Head to the newly opened Kitchen Table Market Café in South Burlington for a breakfast sandwich on a freshly baked English muffin or a ham-and-Brie panini with housemade fruit preserves — but be forewarned that it’ll be tough to resist the pastries. They beckon from a case by the register, gi lded with caramel, swirled with chocolate and lavished with cream. The pastry case may glitter most brightly, but the serious chops of head pastry chef Sam La Croix show up throughout the café’s all-day menu. From her house granola and preserves in the yogurt parfaits ($8) to fresh-baked honey-wheat and white breads for sandwiches (from $10) to the flaky pastry encasing take-and-bake pot pies (from $32), the from-scratch touches are just one sign of the care that La Croix and her fiancé, executive chef Craig Anthony, are investing in the recently hatched little sibling of their Kitchen Table restaurant in Richmond. La Croix, 33, is a New England Culinary Institute alum who previously plied her trade at Hen of the Wood in Burlington and the original Burlington and then South Burlington locations of Mirabelles Bakery. The bakery is where she met Anthony, 39, who cooked there for 13 years before he became assistant director of operations for Winooski’s Waterworks Food + Drink. Working for a behind-the-scenes ownership group, the couple relaunched an elevated comfort-food menu at Kitchen Table restaurant in Richmond in 2023. Anthony, the group’s director of operations, also runs Chicken Charlie’s Rotisserie, Grill BBQ in South Burlington, which the partnership bought in 2022. From left: Hanhi Nguyen, Aaron Grenon, Sam La Croix and Craig Anthony at Kitchen Table Market Café Credit: Daria Bishop The Kitchen Table Market Café opened on November 28, a couple of months later than hoped due to construction and equipment delivery delays, Anthony said. It shares a vestibule entrance with Chicken Charlie’s and has taken over about two-thirds of the renovated space, including the seating area. (Chicken Charlie’s now offers only takeout and delivery.) Anthony had firsthand experience at the chicken spot from working shifts there in 2022 on top of his full-time job at Waterworks. Chicken Charlie’s niche was becoming more crowded, he said, so he pitched the ownership group the idea of splitting the restaurant, running a shared kitchen and extending the Kitchen Table brand into a more casual venue. They considered it for, literally, “like, a minute,” Anthony said, before giving him an enthusiastic go-ahead. Part of the strategy is efficiencies and cross-pollination across the three businesses. Favorite desserts from the Richmond restaurant, such as La Croix’s signature fudgy Matilda cake, are sold by the slice ($14) or in cupcake form ($5) at the café. Chicken Charlie’s fried or grilled tenders can be added to several sandwiches or salads on the café menu, such as the Charlie’s Caesar salad wrap ($16 with chicken; $10 without). The café’s fresh salad menu will always feature the seasonal offering from the restaurant. Currently, that’s winter citrus ($15): little leaf lettuce tossed to order with blood orange and grapefruit segments, hazelnuts, crumbled goat cheese, and a citrus vinaigrette. The café’s Shorty Mac panini ($16) brings together all three menus with the braised beef short ribs from Richmond combined with Chicken Charlie’s mac and cheese, plus pickled onions and barbecue sauce. Tender chunks of those short ribs with potatoes, carrots, peas and corn also fill a hefty pot pie ($36) from the take-and-bake freezer, where casseroles on offer include pasta bakes ($15/$28) and shepherd’s pie ($20/$38). Clockwise from left: Glo Up panini and chips, Savouré soda, chocolate-coconut scone and raspberry muffin, Samantha sandwich with tomato soup, and a winter citrus salad Credit: Daria Bishop On my first visit, I ladled out a small cup of very good cream of mushroom soup with cheddar ($6) at the hot food station in the rear of the café, where a window provides a view into the kitchen. An employee was carefully topping chicken pot pies ($32) with pastry rounds and turned to gesture at a row of beautifully crimped pies. “We make everything from scratch here,” he said proudly. Anthony said he had the window constructed during the renovation to provide him and his team visibility and accountability, “to make sure we’re not slacking,” he explained with a chuckle. No one appeared to be slacking last week during two trips to sample a full day’s worth of meals. I bypassed the breakfast sandwiches ($6 or $8 with bacon or sausage) and the yogurt parfaits ($8) for the warming sustenance of steel-cut oatmeal ($6 for 8 ounces; $10 for 16 ounces), garnished with fresh blueberries, granola (oats on oats!), brown sugar, toasted almonds and shredded coconut from the toppings bar. I also indulged in the mixed-nut sticky bun ($8) — a caramel-drenched, generously nut-topped swirl of deliciousness — and a tender-crumbed coconut-lime scone ($5). For lunch, I ordered two sandwiches from the deli menu, which also has build-your-own options. (A cooler holds simple sandwiches and basic salads for grab and go.) Kitchen Table Market’s version of a meaty Italian is dubbed the Gabagool ($15) after the Americanized pronunciation of capicola — one of the sandwich’s three cured meats — as made infamous by “The Sopranos.” I ordered it on a Red Hen Baking baguette, and its well-stacked abundance provided lunch two days in a row. To sample the cross-pollination, I also tried a crunchy bite of my husband’s Patty ($15), made with Chicken Charlie’s fried chicken tenders, bacon, provolone, pickles and sriracha mayo on one of La Croix’s sesame challah rolls. Aaron Grenon making a short rib pot pie Credit: Daria Bishop The Lobio veggie panini ($13), with tomato, arugula, Cabot cheddar, pickled red onion and housemade Georgian-style bean pâté, intrigued me, especially after Anthony explained that it’s made with red kidney beans seasoned with thyme, garlic and onion. For an afternoon pick-me-up, I brought home a cherry cream bun ($8) from the pastry case, recalling vividly how I’d fallen for its doughnut-adjacent texture and fluffy filling during a Kitchen Table brunch in Richmond. The following night, the short rib pot pie I’d bought frozen emerged from my oven fragrant and golden-crusted, providing an ample, rib-sticking meal for at least four. Even though I didn’t mean to buy more pastries on my second trip, I felt obliged to get the novel carrot cake cup ($10) for my carrot cake-loving spouse. He happily spooned up most of the 16-ounce tub of cake between layers of frosting and declared it very good, if a little heavy on frosting. On that visit, I carried my full bag out to my car before having second thoughts. In the day-old pastry section of the cooler (a must-check for bargain hunters), I had noticed a great deal on four Matilda cupcakes for the price of one. Of course, I didn’t need four cupcakes. But then I remembered that three twentysomethings were on their way to Vermont for an early-season ski weekend. Three for them and one for me: How could I resist? The Kitchen Table Market Café, 1160 Williston Rd., South Burlington, 802-448-3938, kitchentablemarketcafe.com The original print version of this article was headlined “More Seats at the Table | The chefs behind Richmond’s Kitchen Table have launched a South Burlington market and café” The post With New South Burlington Café, the Kitchen Table Group Grows appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less