Pepperwood Bistro Brewery & Catering

Order the Haddock & Frites and the whole restaurant shows up on one plate: white fish in a batter cut with Pepperwood Cream Ale, the bistro and the brewpub folded into a single bite. That fusion is the point of Pepperwood Bistro Brewery & Catering, a Downtown Burlington kitchen that runs as two restaurants sharing one address—a contemporary Canadian bistro on one side, a brewpub with a long, Ontario-leaning tap list on the other. They rarely pull apart. A table can open with a pound of wings, work through a pot of mussels and a plate of frites, and finish on crème brûlée without ever settling which kind of night it set out to have.

The starters set the tone. Pepperwood Wings come by the pound—in house barbecue, salt and pepper, or Nashville hot—the clearest first move for a table. Crispy calamari arrives with banana peppers and basil aioli; panko-crusted crab cakes get a lemon-basil aioli with peach-and-corn salsa; a bruschetta flatbread layers goat cheese and balsamic over a plum-tomato pesto base. The P.E.I. mussels earn a section all their own, steamed in white wine with tomato and herbs or finished in a brighter limoncello cream.