Hanover’s Greatest Tables
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Pine at the Hanover Inn
Pine occupies the principal dining room of the Hanover Inn — Dartmouth College's official hotel, owned and operated by the college, anchoring the south-east corner of the Green at the intersection of East Wheelock and South Main Streets. The room itself was redesigned in 2012 during the inn's reconstruction: low-slung leather banquettes, a long marble bar near the entrance, a wood-burning hearth set into the stone wall, and a wall of windows looking out across the Green to Baker-Berry Library and the Dartmouth campus. About one hundred covers across the main room, the bar, and a covered terrace that opens for the four months of New England spring and summer.
Carpenter & Main
Carpenter & Main occupies an 1810 white-clapboard farmhouse on Main Street in Norwich, Vermont — five minutes by car from the Dartmouth Green across the Ledyard Bridge, but a different state, a different town centre, and a markedly different mood. Chef-owner Bruce MacLeod, an Upper Valley culinary veteran whose CV runs through Maine's Hartstone Inn and a long tenure as the inn's chef before opening Carpenter & Main in 2003, runs two parallel rooms in the same building: a downstairs bistro with a long zinc bar, exposed brick, candle-light tables, and a working-bistro menu; and a fine-dining room upstairs with white linen, a tighter table count, and an refined tasting-style menu. The same kitchen serves both; the wine list is shared; the choice belongs to the guest.
Tuk Tuk Thai Cuisine
Tuk Tuk Thai Cuisine occupies a narrow second-floor walk-up on South Main Street in Hanover, directly opposite the Dartmouth Green, opened in 2013 by Bangkok-born chef-owner Ko Sa-ngwan after a long apprenticeship in Boston's Chinatown Thai kitchens. The room itself is modest — about forty-five covers across a long dining room with hardwood floors, dark-wood tables, a hanging-lantern lighting scheme, and a small bar near the entrance. The walk-up staircase from Main Street is the only signal of the room above; the entrance is easy to miss for a first-time visitor.
Murphy's on the Green
Murphy's on the Green has occupied 11 South Main Street since 1989 — a corner address one door north of the Hanover Inn, with leaded-glass front windows looking onto South Main and the Dartmouth Green. The dining room runs through two linked spaces: a front bar area with high tops, a long mahogany bar, and a chalkboard beer list; and a more formal back dining room with banquettes, hardwood floors, framed Dartmouth memorabilia (varsity team photos from the 1930s onward, oars from the Dartmouth rowing programme, framed Hanover Gazette front pages), and a generously spaced table count. About a hundred and ten covers across both rooms; the back room takes the larger parties.
Molly's Restaurant & Bar
Molly's Restaurant & Bar has occupied a deep storefront at 43 South Main Street in Hanover since 1985, three blocks south of the Dartmouth Green on the same row that holds the local stationer, the long-running camera shop, and a bookstore. The room itself is the warm Hanover bistro format — exposed brick, dark wood, generously spaced tables, an open kitchen at the back with a visible stone pizza oven, and a long L-shaped bar near the entrance that takes walk-in dining. About a hundred and twenty covers across the main room, the bar, and a small mezzanine that takes private parties of up to twenty.