best places to eat in new hampshire

best places to eat in new hampshire

For decades, mountain men, farmers, and fishermen have made the lovely state of New Hampshire the place for great meals and friendly people. While these rustic traditions are still alive and strong in the Granite State, dozens of trendy restaurants and gourmet dishes have been added to the mix. The first rule of vacationing is that food is an integral part of the experience. But where to eat? No worries, friend. The internet has got you covered with this handy list of local eateries. This list represents some of the best places to eat in new hampshire, with nothing left out — just pop open a map and go!

New Hampshire is a beautiful state with a lot to offer, and its restaurants are no exception. If you’re looking for some great places to eat in New Hampshire, look no further than these five options:

1. The Bluebird Diner: The Bluebird Diner has been serving up delicious food since 1933. They have an extensive menu that includes everything from pancakes to burgers to seafood platters. They also have a full bar and live music on weekends.
2. The Olde Mill Inn: If you’re looking for a place with old-fashioned charm, then the Olde Mill Inn is the place for you! This charming inn serves breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of the week. Their menu features fresh ingredients from local farmers markets as well as classic American fare like steak tips or fried chicken dinners served with mashed potatoes and gravy!
3. Fisherman’s Catch Restaurant: Fisherman’s Catch Restaurant specializes in seafood dishes—like their famous lobster roll—but they also serve steaks and pasta dishes! They have an extensive wine list as well as beer from local breweries including Portsmouth Beer Co., Smuttyn

The best places to eat in New Hampshire are a mix of cozy restaurants, hole-in-the-wall diners, and family-owned seafood joints that have been around for decades. If you’re looking for the most authentic New England experience, check out these spots:

1) White Mountain Creamery: This dairy farm offers ice cream, cheese, and other dairy products made with homegrown ingredients. You can pick up some fresh eggs or milk on your way out!

2) The Log Cabin Restaurant: This classic diner has been around since 1955, serving up homemade meals including burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

3) Red Arrow Diner: This diner has been around since 1926 and is known for its excellent breakfast menu—including their signature buttermilk pancakes!

4) The Brookside Cafe: Serving up breakfast all day long (as well as lunch), this local favorite is owned by a husband-and-wife team who used to cook together at home before opening their own place together.

top eats in new hampshire

Sea Swirl

Mystic, Connecticut

WHAT: A former Carvel stand east of Mystic Seaport that now serves some of New England’s finest fried clams. WHY: We’re talking whole-belly clams — plump and ocean-sweet with a salty snap to the lasciviously tender meat inside a brittle crust. Beyond clams, this summertime drive-in serves a full roster of expertly fried seafood, including scallops, shrimps, and oysters. Of all Connecticut’s shoreline clam shacks, Sea Swirl’s ambience is the most delicious. Dining is all outside at picnic tables, where you can smell the ocean’s flood tide crawling in behind the restaurant. — Michael Stern

The Place

Guilford, Connecticut

WHAT: An outdoor restaurant that’s really more of a clearing in the woods, two miles inland from the beach: Diners sit on tree stumps instead of chairs and all the food is cooked on a massive open-fire grill. WHY: There’s only one menu at the Place, a hand-painted wooden sign that towers over the sunburnt families (and occasional well-behaved dog) who’ve packed this warm-months-only spot since 1971. Watch other tables and you’ll see a reliable pattern: First, a tatter of iron grating bearing a dozen roasted clams under a blanket of cocktail sauce and butter; next, a lobster or two, some barbecue chicken, and maybe some bluefish. Most people also order a pile of smoke-kissed corn still in its charred husks; it’s the only side dish on offer, but you’re encouraged to BYO anything else you might want (including a six-pack, which you can pick up at a nearby gas station on your way in). — Helen Rosner

Ted’s Restaurant

Meriden, Connecticut

WHAT: The home of the central Connecticut steamer, aka a steamed cheeseburger, made with pizzazz by this snug little shack since 1959. WHY: Individual patties of ground beef and blocks of cheddar cheese are put in separate metal trays inside of a steam cabinet, where they are vapor-cooked. The result is a burger that’s unconscionably juicy, its cheese a pearlescent mass just viscous enough to seep into every crevice of the meat below. It’s maximum umami per bite. — M.S.v

Eventide Oyster Co.

Portland, Maine

WHAT: The exuberant seafood phenom that sets the standard for the modern oyster bar — not only in New England but for all of America. Eventide is no secret: No matter what time of year you arrive, or at what time of day, there will likely be at least a short wait. WHY: Nearly 20 varieties of craggy, pristine oysters from Maine and throughout the region sit piled on ice atop a hollowed-out slab of granite. Their names reflect their geography, etching maps in the mind: Pleasant Bay, John’s River, Basket Island, Dodge Cove. Eat them plain and then dabbed with accompaniments both classic (red wine mignonette) and newfangled (ices made from horseradish or kimchi). Trust that blackboard specials like fish crudos and octopus terrine will deliver, though the marquee remains the signature lobster roll umami-blasted by an unlikely triumvirate: browned butter, dried milk powder, and lemon. — B.A.

