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Portsmouth Black Trumpet Bistro The 200-year-old brick and beam building that once was a ship’s chandlery is where Portsmouth’s gourmet restaurant boom originated. Now in its third incarnation, the bistro and wine bar is across the street from the harbor in a space long occupied by the Blue Strawbery restaurant that Buddy Haller made famous. Although it does not attract the national recognition of its predecessor, the local consensus is that this is less flashy and even better. The food is the domain of chef Evan Mallett, a
former While hiking with his family in 2006, Evan – an avid mushroom forager – chanced upon a meadow filled with black trumpet mushrooms. The name Black Trumpet, which at once evokes sleek lines, a wild edible mushroom and jazz, was an epiphany for the chef. He and his wife bought Lindbergh’s Crossing last year and gave it a new name. They seat 65 patrons in an atmospheric ground-level dining room and an upstairs wine bar, where a handful of tables look out onto the waterfront. Evan led the kitchen’s migration into the flavors
of His exotic menu begins with six “little dishes,” small tastes perhaps of braised octopus with chickpeas or Moorish meatballs with tzatziki and pickled spring vegetables. More substantial appetizers called “medium dishes” ranged the night we were there from Canadian mussels steamed in lemongrass-corn broth, served with a mussel fritter and curry aioli, to fried soft-shell crab with jicama-daikon pickle, smoked corn aioli and cuitlacoche. The signature braised escargots, this night sauteed with fiddleheads and mushrooms over mimolette cream sauce, is to die for. For main courses, Evan might offer trout galantine with a warm radish and beet salad or stuff pork roulade with roasted figs and scallions and serve it with cider-glazed yams. The half lobster is poached with ricotta-semolina gnocchi, morels & asparagus in a light lobster bisque sauce. Like the rest of the menu, desserts change with the seasons. At our visit they included Valrhona white chocolate pot au crème with manila mango mousse and pineapple upside down cake with strawberry-rhubarb coulis and fennel crème fraiche. They reflected the work of an ambitious kitchen at its prime. The kitchen bakes its breads daily and showcases them in a display in the front window that catches the eye and interest of passersby. (603) 431-0887. www.blacktrumpetbistro.com. Entrées,
$19 to $33. Dinner nightly, from 5:30.
Rustic American cuisine at once returns to its roots and reaches its zenith here, thanks to a partnership between a local restaurateur and the historic Strawberry Banke museum. For Jay McSharry, the Dunaway is the “icing on the cake” of his restaurant ventures. He transformed two levels of a former barn that housed the museum’s Dunaway Store into an elegant restaurant with a refined Colonial look suitable to Strawbery Banke, the building’s owner. The old store’s entrance reveals a rich, two-story space of posts and beams. Beyond a small bar and lounge in front are a partly open kitchen at one side and airy, white-linened dining areas on the other side and in back. More dining tables get a bird’s-eye view of the scene from a loft overhead. Executive chef Mary Dumont’s fare is as rich and
historic as the setting. After a decade of cooking in In the spirit of traditional cooking appropriate for the setting, she adds creative elements to basic fare from land and sea. Her cuisine focuses on seafood fresh off the commercial fishing boats in the harbor and local produce, including historic and rare herbs, fruits and vegetables grown in Strawbery Banke's own working kitchen gardens. Dining is by candlelight, so dim that small
flashlights may be offered to illuminate the menu. Our dinner began with
a couple of the six “tastes” that head the menu: an excellent tuna
tartine with avocado and breakfast radish and a complex, rich lobster
hash that arrived on two spoons. A couple of appetizers demonstrated the
chef’s deft touch with seafood. The first was king salmon carpaccio
served with golden and Desserts like coconut-tapioca napoleon and cider doughnuts with hot mulled cider sounded strange if historic. We succumbed to an almond butter cake embellished with poached seckel pears and fig brandy sauce and a dish of concord grape sorbet that tasted as if it had been picked right off the vine outside. (603) 373-6112. www.dunawayrestaurant.com.
