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Jackson The Inn at Thorn
Hill The acclaimed dining operation at Thorn Hill has been grandly expanded following a fire that destroyed the inn and restaurant. Rebuilt in 2003, the inn’s main floor includes a dining room seating 60, a smaller private dining room, an expanded pub/lounge and a larger kitchen for chefs McKaella and Richard Schmitt, daughter and son-in-law of the owners. There also are a chef’s table for eight in the kitchen for special culinary occasions, as well as a dining area in innkeeper Jim Cooper’s new 2,500-bottle wine cellar. Chef Richard offers three-course dinners for guests and the public, plus frequent wine dinners. His opening menu started with the likes of warm lobster vichysoisse, bacon-wrapped scallops on truffled polenta, Thai coconut-steamed mussels, and Nigerian prawn pad thai in sweet and sour sauce. Main courses included lobster and scallop risotto in lobster cream with wasabi caviar, sake-marinated halibut on crispy soba noodles, braised pheasant with dried cherries, and lamb loin poached in olive oil with roasted garlic, harissa and port wine reduction. Richard’s version of surf and turf – called “steak and potato two ways” – pairs Hawaiian tuna and New York sirloin. Desserts are pastry chef McKaella’s forte. Her repertoire is full of surprises: a honey-roasted pear with gorgonzola-dulce ice cream and a balsamic syrup, sautéed chioga beets with clotted cream, blood-orange gélee with a crème fraîche panna cotta, and frozen coconut mousse with a corn rum cake and grilled pineapple. Her “warm chocolate cake sundae” features root beer ice cream. A tapas menu is offered in the lounge. (603) 383-4242. Entrées, $22.95 to $29.95.
Dinner nightly, 6 to 9. Lounge menu, 5 to 10.
An old red farmhouse dating from the early 1800s holds an expanded restaurant renowned for salads, sandwiches and original dishes, plus a gift gallery and recently T.H.E. Farm Stand. At the heart of it all is chef-owner Larry Baima, lately joined by Hoke Wilson, the talented chef who had put the Inn at Thorn Hill’s restaurant at the cutting edge of New Hampshire dining. In the 27 years since it opened, T.H.E. has created many unusual dishes, some of them vegetarian. Sandwiches have flair: a crab cake BLT with herbed rémoulade sauce; turkey with asparagus spears, red onions, melted Swiss and Russian dressing; knockwurst marinated in beer and grilled with tomatoes, bacon, cheese and mustard. Ditto for salads: a spicy vegetable salsa piled on greens with kidney and garbanzo beans, shredded cheddar, sweet peppers, sprouts and more, garnished with taco chips, or cheese tortellini and rotini tossed with a sundried tomato and basil vinaigrette, served atop greens with artichoke hearts. Dinner entrées often include “Baked Popeye,” a notable spinach casserole with mushrooms, bacon and cheese, with an option of adding scallops. At one of our visits, the pork tenderloin piccata and a special of scallops with spinach, plum tomato sauce and ziti made a fine dinner by candlelight on one of the flower-bedecked rear patios flanked by huge pots of tomatoes and basil. Swiss chocolate truffle, Dutch mocha ice cream and wild berry crumble are great desserts. Kona coffee and black raspberry are among the flavors of ice cream available at the soda fountain. There's a full liquor license as well. Patrons eat in several small, rustic rooms and alcoves at tables covered with pastel floral cloths, in a glamorous skylit room (made by enclosing a former deck) with slate floors, chandeliers and hanging plants, or outside on canopied patios and a front deck. (603) 383-9341. Entrées, $18.95 to $24.95.
Lunch, Wednesday-Sunday 11:30 to 3:30. Dinner nightly except Tuesday,
5:30 to 9 or 10. Closed in April and November.
Food is what the Wildcat Inn is known for. The old front porch had to be converted into dining space to handle the overflow from the original two dining rooms, as cozy and homey as can be. There's also outdoor dining at white wrought-iron tables scattered around the prize-winning gardens in back – as idyllic a setting for summer lunch as can be found in the area. Sitting beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, we savored an autumn lunch in a small, dark inner room with bare floors, windsor chairs, woven tablecloths and blue and white china. An exceptional cream of vegetable soup was chock full of fresh vegetables; that and half a reuben sandwich made a hearty meal. We also liked the delicate spinach and onion quiche, served with a garden salad dressed with creamy dill. Dinner entrées range widely from lasagna to beef oscar. Wildcat chicken is served like cordon bleu but wrapped in puff pastry and topped with mustard sauce. Lobster lorenzo is the tavern's version of lobster fettuccine. You also can get mondo chicken with Italian sausage and apricot brandy, shrimp and scallop scampi and “the extravaganza” – shrimp, lobster and scallops sautéed with vegetables and served with linguini or rice pilaf. The desserts slathered with whipped cream are memorable. Chocolate silk pie, mocha ice cream pie, frozen lemon pie and the Mount Washington brownie topped with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, whipped cream and crème de menthe are tempters. Upstairs on the second and third floors, owners Marty and Pam Sweeney offer fourteen B&B guest rooms with private baths (doubles, $99 to $139). Some billed as suites contain sitting areas, sofabeds and reclining chairs. (603) 383-4245 or (800) 228-4245.
