2 Best Restaurants in The Seacoast, New Hampshire

This romantic, urbane restaurant set inside the early-19th-century Inn by the Bandstand offers exceptional five-course tasting menus featuring farm-to-table fare that changes often to reflect what's in season. Typical offering include sea scallops with orange and fennel, and lamb with Brussels sprouts, shallots, and a sherry sauce, and everything is always plated beautifully. Lighter but still quite creative fare is served at the inn's other restaurant, Ambrose.

Offering stunning, reservation-only prix-fixe dinners featuring 8 to 10 small courses, this intimate open-kitchen space occupies the third floor of a converted redbrick mill building in Dover. The daily menu is based on what the talented culinary team here has sourced from farms and fishing boats—perhaps cured monkfish with green pea dashi and ramps, or lobster mushrooms with coffee, razor clams, and hazelnuts. Expect the unexpected.