Montpelier, Vermont in Winter | Capitols and Cookery

Picture Vermont: red barns, green mountains, free thinkers.

Now imagine a capital city….

Put the two together, and Montpelier—a thriving little metropolis that feels like a city wrapped in a town, at the foothills of the Green Mountains—is exactly what you might expect, and hope, it to be. Yes, it feels like an authentic flannel shirt (not the Brooklyn variety), with brains and thoughtfulness to back it up.

But it’s also where two great Vermont ideals come together: food and politics. And they appear to coexist magnificently.

Like Waldo, the State House is everywhere in Montpelier. Glimpsed at the far end of a street or from one of the hills rising up around town, but most especially from its central position at 115 State Street. Where it’s set back just far enough to have a fabulously huge front lawn for concerts, peaceful demonstrations, dogs, and joggers.

The People’s House, as it’s known, is elegant, inspiring, and so welcoming that it’s a little unnerving.

The door was open, so we went in. When the security guard asked, “Can I help you,” and we explained guiltily that we were “just looking around,” he beamed and waved us on. Check out the Senate, the Legislature, the painting of Howard Dean, quotes by Ethan Allen.

To delve even more deeply into the state’s history, there’s an excellent Vermont History Museum further up the street (7 State Street) that interweaves major touchstones like the Allen boys, World Wars, and a budding ski industry. Prepare to be immersed for several engrossing hours.

And now that you’re ravenous, let’s turn to food.

Montpelier is a hotbed of chefs and experimental cuisine, due in part to the omnipresent New England Culinary Institute. Its teaching restaurant, NECI on Main, is front-and-center on Main Street, and its graduates salt the town like artisanal grains.

There’s a restaurant or cafe for every taste, and no shortage of farm-to-table bounty.

Really we might have guessed as much, given that there’s a food goddess atop the Vermont capitol building. No separation of state and plate in this town. Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, watches over the Vermont people and their food, in this farm-to-table cradle. No jockeying for position, no need to determine which comes first, the free-range chicken or the organic egg.

Rather, decide how would you like them served. Poached, broiled, or fried. Have you ever visited Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier?

SEE MORE: Montpelier, Vermont | Could You Live Here?Montpelier, Vermont | Photographs

This post was first published in 2015 and has been updated.