This Whimsical New Hampshire Cottage Serves An Exquisite Five-Course Herbal Luncheon In The Garden That Inspired Little Red Riding Hood

I have eaten in a lot of beautiful settings over the years, but I have never eaten anywhere quite like this. The cottage is small and charming, with flower boxes under every window and a garden that looks like it came straight out of a storybook.

This whimsical New Hampshire cottage serves an exquisite five course herbal luncheon, and every dish is made with ingredients grown right there in the garden. The woman who runs the place told me that the garden inspired the illustrations for Little Red Riding Hood.

I sat at a small table on the patio and watched the bees buzz around the herbs while I ate. The soup was made from fresh tomatoes and basil.

The salad was a mix of greens I had never seen before. The main course was delicate and flavorful, and the dessert was a lavender shortbread that melted in my mouth.

That is the thing about this New Hampshire cottage. It is not just a meal.

It is an escape into a world of beauty and flavor.

The Little Red Cottage That Started It All

Some buildings carry history in their bones, and this one carries a fairy tale too. The charming red cottage at the heart of Pickity Place dates back to the late eighteenth century, making it one of the most characterful dining destinations in all of New Hampshire.

What truly sets it apart is its starring role in literary history. The cottage served as the visual inspiration for illustrator Elizabeth Orton Jones when she created the iconic artwork for a mid-twentieth century Little Golden Book edition of Little Red Riding Hood.

Jones captured the cottage’s crooked roofline, its rustic red siding, and the wild, tangled gardens with such accuracy that stepping onto the property today feels like walking directly into the pages of that beloved storybook.

The cottage sits on Nutting Hill Road in Mason, a village so quiet and small it barely appears on most maps. Narrow dirt roads wind through the trees before revealing this unexpected gem.

Arriving here for the first time genuinely stops you in your tracks. New Hampshire has no shortage of scenic spots, but very few carry this particular combination of architectural age, literary legend, and living, breathing garden beauty all in one compact, perfectly preserved package.

Grandmother’s Bedroom and the Storybook Wolf

Possibly the most delightfully strange room in all of New Hampshire, Grandmother’s Bedroom at Pickity Place is where the fairy tale gets fully, gloriously real.

Tucked inside the cottage, this whimsical space is styled to evoke the iconic scene from Little Red Riding Hood, complete with a wolf figure nestled under the covers of a cozy bed.

It is playful, a little theatrical, and genuinely fun for anyone who grew up hearing that story read aloud. The room also features bundles of drying herbs and flowers hanging from the ceiling, filling the air with a sweet, earthy fragrance that somehow makes the whole setup feel even more enchanting rather than eerie.

Children absolutely adore it, but honestly, adults tend to linger just as long, snapping photos and giggling at the wolf peeking out from under the quilt. The attention to detail throughout this space reflects the broader philosophy of Pickity Place, which is that every corner of the property deserves to tell a story.

New Hampshire is full of historic homes, but very few double as living storybook sets with this much personality and charm packed into a single small room.

The Five-Course Herbal Luncheon Worth Planning Weeks Ahead

Reservations at Pickity Place can book out weeks in advance, especially on weekends, and once you experience the luncheon, that fact makes complete sense. The meal is a five-course affair that moves at a wonderfully unhurried pace, giving you time to actually taste, appreciate, and enjoy each dish as it arrives.

A typical progression includes soup, salad with house-made bread, and a choice between a meat or vegetarian entree, finishing with dessert. Every single element incorporates fresh herbs and edible flowers harvested directly from the gardens surrounding the cottage.

The menu rotates monthly, which means loyal regulars plan visits around seasonal ingredients and come back again and again to experience entirely new flavor combinations.

Three seatings run each day, and everyone at a given seating is seated simultaneously, creating a communal, almost ceremonial atmosphere that feels refreshingly different from standard restaurant dining. Beverages are included in the fixed price, with options ranging from spiced tea to lavender lemonade and mulled cider depending on the season.

It is the kind of meal that makes you put your phone down, lean back, and simply enjoy being exactly where you are, deep in the New Hampshire hills, eating something genuinely extraordinary.

Gardens So Beautiful They Deserve Their Own Afternoon

Arriving early to Pickity Place before your seating is not just allowed, it is practically mandatory. The gardens spread across the property in a glorious patchwork of themed spaces, each one distinct in character and fragrance, and all of them connected by winding paths that invite slow, aimless wandering.

Among the themed areas you will find a butterfly garden buzzing with pollinators, a silver garden planted with soft-leafed herbs that shimmer in the light, an oregano garden, a healing garden, a bird garden, and a moonlight garden designed to glow with pale blooms in the evening hours.

Fresh herbs and edible flowers are harvested from these beds daily to supply the kitchen, which means the gardens are not decorative afterthoughts but working, living pantries.

Walking through them on a warm New Hampshire morning is a full sensory experience. Lavender, rosemary, and mint release their oils into the air with every gentle brush of a hand against a stem.

Bees work steadily from flower to flower. The overall effect is deeply calming in a way that no spa or wellness retreat could quite replicate.

This garden alone is worth making the drive down the dirt road to Mason.

The Greenhouse and Garden Shop Full of Herbal Treasures

Beyond the dining room and the storybook gardens, Pickity Place keeps a greenhouse and a dedicated garden shop that plant lovers will find genuinely hard to leave quickly.

The greenhouse holds herbs, seedlings, and garden plants that connect directly to the property’s culinary philosophy, giving you the chance to bring a little of that magic home.

The garden shop stocks herb-related products alongside gardening supplies and botanically inspired gifts that feel thoughtfully chosen rather than mass-produced. Browsing here after a long, leisurely luncheon is one of those low-key pleasures that sneaks up on you.

