'I don't stop moving": Honey Road chef's work pays off as finalist for James Beard Award

Like most 17-year-olds in the late 1990s, Cara Tobin needed a job to pay for a car and car insurance. Also like most teens then, she sought work in a restaurant.

She applied at the Hanover, New Hampshire, pizza joint Everything But Anchovies. The owner asked if she could cook. She lied and said yes. She was hired and began work that day.

She would eventually work the 3 p.m.-2 a.m. shift, often as the only cook in the kitchen. The food wasn’t complicated but the restaurant was huge and did lots of takeout business in the town that’s home to Dartmouth College.

“I learned how to be fast and I learned how to move in a kitchen, and I loved it,” Tobin said. “It was like a puzzle and I wanted to nail it every night.”

Tobin has been nailing it in the restaurant world ever since, especially after opening the much-lauded Burlington restaurant Honey Road in 2017. Recognition for her accomplishments reached a peak this spring when she became a finalist as Best Chef: Northeast for the James Beard Awards, the most-prestigious honors in the American restaurant industry.

Tobin was nominated three times before and her Turkish/Eastern Mediterranean-inspired eatery was a contender for Best New Restaurant in 2018, but this is the first time Tobin has made the finals. She is competing with chefs from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine, with the winner announced June 10. (It’s the same prize Nisachon “Rung” Morgan of Saap in Randolph won in 2022.)

“It’s definitely validation that I am doing something right. I have worked really hard to get here and I’ve had to sacrifice,” the married mother of two said before a Wednesday night shift in the kitchen at Honey Road. “It just feels good to be recognized by peers, too, that you’re doing a good job.”

Top of her culinary-school class

Tobin grew up outside Sacramento, California. She said her grandmother was a great cook and host from the American South and her grandfather was Italian, establishing strong food roots in her family,

She moved with her mother, stepfather and sister to Iowa when she was 13, then to Lebanon, New Hampshire, at age 16. She relocated to California with her future husband, Willie Tobin, so he could go to college.

She dabbled in college but didn’t like it, taking jobs in restaurants instead. She wasn’t sure she wanted to keep spending long hours in hot kitchens, so she left to work in a naturopath’s office where the doctor put people on strict no-gluten/no-dairy/no-sugar diets.

One older patient, Tobin said, had pizza every day and wondered “What do I eat?” Tobin said she’d come to the patient’s house a couple of days a week to prepare meals. That helped her realize how much she liked making food.

She began culinary school in Monterey, California, in 2005. While college didn’t work for her, culinary school did, Tobin said, because of its hands-on curriculum. Not surprisingly for a woman who would become a James Beard Award finalist, Tobin was class valedictorian.

Inspired by Turkish cuisine

Tobin worked at restaurants in Monterey, Santa Cruz (where she and her husband lived) and San Francisco. It was at a hotel restaurant in Santa Cruz where Tobin served as executive chef, building management skills she would need at Honey Road.

The Tobins moved east so Willie Tobin could attend graduate school at Harvard University. Cara Tobin began working at the Turkish/Mediterranean-influenced Boston-area restaurant Oleana, first as sous chef and then as chef de cuisine.

Executive chef Ana Sortun – a James Beard Award winner in 2005 as Best Chef: Northeast – took Tobin to Turkey in 2011. That changed the direction of her culinary life.

“I was just so blown away by everything – the food, the culture, the land,” Tobin said. “I was like, ‘I want to learn about this. I want to know more.’”

Tobin also dove into Lebanese, Syrian and Greek cuisine, meeting women eager to teach her. What Tobin said she loves about food from that region is the sense of place: what’s in season, what’s local, what’s fresh, and the use of spices, rose water and tahini to bring depth of flavor to all dishes.

Name influenced by The Beatles, beekeeping

Willie Tobin is a Norwich native, and Cara Tobin said the couple long eyed a move to Vermont, which they made happen in 2016. They live in Charlotte, where Willie Tobin has put aside his Harvard doctorate in aero science to farm mushrooms.

Cara Tobin arrived in Vermont with plans to open a restaurant. She wanted a front-of-house person to oversee hospitality. A friend introduced her to Allison Gibson, who worked at the celebrated Vermont restaurant Hen of the Wood and, before that, at Smokejacks, one of Honey Road’s predecessors in the high-profile building at Church and Main streets in Burlington.

Tobin and Gibson went for a walk and Tobin explained what she was looking for. Gibson was interested. Tobin soon realized she wanted her front-of-house person to be a co-owner invested literally and figuratively in the business, and Gibson agreed to become her partner in Honey Road.

The restaurant name was inspired in part by Tobin’s fondness for The Beatles, whose song titles include “Penny Lane” to “The Long and Winding Road.” “I thought (Honey Road) sounded like a really awesome Beatles cover band,” Tobin said.

The name also references the Turkish city of Kars, where men historically supported the town’s economy with beekeeping. Women would take over when the men went off to war, according to Tobin, and she thought the region dubbed “Honey Road” was an appropriate inspiration for a Turkish-influenced restaurant run by two women in a male-dominated industry.

Honey Road opened in July 2017 and was an instant hit.

“We were pleasantly surprised,” said Tobin, who at the time was unknown in the Vermont dining scene. “Part of our success is just location. This is one of the best locations in Vermont.”

Tobin also knows Honey Road made it because of good food, good service and a good vibe. Dishes such as grilled asparagus piled in feta or braised lamb on a soft simit bun reveal new nuances of flavor with every bite. The plates are small and sharable but it’s easy to overeat at Honey Road because of the temptation to try everything. The atmosphere is enhanced by fresh flowers in the restrooms and a woman-powered dining-room soundtrack that on a recent night featured Dolly Parton, Cyndi Lauper, Joni Mitchell, Mazzy Star and Vermont’s own Grace Potter.

Tobin said people advised her to aim for a particular demographic. She didn’t want that.

“Everybody – I want everybody,” she said, noting that Honey Road draws couples and groups, those looking for a quick bite or an all-night celebration, all from a variety of ages. “I think we did it in that sense.”

‘I don’t stop moving’

Success came quickly, but not without sacrifice and stress. Tobin opened Honey Road when her first child was a year and a half old, and she was hardly ever home. (The Tobins two children are aged 5 and 8.) She lived the cliché of blood, sweat and tears.

“It’s a lot,” Tobin said, as she’s on the go from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. “I try to get some sleep and then I don’t stop moving.”

In late 2022, Tobin and Gibson opened a second restaurant, The Grey Jay breakfast-and-lunch spot a few blocks from Honey Road. Despite the adulation her restaurants have received, Tobin said it’s easy to sink into a dark place when hearing complaints from customers, even while countless others are silently enjoying their dining experiences.

The James Beard nomination has uplifted her. She’s about to turn 42 and has been in the restaurant business for 25 years, but she still thrives on positive feedback.

Tobin and Gibson will attend the award ceremony June 10 in Chicago. Tobin is happy to be nominated. She would love it if she won.

“I’m trying not to think about it too much,” Tobin said. “I’ve worked so much for so long. I think it would be so nice.”

If you go

WHAT: Honey Road

WHEN: 4-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 4-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday

WHERE: 156 Church St., Burlington

INFORMATION: (802) 497-2145, www.honeyroadrestaurant.com

Contact Brent Hallenbeck atbhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.