Oran Mor

Oran Mor is one of the finest restaurants on Nantucket. Two years ago, the chef changed in a sort of rolling hand-off where each chef moved to a new restaurant. Chef Chris Freeman moved from Toppers at the Wauwinet to take over as chef and owner of Oran Mor. This year Oran Mor has fully hit its stride with excellent service and superb food.

We started with cocktails and an excellent sun-dried tomato (and salt crusted) foccacia followed by an onion-Gruyere tart ($14) that was spectacularly successful, served with several types of small lettuce leaves as a garnish.

One of us had Wolf's Neck Farm NY strip steak with mashed potatoes, Vidalia Onion Relish and Escargot Butter ($39) and the other grilled spiced Pekin Duck Breast and leg Confit with quinoa, wheat berries and plum chutney ($36) . The steak was tender and medium rare as we requested. It was served with buttery mashed potatoes and excellent crisp green beans. The duck was supposed to be a combination of breast and confit, but there was only one small slice of confit, the rest being superb tender pink duck breast. It was served on a rich, dark risotto-like quinoa and topped with bits of pineapple.

For dessert one of us had a peach Savarin soaked in peach juices and liqueur and topped with cherry ice cream, and the other had a plate of 3 artisanal cheeses. Both were excellent. The bill with one cocktail and 2 glasses of Pinot Noir was $171 including tax.
We are happy to recommend this lovely restaurant to anyone coming to Nantucket as one of its very best!

The Hen House

The Hen House is a lovely place to have traditional breakfasts. They provide delicious meals, well-prepared at reasonable prices. Our breakfast included blueberry pancakes, American breakfast of eggs, sausage, potatoes and home-made toast, coffee, tea and one large orange juice for $21.46. It is out near Stop and Shop and not really accessible without a car of bicycle, but well worth the trip.

They also serve lunches and take-out dinner food in the summer season.

The Brotherhood of Thieves

The Brotherhood of Thieves is an informal restaurant serving sandwiches, beer and simple fare, popular with families and young people. The original pre-renovation restaurant is downstairs: dark and noisy and the tables in the upper floor are brighter and quieter.

After yet another visit this year to make sure, we don't understand its popularity. The food and service are mediocre, although the prices are quite reasonable. You could do better at the Atlantic cafe or Schooners.

We had a good cup of chili (sweet-sour with vinegar in it) and quahog (clam) chowder that actually had a few clams. The chowder base was smooth and thick without being gluey. The main courses: a turkey Reuben and a hamburger with Stilton were not that great. The hamburger was sizable but not all that juicy and the turkey Reuben simply terrible. It was dry and tasteless. The curly fries were served in abundance, but were dry and not very flavorful. Service was slow, both in bringing the beers and in bringing the relatively simple repast.

On the other hand, it was cheap. The bill for 3 beers, 2 sandwiches and fries and 2 cups of soup was only $40.

They had a "cheese board" posted, offering a few slices of Stilton, Vermont Grafton Cheddar, and two other cheeses for $11.50 each. You can buy Vermont Grafton cheddar in the supermarket for about $11 per pound, and it is good but nothing special. Why order it as if it were gourmet cheese?

Stick with the sandwiches, but don't expect much. Better yet, go elsewhere.

The Boarding House

The Boarding house is a popular restaurant among Nantucket locals, partly because it is open year-round. It features a small but varied menu, good food and service. You can eat outside, inside or in the bar area. We do not recommend the bar area, as it is very noisy from music, TV and loud patrons. Outside is OK in warmer weather but not later in the season.

We found the restaurant pleasant and the service and food fairly good: some of it quite excellent. One of us had fluke($30) and antipasto($12), while the other had littleneck clams($16) and a double pork chop($35). The focaccia served with the antipasto was excellent, crusted with nigella seeds. The remainder of the anitpasto included pickled beets, zucchini with mint, and a spicy eggplant mixture I only tasted briefly. However, this was a very good dish.

The fluke was less successful: it was basically a piece of fried fish served with much too little sauce to keep it from being dry, over beets that were very good.

The littleneck clams were served in their shells but withe a delicious butter-lime sauce. Mostly butter. The pork chop was large and served over a mac-cheese preparation using very small pasta, and topped with cabbage. It was quite good but in places a bit dry.