Entrées, $21 to $25. Lunch seasonally, Monday-Friday Pesce Blue This contemporary Italian seafood grill takes a
California twist. The 70-seat dining room is a drop-dead, knockout space
fashioned from a former bookstore. It’s long, narrow and mod, dark in
a palette of blacks and taupes and illuminated by day from windows onto
a side street and at night by striking lamp spheres dangling from the
high ceiling. Chef Mark Segal’s seafood dishes draw knowing diners day
and night. The choices change daily, but you might find sautéed
Icelandic char with lemon-caper emulsion, sautéed Maine skate with
orange-ginger sauce or grilled yellowfin tuna with green peppercorn
sauce. Some go for the house specialty, mixed grill – an assortment of
five of the day’s freshest fish with grilled vegetables. Others go for
“the whole thing” – another specialty of crispy whole local
mackerel, perhaps, or Mediterranean branzino (sea bass), salt-crusted
and grilled or oven roasted. The treats begin with such appetizers as a
crispy baccala fritter, swordfish carpaccio, a salad of grilled octopus
and fried calamari with three dipping sauces. Five seafood pastas and
risottos are available as small plates or large. The night’s menu
holds only two items called “landfood,” usually pan-roasted
“flattened” chicken and grilled ribeye steak alla fiorentina.
Desserts include a selection of sorbets, Italian crêpes and crème brûlée
served with fresh berries. A sidewalk patio is open seasonally. (603) 430-7766. www.pesceblue.com. Entrées, $16.75 to $26.50. Lunch, Monday-Friday 11:45 to 2. Dinner nightly, 5 to 9:30 or 10.
There are some who tout this newcomer as the best restaurant in a city of many. Ebullient hostess Deb Weeks embraces her clientele in a genuine warmth and her co-owner and chef, Colorado native Phelps Dieck, sends forth from a kitchen hidden in back a level of food that her customers call amazing. A noisy, fun vibe pervades the place, from the popular martini bar on one side to the nicely spaced dining tables placed around the perimeter. Framed art tapestries and a surfboard provide decorative accents for a place that doesn’t really need them, for it’s colorful in olive green and burgundy from the floor up the walls to the high ceiling. White butcher paper tops the white-linened tables, each dignified by a tiny shaded gas lamp. Phelps calls her cuisine “new American with a
flair.” Make that a global flair. For appetizers, she might steam Main courses are similarly assertive. Red snapper is encrusted in ginger and scallions and served with shiitake mushrooms, edamame soy beans and corn in a miso beurre blanc. Hawaiian sea salt and peppercorn-seared tuna is served rare over an Asian slaw and mashed potatoes with citrus butter. The Argentinian grilled flank steak is covered in a chimichuri sauce and served with a crispy potato galette. The roasted free-range chicken breast is stuffed with goat cheese and andouille sausage, and the rack of lamb roasted with a smoky maple-chipotle glaze. The martini bar concocts some wild specialty drinks and offers specialty beers and wines from around the world. (603) 427-1010. www.thegreenmonkey.net.
Entrees, $20 to $28. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday from 5.
The most elegant food and service in town are found in
this atmospheric establishment, a local institution hidden in the Custom
House Cellar. Tod Alberto and Massimo Morgia renovated the space and
named it after Tod’s father. It’s elegant, dark and grotto-like with
stone and brick walls, arches, exposed beams on the ceiling and oriental
rugs on the slate floors. Aqua upholstered chairs, mauve fanned napkins
and white tablecloths add a Mediterranean look. The menu is high
Italian, as in lobster poached in sauternes and herbed butter and served
with handmade lemon-pepper fettuccine, grilled veal chop with a
currant-balsamic demi-glace and rosemary-marinated grilled beef
tenderloin in a dijon-green peppercorn cream sauce. Expect such
antipasti as veal tenderloin carpaccio, pheasant ravioli, pan-seared
crab cake with a garlic-cilantro aioli, and potato blini with smoked
salmon and caviar. Desserts include fruit tarts, bananas flambé,
tiramisu and crème caramel. (603) 436-4000. www.anthonyalbertos.com. Entrées,
$17.95 to $29.95. Dinner, Monday-Saturday 5 to 9:30 or 10:30.
