I had heard the food at the Rip Tide had improved, but was sorely disappointed. I had the…read moreSmashburger last night, but will never have it again. The burgers were overcooked, the grated cheddar cheese that was lumped on top was fresh from the refrigerator and not even melted, the French Fries were so overdone and over-salted, they were like wooden twigs. It wasn't even possible to get a bottle of ketchup; I had to keep asking for little plastic things of ketchup. Very disappointed, and will not go back.

The food here is incredible and such a hole in the wall find! The service is great and everyone…read moreworks very hard. My favorite is the dive bar burger or The bang bang shrimp:)

Tiny place, absolutely delicious! I don't have one bad thing to say about the place, food, or…read morestaff. The menu doesn't look particularly amazing, standard-ish pub fare (steak tips, fish&chips, mac&cheese) but they do them EXTREMELY well. The tips were tender and flavorful, the sneaky star of the entree was the salad with feta though. I'm pretty sure the feta was marinated in whatever outstanding salad dressing they use. The havarti grilled cheese with avocado, garlic aioli and fried egg...C'mon. You have to spend the extra $2 for the bacon jam, you will not regret it. I'm sure we've all seen truffle fries right? Some bullshit frozen garbage either drowned in cheap truffle oil, or "dusted" with truffle salt. Well, they don't do that crap here, however they do garlic fries. Hand cut, with whole cloves of roasted garlic all over. Not one or two cloves, like several heads worth of glorious, slow-roasted garlic. I managed to scrounge a couple spoonfuls of the kids mac&cheese from my son, almost lost a finger in the attempt and I found out why. They put just as much effort into the kids food as the adults. If you need a break from your witchy business in Salem, definitely stop in here.

Mac and cheese was just ehhhh, but the havarti grilled cheese was a YES. The clam chowder was cold,…read moreso I'd skip. cocktails are super unique. Definitely order the sun damage! I got the mocktail version and it was so tasty. The live music they had this night started at 9 and was super funky. You can't really have conversations during it, it's very loud, so don't go there if you're trying to have deep conversations instead of vibing to some music lol. Overall I would go back for drinks and music again!

Needed a kid friendly space after making our witch hats at the good witch of Salem. This place was…read moreperfect for fish and chips and delicious chicken sandwiches. Great beer and cocktail selection. Kids menu and booth area for some extra space. The waitress was very attentive and patient with kiddos, even made the lemonade pink! Lovely spot for family lunch while exploring Salem.

We came by for lunch after visiting the Salem Witch museum and had an ok experience. I loved the…read moreambiance, it had a very European pub feel. The staff was also very welcoming and friendly. The food however was ok. My friend ordered the harvest bowl with chicken and had the veggies pub curry with chicken. Honestly I was expecting the curry to be bomb since Irish pubs are known for their curries. My curry was a bit bland but the worst part was the rice that it was served on. It was so hard and crunchy, it was like they scraped the bottom of the pan where all the overcooked rice was. As an Asian person who eats rice almost every day, it was not pleasant to have to eat this. I notified our server who replaced it. It was a bit better but I still had bits of hard rice. Because of the bland flavor and hard rice, I don't recommend this dish. My friend said her harvest bowl was good so perhaps I should have gotten that.

New England, end of summer, and you're out and about on the rocky beaches of "noat shoa" (north…read moreshore)? Then youve got to lunch at the Landing. First, the view: you eat with your eyes they say, but you see the bay with your nose. That salty sea air makes you hungry for some chowder, or mussels, or just fish and chips. Or crab cakes. And a beer. All on the menu. All good. Sit on the deck and watch the lobster come in. Small white buckets filled by fishermen with accents. Hemingway ate here and it totally changed his style, as if. Sometimes the ambiance adds to the food and no better example than here: fish and chips, but under the sea gulls on the deck by the boats? That's a memory. Come early and/or make a reservation. Eat fast because there's a line waiting for your spot.

