The former Courtyard hotel on Cherry Street in downtown Burlington has spent the last several months under renovation, and it reopened recently as The Harborvale.

It has the same owners and operators (including Executive Chef Doug Paine), but it’s been upgraded into Marriott's Autograph Collection, a tier reserved for independent-feeling hotels with their own design and character rather than a standard brand template. It's all part of a bigger wave of hotel activity in the area right now: the AC Hotel Burlington has already opened around the corner, and Winooski's Sugar House Hotel — another locally owned, Marriott-affiliated property — is on the way in the months ahead.

We stopped in for dinner recently, although full disclosure…we'd already had a prior commitment where apps were served, so this was a one-course, one-visit impression rather than a start-to-finish overview. Still, between the food, the room, and the sunset ritual we hadn't heard about beforehand, there was enough to come away with a list of things to love…

1. The pasta. The mushroom scampi arrived as house-made spaghetti tossed with 1000 Stone Farm mushrooms and lemon olive oil. There was no cream and no heavy sauce…just pasta that tasted like someone rolled it that morning, with piles of local mushrooms bursting with flavor.

2. The photogenic Lobster Tail Casino. It arrives split down the middle, the shell packed with meat, parsley garlic butter, bacon and toasted bread crumbs, then placed over a scatter of microgreens on beautiful stoneware with a deep glaze. This is a dish that’s Instagram-worthy the moment it hits the table.

3. The length of the menu. Between the starters, the pasta list, and the meat and fish menu, there's a lot to work through…beef tartare, pork belly, spinach bisque, elegant duck breast, wild boar shoulder, Adams Farm chicken, and a long run of house-made pasta and vegetable dishes. There's also a separate bar menu of lighter bites, sandwiches, burgers (and did we mention the lobster roll with caviar?). It's the kind of range that makes you start thinking about your second visit before you've finished the first.

4. The lake view. For a lakefront town, Burlington doesn't have all that many restaurants where you can actually see the water while you eat…most of the waterfront is parks and bike path, not tables. The Harborvale's bar faces Lake Champlain directly, and partway through dinner, the bartender reached over and pressed a button that rolled up a shade directly behind the bar, expanding the view even further. Lovely.

5. The Sunset Cocktail. We happened to be there when the sun started to descend. Right around that time, someone rang a bell, the staff came out to the bar, and everyone in the place was offered a small cocktail. There was no mention of it on the menu, and we were told it would happen each night. We didn't get a photo of the pretty drink itself, so that's another reason to head back.

A dish worth photographing, a lake straight in front of you, and a cocktail ritual at sunset…that's the kind of first impression that demands a second visit.

The Harborvale serves from the first coffee at 6 a.m., through breakfast, lunch, dinner and a late-night menu that keeps hungry guests fed until 11 (the bar stays open until midnight).