When Paula Fernandes and Adrian Abate were putting the finishing touches on Two Bistro Café in May, they had little sense of Quechee’s appetite for eating chimichurri, chorizo sausage and chocolate all in one place. But on a Tuesday night in July, when many restaurant dining rooms would be s leepy at best, all 26 or so seats were filled — a pattern that has recurred night after night. “We’ve had a lot of repeat customers, which is what I’d hoped for,” said Fernandes, who was juggling roles as owner, host and server as she dashed to check on a four-top. A colleague followed her carrying a plate of chicken Milanese, garlic wafting in its wake. Fernandes is a native Brazilian who has run My Brigadeiro, a pâtisserie in nearby Hanover, N.H., for 12 years. She launched Two Bistro Café with Abate, her Argentinean-born partner. Their concept was to mash up their two culinary backgrounds: the grilled meats of Argentina and the more complex, often seafood-based dishes of Brazil, backed by a supporting cast of pastries, chocolates and desserts. They set up shop in the former digs of Chef Brad’s CrazySide, an eclectic culinary compound on Route 4 where burgers, tacos and other food truck vittles were sometimes served inside a pastel-hued school bus. Chef Brad Pirkey closed his food truck in 2025, but the bus remains parked on a hill behind the restaurant, its colors beginning to fade. The main building now holds a bakery and a cozy dining room, with a more elegant and modern vibe. Abate and Fernandes — who met in their teens when Abate was studying food chemistry in Brazil and reconnected decades later — leased the place last June and spent close to a year revamping it. They kept the dining room’s rustic beams but added their own flourishes, such as bold black-and-white swirls along one wall and a chandelier made of hundreds of tiny glass teardrops. Paula Fernandes and Adrian Abate Credit: Corin Hirsch By day, the dining room is a cozy breakfast-to-lunch café with a front counter that turns out lattes, cappuccinos, and scores of croissants, éclairs, and other sweet and savory pastries ($6 to $19), including the Brazilian cheese bread pão de queijo ($3.75) and flaky Napoleons piled with ricotta cheese, a baked egg and prosciutto ($13). Empanadas ($10 for two) are of the Argentinean persuasion, with braided shells and gently seasoned ground beef or spinach-and-mozzarella fillings. The bakery case also contains chocolate truffles from My Brigadeiro. From lunch onward, the meat-fueled ethos of Argentinean asado and Brazilian churrasco culture comes to the fore. The X-tudo burger ($24) is loaded with smoky Calabresa sausage, bacon, ham, cheddar and a fried egg on house-baked brioche. Abate pounds chicken breast thin for peppery Argentinean-style chicken Milanese ($23). Patrons carry in their own wine bottles (the restaurant is BYOB, with a $10 corkage fee per person) to wash down heartier plates such as simply grilled picanha steak topped with caramelized onions ($28) and grilled swordfish glossed with butter ($38). Rice, yucca fries and salads serve as sides, along with nutty, toasted Brazilian farofa ($5) and Tropeiro beans topped with a fried egg ($9), a glorious, wildly salted and filling mash of pinto beans, bacon, crumbled sausage and fried onions. Though the owners originally aimed to debut a separate dinner menu, Fernandes said the challenge of finding front-of-house staff forced them to put those plans on hold. Instead, the establishment evokes the CrazySide spirit by parking a food truck out front with a street-food menu. In the garden there, the more formal lunch and dinner dishes take new forms. That chicken Milanese, for example, is layered onto brioche with melted cheddar and a smear of chimichurri sauce ($22) for a two-fisted affair that’s both decadent and messy. By the time you leave, sated on pastry and fingers glossed with chimichurri, the name makes sense: two owners, two cuisines, two kitchens (inside and outside), and nothing lost in the division. ➆ An earlier version of this story appeared in Daybreak, a newsletter serving the Upper Valley. Two Bistro Cafe, 1 Quechee Main St., Quechee, 802-369-2114 The original print version of this article was headlined “Pastry Days, Gaucho Nights | In Quechee, Two Bistro Café melds the flavors of two South American countries” The post Argentinean Food and Brazilian Flavors Arrive in Quechee appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less