, with views of graceful covered bridges spanning Quechee Gorge in central Vermont.

The Green Mountain tableau continues next door, in a glass-blowing workshop where sand pellets are meticulously shaped into champagne flutes, fruit bowls and other glassware bearing the Simon Pearce insignia.

Originally from Ireland, Mr. Pearce, 59, opened his glass-blowing operation in the tiny Vermont village of Quechee in 1981 after mastering his craft at various European glass houses. His name is now synonymous with American glassmaking and pottery, with a chain of boutique workshops, some with restaurants attached, spreading from Vermont to San Francisco. The Mill at Quechee remains the flagship of the fleet - a favorite destination for locals and weekenders alike."

Phantom Gourmet - July 15th, 2006
"Dinner at Simon Pearce is a must for anyone who appreciates the finer things in life. The dishes and stemware are crafted in the on-site glassblowing and ceramics shop of internationally known artisan, Simon Pearce.

Simon Pearce is a glass blowing shop and restaurant that displays its very best in a rustic, but polished setting. The building is an old restored mill that’s long and narrow, so virtually every seat overlooks the waterfall."

Vermont Today - November 26th, 2006
"Simon Pearce, the restaurant, is anything but your little neighborhood eatery. It shares floor
space in a renovated former linen mill on the banks of the Ottauquechee River with the rest
Simon Pearce's glassware and pottery business. Simon Pearce - the founder and owner - now
has a mini-empire that stretches into Windsor and West Chester, Pa. The restaurant has been a
fixture in the village of Quechee for more than 20 years.

Pearce doesn't stuff the fillo dough with goat cheese or prepare the veal stock at his restaurant.
He leaves the cooking t o others, and they haven't let the side down. Pearce's complex on the
Ottauquechee is one of the two or three most visited spots in Vermont year after year. It ' s one
of those places you could visit more than once a year and not get tired of.

The old mill is a combination hydroelectric station, glass factory, retail design shop, pottery and
top-shelf restaurant. The restaurant was opened, Pearce has said, so his upscale customers
have a place to eat when shopping on the premises.

Pearce owes the menu to Joshua Duda, his head chef, a native of Massachusetts, who has a
degree from the New England Culinary Institute under one arm and a year working in classic
European kitchens under the other.

Duda calls his fare at the restaurant "new age comfort food," explaining further: "It's a real
mixture of styles, I'd say.... We don't stick to anything that isn't basically our own, but we try
to use locally produced ingredients whenever we can."

With 10 years in Pearce's kitchen, Duda has left his mark. At the end of October, he made the
quarterly menu switch, as the restaurant does when the seasons change. Some recipes return
time after time, as house favorites. Duda, the Pearce family, the restaurant operations manager
and a few others help make the choices. Here's how the main dinner selections line up now:
horseradish crusted cod with herb mashed potatoes and crispy leeks; crispy roast duckling with
vegetable fried rice and mango chutney sauce; glazed Scottish salmon with braised savoy
cabbage and lentils; grilled steak with smoked sea salt, cipollini onions, arugula, confit fingerling
potatoes and rosemary jus; coq au vin with porcini mushrooms, pearl onions, kale and red wine
reduction; and butternut squash ravioli with chestnuts, celeriac and cider sage sauce.

The lunch menu includes salad with Vermont goat cheese, shepherd's pie (all year long) with
local beef; sesame seared chicken (also a recurring favorite), Mediterranean lamb burger, beef
and Guinness stew with paprika potatoes and field greens, crab and cod cake.

Dudas says the recipes come from cookbooks, friends, trade magazines, his own imagination,
combinations of sources. What they have in common, wherever possible, is Vermont
ingredients, such as Cabot cheese, Misty Knoll chicken (Fairhaven), Crossroads Farm (East
Thetford) greens.

Simon Pearce seats about 100 in its waterside dining room. At a recent Sunday lunch, traffic in
and out of the kitchen was brisk, but orderly.

The food was steaming hot and delicious. The mill was crowded with visitors who looked like
they stepped from an L.L. Bean catalogue and who wandered the three floors in a restrained,
though seemingly purposeful, retail mood."