💙💙💙 | $$ | My go-to for a great, fun downtown meal has always been this lively house with intimate booth seating. The raw bar is fresh, sweet potato ravioli rich and seductive, gumbos deep and mysterious. A stellar Gorgonzola-vinaigrette house or Caesar salad comes with every full main, and half-portions are served. The well-chosen wine list sometimes includes great local reds from Mineral Hills Winery in Florence.
When I think of fried seafood in my hometown, the first place that comes to mind is Eastside Grill, a restaurant that opened in 1985 and has aged with exceptional grace under the leadership of a management and culinary team that’s been around for decades. Inside a gracious old white house, a series of warmly lit rooms draw you in with a pleasant buzz every night, and a kind and informal staff that treats every customer like family.
But there’s so much more than the indoors. Over the past few years, Eastside has helped spearhead the Summer on Strong program, which for several months transforms Strong Avenue in downtown Northampton into a giant pedestrian-only piazza, an outdoor-dining block that rivals Boston’s North End for vibrancy. Beyond Eastside, Summer on Strong includes its neighbors Local Burger, Homestead, Familiars Coffee & Tea, the Tunnel Bar, and Progression Brewing. Summer on Strong kicks off in May and continues into the early fall.
On a warm spring or summer evening, Eastside’s lamp-lit alleyway behind the building, spread with tables, gives off an aura of romance that evokes New Orleans. This dovetails well with the restaurant’s unique culinary concept, which is to cross New England seafood with New Orleans-style creole and cajun. This might not seem like the most obvious move, but the northeast Atlantic and Louisiana Gulf coasts happen to be two of the greatest seafood-frying regions in the world, so it’s no surprise that Eastside is a champion at this.
Start with a well-mixed bloody mary (the house version comes with two juicy cocktail shrimp), a generously sized dry martini, or a local draft beer, or order from one of Northampton’s best-value wine lists. One time in late 2023 I found the Mineral Hills Cabernet from Florence, which was my #1 local wine pick of the year.
Next you can move on to some of the city’s best oysters on the half shell—if you sit at the bar, you’ll be treated to a full frontal shucking. The classic American spinach-and-artichoke dip, a favorite for all ages, is also done right here.
Better still are Eastside’s fried oysters: big, indulgent Gulf-style delights, plump and well-seasoned, not too briny, with a pink rémoulade that gets some peppery heat from Tabasco and stands up to the deeply flavorful batter.
Fried popcorn shrimp, like fried oysters, are well crisped and bubbled hot and fast enough to preserve the moistness of the meat inside.
The star of the show still awaits: I would challenge you to find a better gumbo anywhere on the East Coast than Eastside’s rotating gumbos of the day, almost all of which incorporate smoky andouille sausage.
The kitchen also has a way with Gorgonzola, starting with their famous Gorgonzola garlic bread, which absorbs tangy cheese crumbles, melted butter, and garlic so richly that they penetrate every bite of bread.
Big crumbles of Gorgonzola also show up in a pleasantly acidic vinaigrette on the house salad that comes with every full-sized main. You can also upgrade to a well-executed and (optionally) anchovied Caesar salad. If you’re in a party of two or more, I recommend sharing at least one of each.
Among mains, the fried chicken, served with buffalo sauce, is always a winning choice, even though it’s a breast with no bone—a light, crunchy batter coats the juicy meat well. Rotating vegetable sides might include garlicky green beans with an al-dente pop.
That same expertise with the deep fryer does good work with cornmeal-crusted fish and chips, and there are also expertly blackened steaks (though boneless), and other New Orleans-themed fare. I have always been less impressed, however, with jambalaya, étoufée, and sautéed-chicken-breast dishes.
Rich, sultry sweet-potato ravioli, smothered in a gorgonzola cream sauce with wilted spinach, is my mom’s favorite order here. As a result, she’s always a frequent fork-jacking victim of all the flex-Ketos at the table. The ravioli dish, like several other mains, is also available in a half-portion for smaller appetites, but my mom has learned from experience not to do that.