The Lost Kitchen

Freedom, Maine

WHAT: A fairy tale of a destination restaurant, occupying part of a hydro-powered millhouse (circa 1834) in a midcoast town whose population totals 719. Here’s the plot twist: Dinner at the Lost Kitchen ranks as one of the country’s most unattainable reservations. Chef-owner Erin French begins accepting annual bookings on April 1 for reservations between May and New Year’s Eve, and they fill within hours. WHY: Those who do score a golden ticket are in for the kind of evening that addresses all the senses. Listen to a small dam burbling just outside, note the shift in aromas while watching French and her staff cook eight courses in the day’s dying light, and savor her unfussy knack for layering flavors. Oysters perfumed with basil and violet might kick off a meal; lamb loin revved with pickled rhubarb and feta epitomizes springtime. The food is remarkable, but the calming pace and collective cheer completes the spell. — B.A.

unique restaurants in new hampshire

Palace Diner

Biddeford, Maine

WHAT: A pre-Depression Era diner car located in the former mill town of Biddeford, Maine, that will reset your appreciation of how good classic diner fare can be. WHY: Chefs Chad Conley and Greg Mitchell relaunched this 90-year-old institution with a menu of standard diner options (burgers, breakfast sandwiches, and flapjacks) pulled off with a special finesse that makes waiting for one of the scant 15 seats well worth it. Slices of grapefruit become something else entirely when tossed on the grill. A thick layer of iceberg lends a cool crunch to the tuna melt, heaped with tuna salad and pickles. Thick-cut challah french toast arrives with the top bruleed for built-in sweetness. — A.F.

Primo

Rockland, Maine

WHAT: Chef Melissa Kelly’s ode to midcoast Maine; part restaurant and part sprawling, organic farm. WHY: There are restaurants that tout the proximity of their sourcing and then there’s Primo, situated on four-and-a-half acres of rolling farmland. Melissa Kelly is the head of the agricultural operation as well as the talent behind the food. Dinner may start with a stroll through the garden, glass of wine in hand, and move into the rustic two-story house that has been converted into a restaurant and parlor. The menu of purely prepared vegetables and pasture-raised meats showcases Kelly’s time at Chez Panisse: Snap peas are blistered and sprinkled with sea salt, thick-cut pork chops accompanied by sweet roasted brussels sprouts. The casual top-floor lounge serves house-made charcuterie, pizzas, and oysters and doubles as the best taverna in midcoast Maine. — Korsha Wilson

Tandem Coffee + Bakery

Portland, Maine

WHAT: An award-winning roastery and bakery launched by Blue Bottle alums Will and Kathleen Pratt with some of the best baked goods in the city and a dose of millennial coffeehouse magic. WHY: When the already-beloved East End coffee house — known for clean, lightly roasted coffees in an intimate space — expanded to to Portland’s West End in 2015, it brought on talented baker Briana Holt, who cranks out contemporary spins on traditional baked goods that perfectly balance sweet and savory. One of her butter-and-jam biscuit sandwiches or a bowl of turmeric steel-cut oats are blissful ways to start the day. (So is a wedge of that plum and black pepper pie.) Lunch specials like the capicola sandwich with chile-infused honey, banana peppers, and chickweed on seeded focaccia are why you’ll be back by noon. — A.F.

Loyal Nine

Cambridge, Massachusetts

WHAT: An ambitious, thinky, New England-inspired restaurant without the ye olde kitsch. WHY: Chef Marc Sheehan’s “eat local” ethos goes beyond mere sourcing. As befits the chef’s Harvard-proximate locale, he does a deep dive into culinary history, reviving Colonial foodways like sallets and soused bluefish but with a coolly modern sensibility. Stripped of the Puritan stodge, doused with lively, who-woulda-thunk? accents like chamomile vinegar, sunchoke-walnut jam, and pork-fat hollandaise, he creates an authentic New England cuisine for today. — Amy Traverso

Row 34

Boston, Massachusetts

WHAT: Classic New England seafood-shack standards featuring judiciously doled-out modern updates from the Island Creek folks, whose blue-chip bivalves ship daily from Duxbury, Massachusetts, to top U.S. restaurants. WHY: No better source than, well, the source to sample pristine raw-bar selections, including the coveted Row 34 oysters, with their intensely mineral merroir reminiscent of French Belons. Both lobster roll styles — Maine (creamy mayo) and Connecticut (hot butter) — reach apotheosis here, as does anything that sees the business end of the fryer or grill. All of the above wash down easily with the geek-friendly roster of high-toned sours and Old-World vins blancs. — J.H.