Essex was a shipbuilding town when Gideon Griswold opened his inn in 1776, and the Griswold Inn — “The Gris” to everyone on the Connecticut River — has been the town’s living room ever since. It survived the town’s worst night, the British raid of 1814 that burned the fleet in the harbor, and came out the other side still pouring.
The building wears its years beautifully. The Tap Room, where the bar does its best work, occupies a 1735 schoolhouse that was moved and joined to the inn; the walls everywhere carry one of the finest collections of maritime art in the country — paintings, ship models, and firearms that would justify a museum ticket on their own. Instead, you get them with dinner.
The kitchen is classic New England: clam chowder, lobster, prime rib, and a Sunday Hunt Breakfast tradition that locals guard fiercely. There is live music most nights, a crowd that mixes sailors, antiques hunters, and families who have been coming for four generations, and a main street outside that looks like a film set of itself.
What to order: the chowder, the lobster, and a seat in the Tap Room.
Don’t miss: the maritime art collection — look up, it’s everywhere.
Historic Eats rating: 9/10