You arrive thinking you will spend five minutes and end up forty minutes deep in a conversation about growing conditions for lavender in the New Hampshire climate.

Everything about this space reinforces the idea that Pickity Place is not simply a restaurant but a full experience built around a genuine love of plants, food, and the relationship between the two. If you have ever wanted to grow your own culinary herbs but did not know where to start, the knowledgeable staff here can point you in the right direction.

Come hungry for lunch and leave with a flat of seedlings you had no idea you needed until you saw them.

The Gift Shop That Makes Souvenirs Actually Worth Buying

Most gift shops attached to restaurants feel like an afterthought, a few branded mugs and some overpriced candy near the exit. The gift shop at Pickity Place operates on an entirely different level.

It has earned a loyal following all on its own among people who make the trip to Mason specifically to stock up on herbal products they cannot find anywhere else.

Herb-infused drink mixes, garden-themed gifts, and a rotating selection of botanically inspired goods fill the shelves in a way that feels curated and personal rather than generic.

Many items connect directly to the herbs grown on the property, giving them a provenance and authenticity that mass-market products simply cannot match.

Picking up a lavender drink mix here and making it at home later is a surprisingly effective way to keep that Pickity Place feeling alive long after you have driven back down the dirt road.

The shop stays open daily, which means you do not need a luncheon reservation to stop in and browse. Hours run from morning through late afternoon, making it a perfectly viable standalone destination on days when the dining seatings are fully booked.

New Hampshire has plenty of charming small shops, but few with this much character concentrated into such a compact, fragrant space.

Monthly Menus That Give You a Reason to Return Every Season

One of the cleverest things about Pickity Place is its monthly rotating menu, a format that transforms what could be a one-time bucket-list visit into a recurring tradition.

Regulars plan their calendar around it, timing visits to catch the spring menu loaded with tender new herbs, the summer menu bursting with edible flowers, the autumn menu leaning into warming spices, and the winter menu that somehow makes cold-weather dining feel genuinely cozy and celebratory.

Each month brings a completely new set of dishes, meaning the soup, salad, entree, and dessert you enjoyed in April will be entirely different from what lands on the table in September.

The kitchen draws on whatever the gardens are producing most abundantly at any given moment, which keeps the cooking honest, seasonal, and full of genuine flavor rather than manufactured novelty.

For anyone who loves food that is rooted in place and time, this model is deeply satisfying. You are not just eating a meal; you are eating a specific moment in the New Hampshire growing season, captured on a plate by a kitchen that clearly pays attention.

That is a rare thing, and it is exactly why so many people make Pickity Place a monthly ritual rather than a single memorable outing.

The Winding Dirt Road Drive That Sets the Mood Perfectly

Getting to Pickity Place is part of the experience, and that is not a polite way of apologizing for the route. The drive along Nutting Hill Road genuinely builds anticipation in a way that a standard GPS-guided suburban strip-mall approach never could.

Tall trees close in on either side, the road narrows, and the outside world starts to feel comfortably far away.

Cell service fades as you get closer, which many people describe as an unexpected relief rather than an inconvenience. By the time the red cottage appears at the end of the lane, you have already mentally shifted gears from the pace of ordinary life into something slower and more attentive.

That transition matters enormously for an experience built around savoring a long, unhurried meal in a fairy-tale garden.

New Hampshire’s rural roads have a particular quality in every season, from the mud-season drama of early spring to the canopy of autumn color that turns the same route into something almost otherworldly in October.

Driving to Mason with no particular urgency, windows down, radio off, is one of those small pleasures that the best travel experiences tend to include almost accidentally.

Consider the drive a free first course before the five that follow.

Poppy the Cat, the Property’s Most Beloved Resident

No visit to Pickity Place is truly complete without a proper greeting from Poppy, the resident cat who roams the property with the quiet authority of someone who knows exactly how charming they are.

Poppy has achieved something close to minor celebrity status among regulars. It has multiple mentions in enthusiastic accounts from people who made the trip to Mason and were delighted to find a feline host waiting among the herb beds.

There is something perfectly fitting about a cat presiding over a garden this beautiful. Poppy tends to be found near the back of the property, threading through the raised beds or stretched out in a patch of afternoon sun with the kind of total contentment that only cats and people on very good vacations ever truly achieve.

Spotting Poppy feels like a small bonus prize on top of an already wonderful afternoon. Children are particularly thrilled by the encounter, though adults are not far behind in their enthusiasm.

In a place already full of sensory delights, the addition of a friendly, unhurried cat wandering through the oregano and the lavender somehow makes everything feel even more right. New Hampshire has produced many things worth celebrating, and Poppy is quietly one of them.

Plan Your Visit to This Fairy-Tale Corner of New Hampshire

Pickity Place sits at 248 Nutting Hill Road in Mason, New Hampshire, and the address alone tells you something about the kind of place it is. Mason is one of those tiny New Hampshire towns that rewards the people willing to seek it out, and Pickity Place is the single most compelling reason to make the effort.

The property operates year-round, seven days a week, with slightly shorter hours during the winter months from January through March. Luncheon seatings run at three specific times each day, and reservations are essential, particularly on weekends when slots can fill up four to six weeks in advance.

Calling ahead is the only way to book, which adds a pleasingly old-fashioned quality to the whole process.

Arriving without a dining reservation is still worthwhile, since the gardens, greenhouse, and gift shop are all open during regular hours and offer plenty to explore on their own.

Spring and summer bring the gardens to their most spectacular peak, though autumn has a particular magic here that makes the October menu one of the most anticipated of the year.

For anyone who has not yet made the trip, the only real question is which month to choose first, because there will almost certainly be a second visit before long.