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Rockport Rockport is dry, but most restaurants invite patrons to BYOB. Some of the more prominent restaurants and biggest advertisers are considered tourist traps; innkeepers and locals rarely recommend them. Good restaurants with liquor licenses are located nearby in Gloucester and Essex. My Place By the Sea You can't get much closer to the ocean than at this restaurant at the very end of Bearskin Neck. In fact, it's so close to the ocean that twice in recent years it has been damaged in storms. The structure has been rebuilt with a crisp summery look. A two-level outdoor porch wraps around the tiny interior, with an open lower level resting right above the rocky shore and a smaller side level covered by an awning and enclosed in roll-down plastic "windows" for use in inclement weather. Floral cloths cover the tables and the atmosphere is romantic in rose and aqua. Called My Place because a former owner couldn't think of anything else, the name has stuck. It is now owned by its chef of some years, Kathy Milbury, sister of Mike Milbury, the former Boston Bruins hockey star. Partner Barbara Stavropoulos runs the front of the house. Chef Kathy has upgraded the menu and enhanced its reputation for the best food in town. Indeed, a recent entry in one innkeeper's restaurant diary was by Californians who proclaimed My Place "the best over-all restaurant on our thirteen-state foliage tour. Excellent service, food and ambiance." Starters could be grilled shrimp with avocado butter in a warm flour tortilla, grilled black mission figs with shaved pecorino, and lobster quesadilla with sundried tomato cream cheese and spicy salsa. Can’t decide? Order the chef’s daily seafood tasting. For entrées, consider the signature baked swordfish with a tangy béarnaise sauce and pecan butter, pan-seared szechuan salmon on an Asian noodle pancake and Portuguese fisherman’s stew in a fiery brodo. The grilled chicken might arrive with a ricotta-tomato sauce over pasta. Dessert favorites include a warm chocolate cake with homemade maple walnut ice cream, coffee panna cotta with vanilla rum anglaise and warm apple crunch with cinnamon ice cream. (978) 546-9667. www.myplacebythesea.com. Entrées,
$22 to $29. Lunch daily, 11:30 to 4. Dinner, 4 to 9:30 or 10. Fewer days
in the off-season and closed November to mid-April. BYOB.
Emerson Inn owner Bruce Coates went to the Cornell Hotel School and with his wife Michele was involved in ownership of three restaurants in Florida for twenty years. So they know the restaurant business, and followed their dream of finding a New England inn. He and Michelle renovated the inn’s dining room, adding french doors at the ocean end to open onto a screened porch for outside dining. The spacious, hotel-style room remains patriotically old-fashioned with burgundy banquet chairs at tables set with white cloths and blue napkins. A pianist plays on weekends, and the oceanside setting is most pleasing. The chef has updated the fare to provide contemporary as well as classic cuisine. Starters might be crab cakes with mango-basil mayonnaise, crispy sweet and sour calamari with Thai chile paste and – billed as the “ultimate lobster cocktail” – a chilled lobster martini with sundried tomato rémoulade. Entrées range from grilled swordfish with corn salsa to porcini-dusted lamb loin finished with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar. Options include tagliatelle pasta with Ipswich clams and pancetta, citrus-ginger glazed chicken and beef tenderloin with chasseur sauce. Dessert mainstays are chocolate lava cake and crème
brûlée. (978) 546-9500. Entrées, $22 to $28. Dinner by
reservation, Wednesday-Monday 6 to 9. BYOB.
In an effort to draw the public, the old Seaward Inn has a new look and a new cuisine. Gone are the nightly choice of two traditional entrées and the wall strung with clothespins that held guests’ napkins with their names over the years. Now the summery, wraparound dining rooms seat 75 people for fine dining, according to owner Nancy Cameron-Gilsey. Tables are set with white linens and the Cameron family’s bone china. The emphasis is what’s on the plate, as well as on the watery scenery outside the windows. The menu starts with items like seared diver scallops and Asian slaw with wasabi oil, lobster salad with sweet potato chips, and a wild mushroom ragoût. The six entrées range from grilled salmon with white soy vinaigrette over purple sticky rice to grilled strip steak with veal demi-glace. Lamb sirloin with wild mushrooms and a port wine reduction is a house favorite. (978) 546-3471 or (877) 473-2927. Entrées, $18
to $27. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday 6 to 9:30, Wednesday-Sunday in
off-season. Closed November to mid-April. BYOB.
The name bespeaks the theme of this casual and creative place, but hardly prepares one for the view of Motif No. 1 across the harbor from the butcher-block tables at the rear of the L-shaped dining room. And the view from the upstairs dining room is even better. Seafood and salads are featured, as is a salad bar and an ice cream and pastry bar out front. Otherwise the fare runs from what owner Amy Hale calls gourmet sandwiches to dinner entrées like grilled catfish with homemade tartar sauce, poached salmon with mustard-dill sauce, “bouillabaisse linguini” and roasted raspberry-glazed duck with mango chutney. For lunch, we savored the crab quiche with a side caesar salad and the homemade chicken soup with a sproutwich. The last was muenster and cheddar cheeses, mushrooms and sunflower seeds, crammed with sprouts and served with choice of dressing. We liked the sound of the crab and avocado sandwich, now a menu fixture, and overheard diners at other tables raving about the lobster and crab rolls. Apple-cheddar and chocolate-bourbon pecan pies, linzer torte and banana cheesecake are listed in the dessert repertoire, most of which is available to go. (978) 546-9593. Entrées, $14.95 to $20.95.
Open daily, 8 to 9:30, 8 to 7 in winter. BYOB.
Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in New England, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2004. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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