For dessert, we split a dish consisting of 3 freshly made small spherical brioche doughnuts ($10) and warm chocolate pot-du-creme. Excellent.

Oddly, we asked for salt and pepper and they provided us with a dual salt shaker pepper mill, but kept wanting to take it away. Once I stopped them and another time they snatched it and then quickly returned it. (Maybe they need to buy a couple more?)

The bill with one drink and 3 glasses of wine was $149 including tax. This is a fairly pleasant place but as in other visits, they need to pay a bit more attention to details.

Cioppino's

Cioppino's is a real find on Nantucket: a full-service restaurant with fine food AND reasonable prices! Last night we had an exceptional meal for a modest price (by Island standards) and found the service and food excellent.

One of us had a pear-apple salad and wild mushroom stuffed ravioli with goat cheese, tomato and black olive essence, and the other had a delicious lobster bisque with actual lobster in it, and the nightly special: red snapper with spinach and a lemon butter sauce. Each of these was well-prepared and presented. We were so full that we did not order dessert, but did have coffee. The dinner with tax and a bottle of Pinot Grigio was only $116.

The service was warm and friendly. Initially we asked to wait a second before we ordered cocktails, and the waitress then forgot to come back. When the host discovered that this had been overlooked he quickly rectified it. How restaurants recover from these slip-ups is again a measure of their quality. We might go back again before we leave!

The Atlantic Cafe

The Atlantic Cafe is basically a bar with tables and booths along one long wall. They have a dozen or so beers on tap and a menu of a couple of dozen sandwiches and common dishes. Don't dismiss this as a greasy spoon! They have the finest service of any place we've visited, and the food is all well prepared and reasonably priced. This is a fine family place where you can have a nice, simple meal.

We both had a cup of clam chowder, one of us had a cheese quesadilla platter and the other a hamburger and fries. All were excellent and with 3 beers, the price was still only $50.

The staff is courteous and brings the food and anything else you ask for rapidly and keeps the beer glasses full. Highly recommended. Only quibble was there might have been more clams in the chowder.

The Chanticleer

The Chanticleer has been for many years one of the shining lights of fine cuisine on Nantucket. It was known for fine French dining and excellent service. However, when the original owner-chef retired, the restaurant closed and re-opened under the management of the owners of Black Eyed Susan's, a trendy mid-scale downtown eatery, not known for either its service or atmosphere (or its food).

The new Chanticleer is a much more relaxed effort, closer to a bistro in style. While the main dining room looks similar to its original incarnation the lower solarium has been raised to the same level as the main dining room and is now a lovely room looking out on a very pretty garden. All of the window tables have open windows but thehy can be shut with Anderson window style cranks. It can get chilly after 7 pm so this is significant.

We found the food good to indifferent and this describes the service as well. There were only 3 indoor tables with customers while we were there (there were 4 more outside on the patio area as we left). Despite the abundance of staff, service was very slow and inattentive. The waiter actually asked if we wanted him to bring us bread to "munch on," instead of just bringing it.

The bread was warm and crusty, but devoid of bread flavor, like "brown and serve" rolls of yesteryear.

One of us had a beet salad and roast chicken while the other had duck confit and scallops.

The beet salad featured only 3 slices of beets, of limited flavor, and was served with (get ready for this!) iceberg lettuce, as well as candied pecans! There was an indifferent bleu cheese dressing as well.

The duck confit was actually quite good. It was salty (as required by real confit preparation) and was warm and tasty. It was served with crunchy Brussell's sprouts and allegedly with a small amount of "sauce Dijon."

The roast chicken was not dried out and was served with undercooked potatoes and artichoke hearts, but had no particular flavor of its own.

The 3 scallops were served with 2 pastry wrapped sausage slices between them (and fennel puree, so they say), two asparagus spears and an indifferent yellow-gray sauce with no particular taste.

We did not order any desserts, (or coffee or tea) but they were only 5 desserts and nothing memorable among them.

The bill for two people, including one cocktail (12) and 2 glasses of white burgundy wine ($15 each) and a bottle of water we ordered by accident ($8) was $167 before tip.

It was far less than it would have been at the prior Chanticleer in price, quality, and service. Never did the waiter come by to ask if we were satisfied. We weren't.