It was a beautiful almost summer Saturday and a good day for a drive to the North Shore to check out a restaurant that’s been on our radar for a while: Ithaki in Ipswich.
Late afternoon, we wound our way through the picturesque towns of Wenham and Hamilton and arrived in Ipswich easily finding the restaurant located downtown.
We grabbed two at the bar and ordered a couple of drinks. Being in a Mediterranean restaurant leaning heavily on Greek, I had a very good dry white from Santorini and Roy started with a Retsina.
Sitting at the bar there are big decisions to be made because you can either order from the bar or the restaurant menu. Not being able to decide because everything looked so mouthwatering, we decided to start with flash fried mussels with a Turkish tartar sauce and Keftedes, crusty herbed meatballs with Tzatzike sauce. Oh man-just wow! Time for another glass of wine and some more studying of the menu. We had a perfect view of the kitchen and what was coming out was looking exceptionally good. On the suggestion of the bartender, I opted for an open faced roast lamb sandwich with caramelized onions, roasted peperonata & aioli. Along with the sandwich came the biggest chunks of roasted potatoes. The lamb was thinly sliced and moist. Roy ordered a carbonara with seared scallops and peas served over house made spaghetti. Yes, a carbonara but Roy has a thing for good carbonara and this one did not disappoint.
We couldn’t leave without some dessert. The bartender told us that they had a special dessert called Galaktoboureko, an egg custard baked in phyllo. It’s very special in Greece and it was outstanding! So if you go, ask for that special dessert! Better than baklava!
As always there was more on our plates than we could eat so we packed the leftovers and enjoyed the remainder of the lamb sandwich on Sunday along with a little carbonara!
Now we understand why this restaurant is so high on everyone’s list. After a day at Crane’s Beach, it’s a perfect stop.
See you at the bar….