www.wildcattavern.com. Entrées, $16.95 to $23.95. Lunch, 11:30 to 3,
daily in summer, weekends in winter. Dinner nightly, 6 to 9 or 10.
The three dining rooms here are country elegant with an accent of Danish contemporary. There's a cozy room with Scandinavian teak chairs. The skylit and airy lower level has large windows for viewing the spotlit gardens, crabapple trees and bird feeders outside, and a large addition offers round tables at bay windows with views of the river. White cloths, pink napkins and oil lamps provide a romantic atmosphere. The continental/American dinner menu is quite extensive and, we’ve found over the years, consistently good. Among signature dishes are brandied apple chicken (featured in Bon Appétit magazine), lobster alfredo, and chicken and portobello mushrooms in puff pastry. We’ve enjoyed appetizers of Dungeness crab cakes, moist and succulent, a chock-full fish chowder and blackened carpaccio served over an extra-spicy mustard sauce. The house mimosa salads were so abundant they nearly spilled off their plates. Main dishes of beef tenderloin wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon, veal oscar and tournedos choron came with sugar snap peas and choice of creamy cheese potatoes or broccoli and pesto pilaf. Among desserts were a good strawberry tart, a refreshing lemon mousse with chambord sauce, cappuccino cheesecake and original sin chocolate cake, the last described by our server as "just fudge." Wintertime lunches are popular. Up to 300 people a day come in for sustenance off the Ellis River Cross-Country Trail that ends here. (603) 383-6822 or (800) 537-9276. Entrées,
$15.95 to $22. Lunch in winter, 11 to 3. Dinner nightly, 6 to 9.
This steakhouse is the perfect place for aprés-ski, from the “wild and crazy bar” with a wall of license plates from across the country (the more outrageous the better) to the “Skiboose,” a 1914 flanger car that pushed snow off the railroad tracks and now is a cozy dining area for private parties. Somehow the rest of this vast place remains dark and intimate, done up in red and blue colors, red candles and ice cream-parlor chairs. A canopied patio provides outdoor dining in summer. The menu, which comes inside the Red Parka Pub Tonight newspaper, features hearty steaks, barbecued ribs, teriyakis and combinations thereof, and homemade desserts like mud pie and Indian pudding. Start with nachos, Buffalo wings, spudskins or spare ribs. Snack from the soup and salad bar. Or go all out on prime rib or filet mignon. The full menu is available in the downstairs pub. (603) 383-4344. www.redparkapub.com. Entrées,
$12.95 to $23.50. Dinner nightly, 3:30 to 10. Red
Fox Bar & Grille Where the long-established Red Parka Pub is intimate and convivial, the Red Fox is all-new and, well, huge. It moved in 2003 from a not exactly small building beside the golf course in Jackson Village to a contemporary lodge-style facility across Route 16 from Jackson’s covered bridge. “People sometimes come in asking for a room,” advised the woman at the hostess station, who was keeping an eye on dining rooms seating more than 250 on all sides. Besides size, “woodfire grilling” is the hallmark of the Red Fox. Seasoned woods fire the brick oven beside the main entry, from which come handmade pizzas in countless varieties. Other specialties are pasta dishes, at least eight kinds. Also featured are “woodfire grill specialties,” from grilled salmon to baby back ribs to filet mignon. There are sandwiches and burgers, too, as well as all-American appetizers such as chicken wings and nachos. Prices are pleasantly down to earth, and the atmosphere is casual (booths in a front dining room, an enormous bar in another). A toy-filled kids’ waiting room keeps youngsters occupied. The Sunday jazz breakfast buffet is a bargain $5.95. (603) 383-4949. Entrées, $11.95 to $15.50.
Dinner, Monday-Friday from 4, Saturday from noon. Open Sunday
from 7:30.
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