Esmeralda, Andover, Vermont

We had a wonderful pop up sort of dinner at Esmeralda in Andover, Vermont. It is an experimental restaurant from Maria Rondeau and JuanMa Calderón, who run Boston’s beloved restaurant, Celeste--many of the 20 or so guests that we ate with the night we were there came because they had such good memories and food at the mother ship. It is located in a special setting, on a hillside surrounded by nature, at Rondeau and Calderón’s country residence. The idea is that this is a place where guests come together for shared culinary experiences that merge local and Latin American flavors, sounds, and culture. Each month during the Summer and Fall, Esmeralda hosts a weeklong series of events with menus featuring rustic takes on Peruvian classics as well as an all-day feast centered around the pachamanca, the ancient method of cooking in the ground. It is more theater than cooking, and the night we were there the underground oven was filled with pork, alpaca, lamb, chicken, butternut squash, potatoes, yams, pineapple, and the Peruvian version of tamales, only sweeter. The meets and vegetables were delicious, but the sauces that accompanied them were even better. Lunches and dinners are served outdoors on the lawn and patio, as weather permits, or inside the dining room. Guests are encouraged to mingle over pisco sours while jazz plays from the speakers, and take in the stars around the fire pit after the meal. Our evening at Esmeralda was an experience beyond the meal itself — it was a dinner party with guests we would have been unlikely to meet any otehr way.