Honey Road — Restaurant in Burlington

Honey road is a must-visit restaurant.

If you’ve ever eaten here it should be no surprise to you that there are multiple James Beard Award nominees in the kitchen. And unfortunately for us that means booking reservations a few weeks in advance. Fortunately for them- that means a full restaurant most days of the week. My first visit to honey road was for cocktails and whipped feta before I moved out of state. Now when I visit, it’s one of the top restaurants on my list.

This evening I was sad to see that the whipped feta was off the menu, but there was still plenty to devour and delight in. We started with two dips- the muhamarra and the hot pepper labneh with winter squash and harissa. Muhamarra is one of my favorite dips and this was top notch. Labneh was not spicy and was in fact a soothing blend of squash with a dollop of infused labneh and harissa in the middle. A little warmth but nothing too hot. We split 2 pita among three people and that was perfect for these two apps.

Our first mezze item was the farm greens salad, with delicata squash, cranberries and pepitas atop an herby whipped goat cheese. It was a delicious in between bite. The star of tonight’s show was the broccolini Caesar. The broccolini itself was perfectly cooked with a little bit of char, mixed with a tahini Caesar sauce/dressing, avocado, and cheese crackers. Every bite on its own was yummy but together? They soared. The earthiness of the broccolini, the creaminess of the avocado, and the sharp salt and crisp of the cheese was everything. I would go back again and again for that dish.

We also got the cauliflower, which was amazing, but it came after the broccolini and truly that wasn’t a fair fight. For proteins we ordered the sweet harissa chicken wings and the lamb kafta. The chicken wings have been on the menu since the beginning and their spot there is deserved. Sweet, slightly spicy, reliably delicious. The dried lime labneh is lovely but not necessary unless you have no spice tolerance. I don’t typically eat a lot of lamb, but the herbs mixed with the meat and the pairing of apple and caramelized leeks made me a believer.

For dessert, we had the brown butter pecan cake (with buttermilk raspberry ice cream and figs) which was utterly perfect. Soft spongey cake which makes a perfect vehicle for the luxurious ice cream. We also got the chocolate coffee tart, which sat upon a caramel of sorts, topped with maple labneh, and had diced pumpkin coated in your favorite seasonal spices along side it. Pumpkin has literally never tasted so good. My dining partners additionally shared a slice of baklava, which was delightfully flakey, nutty, and bound together with the perfect amount of honey.

Big props to the milk & honey cocktail (a cheeky play on a bees knees with labneh and lavender) as well as the garden variety (a mezcal cocktail with ?celery? that you will definitely want to order a second of).

TLDR? Book your reservation now, as the flavors move with the seasons and you don’t want to miss...

TL/DR: This place is awesome. Go now.

My girlfriend and I came here last night. We'd had some of their food before at pop-up events before they actually opened, but this was the first time we went to their actual brick & mortar location. We arrived at about 7:30 on Thursday evening and were told it would be about an hour and a half for a table for two. That's a pretty long time, but they were up front about it so I didn't mind. The place was packed. We went elsewhere to grab a glass of wine while we waited, and came back about 5 minutes short of the expected wait time. My phone chose right then to die, so we went in to let them know we were there and they actually had a table ready to go.

We knew going in that it's a Turkish/Mediterranean themed, small plate restaurant. My girlfriend and I are both total winos, so the first thing we looked at was the wine list. It. Was. Awesome. Easily one of the best restaurant wine lists we've had recently. Our server, Xenia, was very attentive and helpful when we were so overwhelmed by the wine choices that we couldn't make a decision, and she was obviously very knowledgeable about the wine they sell. For good measure she also sent over (I think) one of the owners, who offered a little more insight.

Decisions made, we moved onto the food. We were much more decisive about that. I want to say, we appreciated the order that things came out. We've been to other small-plates places recently where it seems like everything gets put in at once and they come out when they come out. Maybe it was just random luck that things came out in the order we would have chosen, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it was intentional. We ordered 4 plates, starting with Fried Feta, then moving to Cheese Borek, (I'm not sure what kind of cheese this was but it was definitely heartier than the feta), then Chicken Wings with Harissa-Brown Sugar, and finally Mousakka, which was a whole tomato stuffed with Greek cheese, crispy potato, and lamb. All of it was tremendous.

Service was fantastic; attentive without being obnoxious. It probably helps that, being a small-plate restaurant, they're constantly coming by to clear plates or bring out the next thing, so they're probably more apt to notice when we're running low on wine or water or whatever. Regardless, we felt like the service was nearly perfect.

We ended with Baklava and Turkish coffee. I'm not sure what exactly Turkish coffee is or how it's different from regular coffee, but it was delicious, as was the Baklava. All told the bill was in-line with what we'd expect for the amount of food we had plus two glasses of wine each.

There are a lot of great restaurants in the Burlington area. This one is, I think, wholly unique in their style, and it has immediately moved into the conversation for my favorite restaurant in the area. Go here, you...

We had been planning a trip to honey road for a while. We made a reservation more than a week before. It seems to be at capacity during most of their operating hours. The restaurant decor was incredible. The style of the furniture and lighting was gorgeous and made for a relaxing setting. We ordered 4 items for 2 people. The first thing that came out was the tahini hummus and it was incredibly flavorful and smooth. I thought how amazing can hummus actually get? It's so simple. But turns out the chefs at Honey Road have hummus perfected with a great balance of oil, Tahiti, chickpeas and blended in a way that makes it smooth and light. Can't go wrong ordering it as a starter! We received the Baba Ganoush with pickled cauliflower next and it was incredible. We had warm toasted pita to enjoy the Baba with. It was delicious and elegantly crafted. It was the smoothest Baba Ganoush I have had and the cauliflower was mind blowing. The next item was the Leb Lebi - spiced fried chickpeas. These were very crispy and without being too hard or crunchy. The spices were out of this world. This was the smallest of the 4 items we ordered but also one of the cheapest on the menu. We also ordered the Sweet Harissa chicken wings which had a sweet Barbecue style sauce that was like no chicken wing I have ever eaten. I eat almost entirely vegetarian but made the exception at Honey Road as I had heard great things about several dishes. Lastly I'll mention we got two cocktails that were both exquisite (I got the Luna). I grew up in a middle eastern household and I tried to be as critical as I could with Honey Road but they left me in awe. The dishes are on the expensive side for the size they are but I think the food and experience was beyond worth it. Amazingly well run restaurant with a menu you could never get bored of. We will be returning here for our next big...