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.

Schooners

Schooners is a simple place on Broad St (Steamboat wharf) that has sandwiches and main courses. We stopped in for a late lunch of lobster rolls and cokes. The lobster rolls were fine, although I would have preferred a bit less celery. They came with excellent French fries. Schooners is probably a good choice for an informal meal, but the road may be noisy because of all the trucks going to and from the ferry. Service could have been a bit faster, but they were very pleasant. The lobster rolls were $15.50 each and the bill with 2 cokes was $38.

For dinner, we ordered pizza from Sophie T's pizza. Always a good choice, but even that cost nearly $20.

We also considered LoLa 41 for dinner. This is a weird little place that has both sushi and bistro food. However, when we found that a fried clam appetizer was $15 and a hamburger $20, we decided to skip it.

American Seasons

To my mind, American Seasons
is one of Nantucket's finest restaurants. It is not all that formal: no white tablecloths, and kind of dark (try to get a table near a window to make reading the menu easier). The cengtral conceit of this restautant is food prepared in the styles of the four corners of the US: New England, the South, the Southwest and the Pacific Coast. In each category there are appetizers and entrees. However, they are not cheap. Appetizers can be $15 and the entrees up to $42. Last night, we had a tomato/beet salad, a Southern Fried Quail, Veal chop with sweetbreads and a rib-eye steak with mashed potatoes. All were excellent, although the rib-eye was a bit more tender than the veal chop. The mashed potatoes were whipped with plenty of butter, so they had a really rich taste.

They served bread and even seconds on the bread. The salt-crusted baguette was superb. However, the bread did not come until after the first course was delivered. This seemed to happen at other tables, too and ought to be corrected.

The desserts were a strawberry tart with ricotta and a "Flying Elvis," which was a dense chocolate cake with bananas and peanut sauce. The tart was the better of the two. We highly recommend American Seasons, but with drinks the bill came to $172.

The Company of the Cauldron

The Company of the Cauldron is unique in that each night they provide a single 4-course meal for a fixed price. Originally this was $45, but after some years it is now $56. Lobster nights are $70.
We first became enamored of this restaurant some years ago when the chef was Matthew Zadrozny. When he left, the quality fell and we stopped going. He has returned and we decided to see how they are doing. Tonight's menu was

Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with Bartlett Farm Corn Fritters and a Fresh Black Berry Vinaigrette

Salad of Baby Red Romaine with Elin’s Herbed “Ranch” and Dressing Applewood Smoked “Bacon Bits”

Dijon-Herb Rubbed Rack of Lamb
with Cranberry Pearl Cous, Cous and a Tamirind Demi

Mango and Candied Ginger Sherbet with Almond Biscotti


We were mixed on this dinner. The shrimp were fine but one of us found the "fritter," which was basically a pancake with corn in it rather dry.

The salad was a few leaves of red romaine with some ranch dressing and too much bacon, although a person next to me said he was from the South where they put bacon on everything and he thought it was fine.

The lamb was superb without any question, although the cous-cous was not very interesting.

One of us enjoyed the mango ginger ice cream (not sherbet) and the other was less thrilled.

The bread was good and the tea properly served in a pot.

One thing to note is that the 2-person tables are 9-12 inches apart in 3 rows, so you'd better enjoy talking with your companions. We did. But this makes things quite noisy. There is a harpist during dinner but people pretty much talked over her.

A 4-course dinner for $56 is a pretty good deal on Nantucket, and even with this mixed review, it is worth considering this restaurant. Check to make sure that you like the menue that night before making reservations. They post the menus as week or more in advanc eor their web site.

21 Federal Street

21 Federal Street is a venerable institution, widely respected and loved on Nantucket, in a Greek Revival house on Federal St in downtown Nantucket. The is broken up nto many small dining rooms, each with 4-5 tables. The staff is well-trained and courteous.

While all the items are excellent, the menu is quite small. On the day we visited, there were 5 entrees and 6 appetizers and 4 salads to choose from. The entrees were Yellowfin tuna, halibut with risotto, roast chicken, lamb chps and aged steak. The chicken was $36, the steak $50 and the others about $43.

The appetizers were corn bisque with shrimp, portabella mushrooms, salt cod fritters, PEI mussels. foie gras and quail.

We chose the yellowfin tuna with cepes, the halibut, the mussels and a pear-beet salad. All were excellent.
The tuna was served with several types of mushrooms and a dark sauce. The halibut was served with a corn risotto. The ample bowl of mussels came with a rich garlic broth and the pear salad with a sort of ginger cookie and cream cheese.

To indicate the level of service here, the waitress stopped by about 2 minutes after the entree was delivered to ask how we like it. I said that I wished that the tuna were it little warmer. It was served quite rare and was barely warm. She whisked it away, warmed it (cooking it a bit more as well) and redelivered replated on a new plate with new garnishes in less than 3 minutes. Amazing thoughtful service!

Desserts were all $13. We chose a flourless red chocolate cake, and a pot du creme with cookies.
The rich cake was almost a mousse, and the pot du creme was just cold chocolate pudding, but it came with 4 pairs of unique cookies.

Quibbles: they only brought one roll and never came back. We had to ask for butter instead of the somewhat boring olive oil they provided. And the tea was brought as hot water in a pot along with 6-7 Tazo tea bags, only 2 of which actually contained real tea. Our biggest quibble was the noise level. One loud table can make these rooms quite noisy, and our was.

Dinner with 4 drinks and tax but before tip was $197.
An excellent evening.

The Ropewalk

The Ropewalk is at the end of Straight Wharf, and features informal service but rather good food. One main reason for eating at the Ropewalk is that it looks right out on the yachts in the harbor.
Service is pleasant and informal, and the food is quite good. Entree's run from $29 to $36. During high season parking near Straight Wharf is pretty impossible. You will need to park some blocks out and walk in.

The menus runs to seafood with one token steak and chicken dish. There is also a lighter menu at lunch.

Note well that the large waist-to ceiling windows along the front are usually open, and tables along the windows can be quite cool, since this is much the same as eating outside. They will move you or close the windows if you ask.

A typical meal would be a drink, an appetizer and a main course, and dessert. They do not serve bread and butter and do not provide crackers with the soup.

We both chose the special soup of the night: a corn-crab chowder with poblano peppers. Even though it was spicier than one of us expected it was excellent. For the main course we had crab-stuffed flounder with lemon sauce and striped bass served with a shrimp garlic sauce. Both orders came with stir fried mixed vegetables and a rice dish. The rice served with the flounder came with small pieces of cranberries, and the rice served with the bass came with small pieces of spinach with it.

Overall, we felt that the flounder/rice was quite successful. The lemon sauce was eye-openingly strong, but by the 2nd or 3rd bite we judged it very good. The bass was less successful: there was little flavor in the sauce and the spinach-rice has little taste at all. Dinner for two with 3 drinks and tax, but before tip was $119.

All in all a pleasant evening.

Introduction

We spend the first 2 weeks of September on Nantucket Island, noted for a large variety of extremely fine restaurants. The following are our impressions this year. Two things to note: This is the END of the season and there are always some staff changes among the servers that can make service choppy. On the other hand the crowds are far less than during the summer and this should if anything improve service.