Great lunch with a view! We all ordered the Fish & Chips. Very fresh Haddock lightly battered and…read morenot too greasy. Paired with a tasty tartar sauce. Nice selection tion of beers and cocktails. There is a parking lot and it fills up quickly. We found a spot amd when we left, a waiting line for parking! Service was excellent. Jason was our server and he checked on us often for drink refills. Definitely a great brunch, lunch, ot dinner spot with a view! We sat out on the patio on a colder day; enclosed witg heaters running. Very comfortable.

The shrimp tacos were delicious as was the beet salad. The staff was so friendly and accommodating…read more We look forward to returning to try other menu items. Also the prices reasonable. It is a real Marblehead gem.

We really enjoyed Sea Salt tonight. It is located in the basement and enter via the back. Once you…read moreget to their outdoor patio, you know you've arrived. What a lovely spot. The restaurant is deceptively large with a pleasant atmosphere. Service was prompt even on a busy Saturday evening and our server was enthusiastic about the food. I had the goat burger, which was absolutely loaded with goat cheese. I appreciate that they are generous, so be forewarned it is a delicious and messy situation. I also tried the Brussels sprouts, which were terrific. I snuck bites of my husbands truffle fries, which were also super good. My husband ate every bite of his sea salt burger, which he reported was very good between bites. Also worth noting that the burger patties were gigantic. We finished up dinner with an Irish coffee. Yum! Overall, this is a really good choice for dinner. I'd definitely recommend stopping by here for a meal if you're in the area.

I wrote this review back in August of 2013, we lived up the street from the whistle for 7 years,…read moreAugust 2021 we moved to South Carolina, and man do I miss this place, it's changed owners in the time we went there, and was hit hard by covid. But the Whistle keeps going. We miss the crew there, the staff and the regulars. When we go back up north to visit, this is on the top of the list of places we have to go. Miss you guys!

What an unknown gem in Salem! It's not on a beaten path, but the food has got to be one of the…read morebest in town. We've been in before for their superior steak tips and burgers. We just went in and dropped a worthy $80 on lunch - 2 tequila mules, a special of buffalo bites (if u are lucky and these are on special again - order them!). Chicken kabob sandwich - juicy, perfectly grilled chicken and my husband got the mouth-watering pastrami sandwich. We packed half of it up for dinner tonight. I only gave 4 stars due to the lousy, noisy, raunchy bar flies. They couldn't care less about other customers as they were shouting and cussing away. Having a conversation with my husband was impossible. The bartender, who was 5 stars in her service to us, attempted to remind these people to stop yelling. I understand being a local, as I am one, and it makes me want to keep my favorite places in business. However, disruptive and rude bar flies should be shut out ff earlier and asked to leave or at the very least pipe down. Ultimately, I highly recommend anyone local or out of town to try The Tin Whistle for the food and service. Maybe try one of the tall comfy wooden booths would make for a better atmosphere.

Just had an amazing lunch at the Babe! Literally everything we ate was amazing. Starting with the…read moresteak and cheese that included fried mozzarella in the sandwich. The fries and side salad were excellent, and all of the veggies were crispy and fresh. The atmosphere and service were exceptional and the price was right! I highly recommend

After having it on my list for months, I came to The Babe during Restaurant Week in Salem in…read moreJanuary 2026. Restaurant Week, as per the Salem Chamber of Commerce's website, is summed up as: "Participating restaurants offered special two- and three-course prix-fixe menus, giving locals and visitors alike a chance to explore, support, and celebrate Salem's vibrant dining scene." For $45 I got cheddar jalapeño fritters, a poutine burger (hamburger with fries cheese and gravy on top, kale Caesar salad with freshly grated cheese, and fresh, piping hot apple cider donuts. The burger was hearty, the fritters popped, and the donuts hit the spot but by far the standout was the kale caesar salad with the creamy dressing over crispy and crunchy kale topped with the tangy grated cheese. A Downeast cider washed it all down and was refreshing. I went on a weekday so there were a few people sitting at the bar with me but overall the place wasn't packed. What I really appreciated was the general manager came to talk to me specifically about their Restaurant Week food selection and to get my feedback. She was super friendly and I told her about the kale caesar salad. Parking is on the street and can be hit or miss because The Babe is right on Washington Street where it starts to curve around the corner. It's worth it to keep circling though. The Babe has different events each night of the week, including Jazz Tuesdays and karaoke Fridays. I had a great time at The Babe and I appreciate how much they support the local Salem community. I am looking forward to going back!

