BROOKFIELD, Vt. — Ariel’s Restaurant is housed in a mid-19th-century farmhouse that offers seats in a formal parlor, at a table within reach of the bar, or, in season, on a glassed-in porch overlooking a lake. The restaurant, off a dirt road in Brookfield, a town of 1,200 a half-hour south of Montpelier, attracts culinary fanatics.

The restaurant is the creation of chef Lee Duberman and her husband/sommelier, Richard Fink. She was a New York song-and-dance gal, her husband says, and, he adds, “the boss and brains” behind Ariel’s. He was an actor and classical guitarist.