Vermont cafe keeps it simple and local, with a menu of soups and sandwiches
MONTPELIER — He trained in France and worked in high-end restaurants from New York to California. Now the owner of a new cafe in Vermont’s capital aims to keep things simple while taking the soup and sandwiches a step above the norm.
What is the place?
Joe Buley opened Café NOA on a small, winding alley on rue Barre in Montpelier on February 25, in the midst of a major snowstorm.
“People skied,” he said.
Café NOA is located near Joe’s Kitchen at Screamin’ Ridge Farm, where Buley has been producing soup for years that is sold at local stores and farmers markets. The cafe has some of that soup on the menu — the March 8 list included chicken tortilla, minestrone and cheddar beer — as well as coffee, tea and a variety of soft drinks.
The cafe’s raison d’etre, however, might be its sandwiches, served at breakfast and lunchtime. Egg sandwiches come with optional toppings including avocado, bacon, pulled pork, and kimchi.
Sandwiches most likely to be ordered for lunch include grilled cheese, roast or smoked turkey, Reuben pastrami, and Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches with barbecued pork belly or tempeh. (The latter, Buley said, is the café’s most popular sandwich so far.) The sandwiches can be served on NOA Café’s homemade English muffins or on bread from Red Hen Baking in Middlesex, one Buley’s first soup customers. Diners looking for gluten-free options could eat a sandwich wrapped in a corn tortilla.
The sunny cafe in a refurbished granite shed can seat around 30 customers inside, and Buley said capacity will exceed 40 when the weather makes dining on the outdoor terrace along the Montpelier cycle path more appealing. . This gives the cafe an edge over more central restaurants in the capital, most of which have outdoor seating on the sidewalks along busy downtown streets.
“There’s nothing like it in town,” Buley said of his surroundings.
What’s the story behind it?
Buley was born in San Antonio, but his parents are from Vermont. He remembers visiting his French-Canadian grandmother’s house in East Randolph, where the smell of soup was ever-present.
Buley pursued his own interest in food not in Texas or New England, but far and wide. He attended cooking school in Paris, then returned to the United States to spend three decades crafting dishes at fine dining establishments in places such as New York, San Francisco and Austin.
Like the aroma of soup, Vermont brought Buley back to the state of his heritage. He moved to Vermont in 1999 to teach at the now-closed New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, and soon began making soup for commercial sale. The building he cooks his soup in had an adjoining vacant space, which tempted him to return to the restaurant world, albeit on a more modest scale than the high-end places he ran in the past. .
“It’s kind of an itch. That’s what I love to do,” Buley said. “I was like, ‘Well, let’s have a coffee here.'”
The simplicity of Café NOA appeals to Buley compared to the high-end work it was doing. “It’s more laid back, more manageable, and I can do it on my terms,” he said. “I’m done with pretending. I’m done with authorized clients.
He definitely hasn’t finished emphasizing food close to home. Buley said more than half of NOA Café’s ingredients are produced in Vermont and he wants to increase that percentage.
“We are strongly local-focused,” he said.
Times and place
NES Coffee, 8 rue Putnam, Montpellier. 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday to Sunday. https://screaminridgefarm.com/cafe-noa
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