Northampton’s Greatest Tables
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The Top 5 Northampton Restaurants
Homestead.
Homestead. opened on Strong Avenue in 2018 in a converted brick warehouse one block off Main Street, and within two seasons had become the address that Pioneer Valley diners cite first when out-of-town friends arrive. The dining room seats forty across an open kitchen that runs the length of the back wall, with a small bar at the front facing Strong Avenue and a single counter at the pass for solo diners. The light is low and gold; the music sits at conversational volume; the noise floor is the soft clatter of plates and the hiss of pasta water rather than amplified pop.
Wiggins Tavern at Hotel Northampton
Wiggins Tavern occupies a rebuilt eighteenth-century stagecoach inn that was disassembled and reconstructed inside the new Hotel Northampton when the hotel opened in 1927 — a piece of New England theatre that gives the room one of the most atmospheric backdrops in western Massachusetts. The dining room is dark wood throughout, with low beamed ceilings, brick fireplaces at both ends, hammered copper sconces, and a working antique cradle in one corner. The hotel sits on King Street one block off Northampton's Main Street, opposite Pulaski Park.
Eastside Grill
Eastside Grill opened on Strong Avenue in 1985 and has cooked uninterrupted ever since — long enough to be the answer for every Northampton birthday dinner, every group-of-eight company outing, every Smith College graduation when a grandparent says 'we can't go anywhere too fancy.' The dining room is a comfortable mix of dark wood booths and dressed white-cloth tables, with a separate bar room that runs a serious Sazerac and the only working oyster shucker in the Pioneer Valley. The room can absorb a party of fourteen without anyone else hearing a sound.
Spoleto Restaurant
Spoleto sits at the corner of Main and Bridge Streets, with two-storey windows facing the Calvin Theatre and Northampton's town centre, and has been one of the city's defining restaurants since opening in 1986. The dining room runs the length of a former bank building — high ceilings, terrazzo floors, white-cloth tables, and a long bar at the back that runs a strong Manhattan and a fair list of Italian and Massachusetts wines by the glass. The room can comfortably seat ninety, which makes it the city's default for any party of more than eight.
Paul & Elizabeth's
Paul & Elizabeth's opened in 1978 inside Thornes Marketplace — the converted department-store building that has been the heart of downtown Northampton for four decades — and has run on the same broadly Japanese-influenced macrobiotic principles ever since. The dining room is bright and high-ceilinged with exposed brick, hanging plants, and large windows facing Main Street. The kitchen is open to the room and the wood-fired oven is in plain view. The mood is unfussy, warm, and entirely without pretension.