Queequeeg’s is a lovely little restaurant with both indoor and outdoor seating facing Souter Water Street (it’s actually a few feet up Oak St and facing the Rose and Crown). It is also adjacent to the Town restaurant which has the same ownership.
The menu at Queequeeg’s could be called Nantucket American, with six appetizers and seven entrees on the menu, although they add three or four specials every day. Indoor seating is probably around 30 or so, but in good weather, the outdoor tables are delightful as well.
We found the staff very helpful and friendly and the food really extremely good for relatively small restaurant. We would hazard a guess that every entrée is as good as the ones we had yesterday. For appetizers, we had a choice of mussels, beet salad, clam chowder, Caesar salad (We saw this one and it looked great), tuna tartare and a crab cake.
We both started with the Crab Cake ($17), with romesco and summer pepperonata. All in all the crab cakes had a nice spicy flavor, with both the romesco sauce and the peppers adding nice notes. We only wish the crab to bread crumb ratio had leaned to a bit more crab.
But this was more than redeemed by a spectacular Bolognese ($26) containing pork, beef, veal and pancetta crumble, served with pappardelle, garnished with thin slices of really flavorful ricotta salata. You might dismiss this as just more “spaghetti and sauce,” but this Bolognese was truly superior. Every bite was a delight, with flavors from the meats, the pancetta, the pasta and the sauce. It was one of best we’ve ever had!
All this is not to diminish the qualities of the equally delicious Shrimp Scampi ($29), served with linguini, confit tomato, arugula and white wine. Again, the mixture of flavors of the tomato, the shrimp, the garlic and the linguini were simply top notch. Again a really good job elevating a common dish to fine cuisine!
We ended splitting a dessert dubbed Chocolate Caramel Parfait, but which seemed to us more like avery good chocolate mousse. At any rate, it was an excellent finish to the meal.
Queequeeg’s is open every day but Sunday for brunch and dinner, and you will find it an absolute delight.
Food Science Institute 