La Dolce Vita: The Wheel Inn

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BENSON — Do yourself a favor this summer, and go to the Wheel Inn in Benson.

I could stop right there, but you might not believe me, so I’ll give you the details.

A friend called up shortly after I started scouting for out-of-the-way restaurants and said I should try the Wheel Inn, specifically on a Wednesday when they do chicken and biscuits for the special.

So on Wednesday, we wound up with our knees under the same table in Benson, ordering the chicken and biscuits and iced teas.

Route 22A meanders across the New York/Vermont border, from Middle Granville to Vergennes, and backward about three or four decades over most of its length. It’s the first road I ever traveled in Vermont and it remains one of my favorite drives in the state; it always makes me want to buy a few acres with a house and a handful of Jerseys and settle down as a gentleman farmer.

Seven-tenths of a mile west of 22A on Lake Road, there’s a little crossroads with a country store, a booksellers and a dusty parking lot. Attached to the parking lot is as nondescript a country restaurant as you are likely to find, all gray boards and a sign fashioned from a wagon wheel. Below the wheel, a sign on the front door says “welcome,” but the real welcome is when you step through the door and the smell of roasted chicken hits you square between the nostrils.

You’re standing in a big room with big tables seating from four to eight or 10. When you are used to city restaurants squeezing in as many patrons as the fire code will allow, it’s a shock to have elbow room. My guest is already there. Guest? Host? He found the place and I picked up the tab, so I’m not sure what to call him. Tom it is. Tom tells me that on weekends during the summer, it’s not at all unusual to share one of the big tables with other diners.

At 1:30 the week before Memorial Day, we have the room almost to ourselves. We’ve missed the lunch rush, and it’ll be about 5 p.m. before the dinner crowd arrives. Tom tells me The Wheel does well with older diners.

The menu arrives and Tom tells me the rest of the food is also good — it includes pizza, burgers, sandwiches and the like. There’s a breakfast service and a lounge next door, dating to the days when restaurants were nonsmoking but lounges allowed the habit. But we’re here for the chicken and biscuits, which arrive in a few minutes. A mound of mashed potatoes almost the size of a softball shares a crowded plate with a biscuit hidden under roast chicken breast, the lot of it smothered under a yellowish layer of cream gravy. The gravy hints that the cook scorched the flour in making the roux, but it doesn’t detract from the meal. Boiled peas and a medicine cup of cranberry sauce finish the plate.

The spuds are good but not exceptional. The gravy is rich and a little salty. The chicken is perfectly cooked, perched atop a biscuit as good as the ones I get from Dot Staples’ recipe, and I didn’t think I’d ever meet their match.

We eat, chat, and watch a storm pass through. Tom doesn’t quite get through his plateful. Forewarned, I had saved room, so I manage the whole plate plus most of a dessert selected from choices hanging off a wooden sign on the wall. It’s a hard job, but I thought I owed my readers the sacrifice.

“Which is better, the apple or the three-berry crisp?” I ask the waitress. She admits to a preference for the apple.

“Heated?”

“Yes, please.”

“With ice cream?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

She doesn’t have to ask if it should be vanilla, but that was also a “yes.”

It’s amazing: A huge bowl of stewed, spiced apple with just enough oatmeal crust to give it texture. The ice cream, eggy, tastes more like frozen custard (and my usual thanks to my cardiologist for not reading too closely, here). You’ll want to share.

The meal done, I win the debate over the bill ($33 for three chicken dinners — one to go, two ice teas and a dessert the size of Idaho). Still we linger, chatting, neither of us in a hurry to get back into the truck, back to work, back to the 21st century outside.

Do yourself a favor this summer, and go to the Wheel Inn in Benson … or did I already say that?