The 60-year old seafood legacy is well and thriving with a new restaurant opening in Salem.
“We are a classic new England seafood house,” says Turner’s Seafood executive chef, Yale Woodson. In fact, he says it twice, emphasizing the unflinching focus of Salem’s latest upscale eatery serving excellent seafood the way locals like it.
While it’s been open just a few months, it’s hopping. Of course, the highly rated Turner’s Seafood in Melrose has been around for 20 years. And many of the successful elements implemented in that location—an on-site fish market, an oldfashioned raw bar, and an open kitchen— have also been used in the Salem location.
The menu is vast: Everything you would expect to find is on it, including rich New England clam chowder, meaty Jonah crab cakes, fried native clams, tender and tasty baked stuffed shrimp, grilled fresh swordfish, and that North Shore staple—the lobster roll. And of course, there’s the outstanding scrod, either haddock or cod, which comes fried or broiled and is served with fries and slaw. Just as it should be.
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Clam Chowder |
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Everything we ordered was prepared, plated, and served with skill and care. And that includes the dessert standbys, which we thoroughly enjoyed—traditional apple crisp and nut-crusted chocolate torte topped with whipped cream.The restaurant also includes vintage dishes such as clams casino, scallops wrapped in bacon, oysters Rockefeller, and coconut shrimp. There’s a smattering of sashimi, Italian-inspired shrimp scampi, and linguine with clams. Pretty much every fresh seafood delivery system you can think of is covered in either classic, updated, or original dishes.
Turner’s Seafood is located in Lyceum Hall, a building that’s been making history for 183 years. It’s where Bell first demoed the telephone, and more recently, where the iconic Lyceum Restaurant made its home for two decades. And now it welcomes Turner’s Seafood, which it appears has already started writing the building’s next noteworthy chapter.
The Menu
Appetizers: Clam Chowder ($4.99 cup; $6.99 bowl), Crab Cakes ($7.99) Entrées: Baked Stuffed Shrimp ($19.99), New England Scrod ($20.99)
Dessert: Apple Crisp ($6), Chocolate Torte ($6)
Location: 43 Church St., Salem, 978-745-7665, turners-seafood.com/salem