Dinner at Groton’s Gibbet Hill Grill

Groton is an adorable New England town. Cute Main St. with cafes, bakery, and pizza shop, great conservation land and trails, a rail trail for walking & bike riding, plenty of picturesque horse farms, and not one, but two boarding schools. Groton is home to Lawrence Academy & Groton School. Both schools owe their founding in some part to the Lawrence family, which I am actually a descendant from! I am planning to run around both schools this summer, they are gorgeous, you will love them. Groton School was actually in School Ties!

Anyways, Gibbet Hill Farm is walking distance to Lawrence Academy and they have both a restaurant called Gibbet Hill Grill and a function/wedding venue called The Barn at Gibbet Hill.

The menu at the grill is amazing. Entrees were priced from the teens to twenties and steaks could be a little more expensive, but the ingredients are all local. The produce for the most part comes right from their farm! We started with a bowl of the clam chowder. Living in New England, we are kinda spoiled in the clam chowder department. The Gibbet Hill version did not disappoint! It was very creamy, big clams, and great flavor. I do like it a little thicker, but it was delicious. It came in a cute little cauldron too.

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Then for entrees, Jon got the shepherd’s pie and I got the potato crispy haddock with bacon and potato corn chowder. Both entrees were amazing. The beef in the shepherd’s pie was awesome, which shouldn’t be a surprise because it is a steakhouse, and the corn chowder that came with my haddock was so good. Jon also got a side of mac n cheese which was huge, so we had that with our dinner the next day too! The bar was great, many choices for wine, beer, and spirits/cocktails. I got a Belgian wit beer and Jon got the Gibbet Hill Brew which is an IPA made by Berkshire Brewing Company.

Below are just some pictures I snapped in the restaurant. The building has the big beautiful wooden beams, a fireplace, adorable navy blue/cream checked table cloths, and an open counter/window into the kitchen which I love. The artwork was all farm related, portraits of prize steers and vintage memorabilia/farm items.

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There is some historical significance to the property and a trail system that you can explore seen here. I would really like to go back with the pup to explore and watch the sunset from the hill, and then head into the grill for some chowder 🙂 Jon and I don’t go out to dinner all that often, maybe once a month, so when we do, we like to go somewhere nice and sort of have an experience I guess too. The other places I have on my list are the Colonial Inn in Concord and the Wayside Inn in Sudbury! Where do you go for your special dinners with friends or family?

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Weekend Eats: Park Plaza Hotel & The Bancroft

This past weekend I went out to dinner on both Friday & Saturday night! Many of you know from reading that I am trying to save money these days, but it couldn’t be helped. Friday night, I went out for a friend’s birthday to Off the Common, the lobby restaurant in the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. The Park Plaza Hotel was built in 1925 and actually used to be beachfront property before the bay was filled in to make Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Crazy. There are so many restaurants in that area; we chose Off the Common because we had a room in the hotel and it was really easy for meeting up with people right in the lobby. We had wine and ordered mussels, lobster mac & cheese, buffalo chicken pops, the charcuterie plate, and a chicken & mushroom flatbread to share. From there we went out to Whisky Saigon and had a great time dancing with friends. There was an interesting crowd there, college age all the way up. The music was great and it was really easy to get a bartender, which is a huge plus in Boston. Only thing I didn’t like was the only water they gave you was bottled for $5….oh well.

Here are a couple pics I took off the Park Plaza Hotel website….its a gorgeous older hotel, definitely in a great location too!

Currently they are doing some work to this part of the hotel, this pic is better than mine!
Currently they are doing some work to this part of the hotel, this pic is better than mine!
Here is the Off the Common restaurant. Very casual and lounge-like, I really liked it!
Here is the Off the Common restaurant. Very casual and lounge-like, I really liked it!

Saturday night my fiancé, Jon, and I went to The Bancroft in Burlington, MA. We had a gift card and had a birthday party to go to at Kings afterwards. The Bancroft is the latest restaurant from the Webber Restaurant Group, who also own the Gibbet Hill Grill at Gibbet Hill Farm in Groton and the Scarlet Oak Tavern in Hingham. The Webber family bought the Gibbet Hill Farm back in 2000 and their mission is provide a quality dining experience using sustainable & local food sources. Most of the produce for the restaurants comes from Gibbet Hill Farm and I believe most of the meat comes from Blood Farm in Groton.

The food was so good. I ordered the Reissdorf Koelsch, a delicious German beer, and the seared Ahi tuna with carrot puree. My fiancĂ© got the Kurobuta pig chop with truffle polenta fries. We also got the yukon gold mashed potatoes to share, and their chocolate cake  for dessert. The cake came with their homemade vanilla gelato and was filled with a chocolate espresso sauce. If my wallet/body could handle eating like that every night, I would haha. The bread came in the most adorable little cast iron tray, and the beer came in the correct glass for a koelsch…everything was really just perfect. I don’t usually take pictures of my food, but maybe I should start huh?

A couple of the drinks on the cocktail menu cracked me up. One was “What would Bill Murray Do?” and another was “It’s a baby whale, bro”. Now, the second one is only funny if you have seen the youtube video of two guys with wicked Boston accents talking about a sun bathing sunfish. Totally normal behavior for a sunfish after its been on a deep swim.  I will link it here, but he drops a lot of F-bombs, so beware the setting that you watch it….it is really funny though.

Saturday morning, we went and checked out the Fruitlands in Harvard MA, it was so fun. It was a perfect activity to do with the pup on a nice fall day, I will post it tomorrow! First thing off my list of 50 places to see in MA!

Now as I said, I don’t usually go out to eat this much because eating out is expensive, but Friday was a birthday dinner for a friend, and we all split starters to keep out tab down because we are all saving money for one thing or another. Saturday night was lovely because we had a gift card from my fiancĂ©’s boss for our engagement.

What did you do this weekend? Any good restaurants or outings? I hope so!

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