A former chef from Anthony Alberto’s opened his own
restaurant in the space known earlier as The Grotto. No more grotto,
this. Geno Gulotta christened it a kitchen and wine bar, hung its aqua
brick walls with fine paintings and furnished it with Hungarian antique
sideboards for an elegant continental look. The contemporary
international menu ranges widely. Among “small plates and bowls” are
wonderful Maine mussels steamed in chardonnay, garlic, fennel and tomato
and served with grilled olive focaccia. The crisp duck spring rolls and
a pan-seared Maine crab cake with slivered endive and watercress salad
come highly recommended. For “large plates,” consider the pumpkin
seed-crusted haddock with tomato-balsamic syrup, porcini-dusted john
dory with oven-dried tomato vinaigrette, the roast breast and confit of
duck with caramelized apple jus or the grilled bourbon-molasses rubbed
elk chops with dried blueberry jam. Dessert could be crème brûlée or
chocolate hazelnut ganache. (603) 430-0225. www.fortythreenorth.com. Entrées,
$19 to $27. Dinner, Monday-Saturday from 5.
Fresh seafood from around the country is featured at
this mod new place that started small and quickly quadrupled in size.
Jay McSharry, co-owner with chef John Harrington, named it to convey a
lively and unpretentious atmosphere. “Fish with an attitude” is how
he describes the fare. One day’s catch included sable fish from
Alaska, wahoo from Florida, John Dory from Gloucester and yellowfin tuna
from Baja. Each came with a choice of sauces, among them roasted red
pepper relish, lobster velouté and spicy poblano-chipotle coulis.
Lobster risotto is a signature dish. Others are haddock piccata and
jonah crab and vegetable lasagna. Each night, you can order mussels,
scallops, shrimp or chicken served puttanesca or provençal style over
linguini. Starters range widely from rock shrimp and wonton napoleon and
Maine crab cake with chipotle aioli to smoked salmon tartare and a
sashimi tuna and avocado salad. Dessert could be crème brûlée or
chocolate-kahlua mousse cake. Well-spaced white tables with black chairs
are situated beneath string lights in a mod red and white, high-tech
setting. A circular, stainless steel bar is in the center. (603) 766-3474. www.jumpinjays.com. Entrées,
$14.95 to $23.95. Dinner nightly, 5 or 5:30 to 9:30 or 10. Victory
Situated near the Strawbery Banke museum complex, an aura of history surrounds this three-story brick Federal townhouse that served for more than 50 years as the home of the Victory Spa Diner and later Victory Antiques. Chef-owner Duncan Boyd retained part of the name a
Greek immigrant had given the diner in the waning days of World War II
to support his new American countrymen. The name was a natural to
reflect The restaurant on two floors is a beauty, with brick walls and tables spaced well apart from which to enjoy the glow from six fireplaces. There’s a casual dining area near the expanded bar and front lounge on the main floor and a more formal setting upstairs. The pine tabletops on the main floor were made with planks from the wide-board floors found in the building’s attic during the restoration. The second-floor dining room is hushed and refined, its tables dressed in white linens and its brick walls above mahogany wainscoting hung with nautical prints. The chef grows herbs in a small garden on the
kitchen roof to enhance his seasonal, market-based cuisine. His Typical starters include seared foie gras with brandied peaches, steamed mussels with chorizo sausage and sweet peppers, a golden fried tomato stuffed with lobster salad and avocado, and a salad of smoked trout and frisée with potato croutons and a poached egg. Dessert could be a selection of farmstead cheeses, peach upside-down cake with buttermilk ice cream or warm chocolate soufflé cake with caramel anglaise. The full dinner menu is served upstairs and down. A new bar menu, exclusive to the main floor, offers “lite bites and things to share,” plus a few entrées like hunter-style chicken with house-made noodles and grilled flatiron steak. (603) 766-0960. www.96statestreet.com. Entrées,
$18 to $27. Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday n such main courses as seafood bourride with saffron
aioli, pan-fried trout with a crabapple chutney, a smoked lobster croque
monsieur, coq au vin or beef tenderloin au poivre. Typical starters are
mussels marinière, frog’s legs over spicy rémoulade, escargots with
raclette and coriander-crusted rare tuna with provençal sauce. Desserts
include a signature “medium rare chocolate cake” (whose center is
described as the consistency of chocolate pudding), blueberry-lemon crème
caramel and bing cherry clafoutis with whipped cream. (603) 431-0887. www.lindberghscrossing.com. Entrées,
$17 to $28. Dinner nightly, from 5 or 5:30. Wine bar from 4. Material excerpted from Getaways for Gourmets in the Northeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2006. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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