This place is a dreamy, cozy, hidden gem. The menu has all tradition cocktails, gourmet hot dogs,…read moreand more. They have board games and cards available for customers' entertainment. The staff is extremely attentive, friendly, and skilled at their craft. You can easily stay hours in here because of the inviting ambiance and fun. Highly, highly recommend.

Recommended to us by some locals as a great place for "tourists" to go. I can't agree, since the…read moretwo bartenders on duty were slinging drinks to their buddies while ignoring us. (They clearly saw me there; we made eye contact and the one guy wasn't even doing anything.) After about 10 to 15 minutes of waiting with no service, we were about to leave when a server finally came to our table. Since they were obviously busy and weren't keeping up with the crowd that night, we tried to order two drinks each so they could save a little of their time and we could relax without worrying about if a server was going to take our order again before the end of the week. The server very sharply said that he was NOT going to give us two drinks at a time, CERTAINLY not with drinks of this high alcohol content. We ordered one drink each, cashed out and bounced. The cocktail I got was fine; I could make a slightly worse version at home at a fraction of the price (or even two at once!). We we were told later by a friendlier Salemite at a bar with a better vibe that there is a Massachusetts state law that prohibits having two drinks at once at a bar. Fair enough. Had our server told us that, unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to give us two drinks at once -- instead of making us feel like idiots/degenerates for daring to ask -- we probably would have dropped a lot of vacation money there that night. Oh well; we had a great time at the other places we went.

"Here lie the roses in the ashes Deep as the barnacles that…read morecling Just like a lace that runs through everyone and everything" (Elvis Costello) This is a tough one to write up. The food was very good, and I thought my Steamed Mussels might have been the very best version of a favorite dish I ever had. The view of the harbor from the back counter was beautiful. But..........there were a lot of buts. First of all, The Barnacle is not a large restaurant, and the dining room was so crowded, with tables and chairs so densely packed into every square inch it's really quite difficult to navigate your way around the room. In fact, after we were seated at that back counter, a server asked us if we could slide over because another patron couldn't maneuver herself into an open seat. We placed our order - a cup of clam chowder ($8), fish tacos ($14.95), and those fabulous Steamed Mussels ($18.95). And then we waited. And then we waited some more. And then the couple who sat next to us hadn't seen a server yet, so the gent walked over to the bar to get his own beer. And then we waited some more. And then our server sheepishly walked over and said she never got around to placing our order with the kitchen, so would we mind reminding her what we ordered? Now look, we had no appointment to keep and didn't mind the view of the scenery. But truthfully, the wait and delay did slice into a big chunk of our metered parking fee. And it sure would have been nice to see their service lapse translate into some tangible consideration. How about a complimentary appetizer, drink, dessert, or a cost reduction or anything. But no, there was no consideration given at all. No attempt to make things right. I'd say forgetting to place an order and not realizing the mistake for half an hour is a fairly serious issue. A waterside restaurant on a hot day really should have done a better job with the crowd, and they clearly weren't up to the task. But... those plump heavenly mussels in a sweet, herb and garlic broth were divine, and influenced my rating decision for a four-star experience.

One of our go to Local spots in Marblehead. Great location with a fabulous view of the Harbor and…read morethe lighthouse. Very friendly staff but the star of the show is the seafood. We ordered an order of steamers to share. Very good! For the main course, Fish and chops for me. As I had remembered from prior visits, the fish are outstanding. Very good cold water white fish /Haddock, cooked with a light breading so it doesn't overwhelm the fish. Fries were fine but again the star is the fish and definitely worth the visit!