Went to Frank in Beverly, MA last night with a friend. Frank McClelland is the owner-chef, formerly of Harvest in Cambridge, L’Espalier in Boston, and Sel de la Terre in Boston. He went back to his roots with a local and season-centric offering, and OH MY was it amazing!
The space is lovely…lots of windows, high ceilings, clean design, open kitchen visible from part of the restaurant, very large covered patio seating outside.
We had 6:30 reservations, and the restaurant and bar were pretty full when we got there, and filled up completely as we ate. And even though there was a lot of people, it wasn’t noisy. My friend and I had a nice conversation without having to speak loudly. Major bonus points for that!
I had a glass of white wine (two, actually) and she had a Summer Sipper #2 … IIRC, it was a light strawberry vodka with a watermelon liqueur, i think (didn’t get a pic of the drink menu) with a pickled watermelon rind.
For apps, we chose focaccia with honey lavender butter (partially eaten before I remembered to take a picture)
and the winner of the night: warm tasso ham with fermented allium jam. The jam had a bit of a horseradishy bite, but not overwhelmingly, and it complimented the tasso ham’s sweetness perfectly.
Our mains were a half portion of Wellfleet clam chittara with smoked tomato sofrito and bacon bread crumbs for her, and a half portion of a summer short rib sugo rigatoni with creme fraiche for me.
We split a dessert of an ice cream sandwich with s’mores ice cream, toasted vanilla fluff and graham cracker crumbs.
SO GOOD! Not an every day dining location, at least not for me, as it’s certainly not an inexpensive place to dine, but a very nice treat out. Menu is ever-changing, based on availability.
