Canned can’t compare to small-batch soups like homemade, cajun sweet potato and chicken or hungarian mushroom. There’s enough layered flavor in every spoonful that will make you want to can the canned — and trade it in for soup made from scratch daily at The Soupery in Portsmouth.

Ellen Gibbs

Don’t let the humble, hole-in-the-wall facade fool you, these are experts of the industry. Stews, soups, and yes — even the basic grilled cheese tastes like nothing you’ve ever had before. Step inside the ground floor, just make sure you don’t bonk your head on pocket-sized door frame. This elbow-to-elbow workshop, with its low ceilings adorned with delicate string lights, mustard yellow walls and slanted checkered floors is a delightful combination of both whimsy and midcentury.

You’ll feel like you just stepped into the best kept secret in all of New Hampshire — or at the very least, a hideaway from the weathered, cobbled streets.

When temperatures start to drop, a cup of warming maple butternut squash soup is the tastiest way to thaw your weather-beaten face and fingers. The sweetness doesn’t overpower the savory, which manages to avoid seeming laden with cream or the other extreme, completely diluted. In other words, you could have a bowl and it wouldn’t make you fall asleep during your lunch break.

Grilled cheese to appease.

Don’t leave without pairing it with a colby and jack grilled cheese. The trick to stringy, gooey grilled cheese is the combination of different cheese. A generous blend that doesn't tug or tease, melts in your mouth as well as between the crisp edges of golden toasted bread.

The frigid temperatures of the season seem a little more bearable after you’ve scraped your bowl and licked your spoon clean. Bundle up and stay warm all winter long with wicked good soups from The Soupery.

The Soupery can be found here, or on their Facebook, or Instagram page.