Restaurants we'd send our parents to, breweries we'd send our brother-in-law to. Filtered by quadrant where it matters — sun on the dock at six, dinner by seven.
A 22-seat wood-fired barbecue spot on Main Street that sells out most nights it's open — Tuesday through Saturday from 4 p.m. until the smoker's empty. Everything is scratch-made, from the jumbo signature wings to the pulled pork. Happy hour runs 4 to 6 daily, also the safest window to get a table before the kitchen runs dry. Full bar, no reservations, no guarantee of a seat past 6:30 on a Saturday.
Newbury Harbor's deck restaurant, directly across from the town docks where the day-trip boats tie up. The seafood chowder has won enough local awards that regulars order it before opening the rest of the menu. Weekend brunch runs 11 to 2, with a pizza list deep enough to feed a group that can't agree on dinner. Closed Wednesdays — plan around it if a Newbury dinner is the goal, not a backup.
Thirty years running on Newport Road, built around natural, heart-healthy cooking rather than the fried-everything default of a New England tavern — grass-fed meats from local farms show up across the menu. The front porch and garden patio both open for warm-weather dinners; ask for the patio for a slower meal. Sunday hours start at 11, the rest of the week at 11:30, open through 9 most nights.
A six-room inn built in 1836 on Andover Road, renovated with a kitchen the owners — both career cooks — clearly prioritized over the guest rooms. Fish comes from the Boston piers rather than a regional distributor, which shows up in a menu that shifts with what actually arrived that morning. Won Best Destination Dining from New Hampshire Magazine in 2015 and still earns it. Reserve ahead here more than at the harbor spots.
The dining room inside the New London Inn, a Main Street landmark that's operated continuously since 1792. Classic American cooking with an Italian lean, served in a tavern space that doubles as the town's default after-dinner drink stop. The inn's small art gallery, past the bar, is worth the two-minute detour before or after a meal. Reserve ahead on Colby-Sawyer parents'-weekend and graduation dates — the inn fills the dining room with families.
A seasonal ice cream stand on Main Street with a deck cantilevered over the Sugar River as it runs out of the harbor — Gifford's ice cream, soft serve or hard, and a hook-and-ring game on the porch that holds a kid's attention longer than the cone does. Cash only, no exceptions, so stop at an ATM before walking down from the lot. The regulars' order is a small hard-pack, not the soft-serve swirl.
New London's brewpub since 1996, built inside what was once a dairy bar and, before that, the Four Corners Grille dating to 1993. Twenty house beers rotate through a farm-to-table kitchen with gluten-free and vegetarian options built in rather than bolted on, and the building runs partly on solar and biomass. Open seven days, closing at 8 early in the week and 9 Thursday through Saturday.