6 Great Restaurants for Out-of-Town Parents

6 Great Restaurants for Out-of-Town Parents

Ah, Labor Day…the weekend that thousands of parents entrust local colleges with their offspring and leave town, hoping for the best. One last fabulous dinner before you leave town is certainly in order, but in one of America’s top foodie states, where do you go? Ann and Michael Martini choose half a dozen great places to fuel up and say goodbyes.

Buttoned-down at Brown

Hemenway's, Providence

Classic is as classic does, and proud parents of students at our local Ivy need look no further than a classic Providence institution. Hemenway's was started by fabled restaurateur Ned Grace almost thirty years ago and continues to reign as one of Providence’s best seafood restaurants. The bonus for visitors is the grand scale of this goegeous space, which features floor-to-ceiling windowns with great views of the city. Grace named Hemenway’s after his grandfather, who took a seventh-grade education and an entrepreneurial spirit to incredible heights. The raw bar here is super fresh, the lobster bisque is the best in the city, and the wine list is divine. We always start off with the oysters topped with baby spinach, sherried lobster cream and toasty, parmesan bread crumbs. We also love the Point Judith flounder, with its potato/shallot crust, corn and bacon "chowder" sauce and seared scallops. Classic dads will love Creekstone Farms steaks—some of the best in the country. 121 South Main St, Providence, 351-8570, www.hemenwaysrestaurant.com/

Artsy not-so-fartsy at RISD

La Laiterie at Farmstead, Providence

Admittance at one of the nation’s best art schools calls for dinner at one of the Northeast’s best restaurants (hey, the James Beard Foundation said so). Chef Matt Jennings and his wife Kate are artists in their own right, creating beauty with a palette of local, fresh, seasonal food that takes you back to the days when we shopped at farmstands instead of giant markets. Their adjacent cheese shop is now a city icon, attracting other local chefs and foodies for its sublime selection of cheeses, Kate’s baked goods, and house-cured meats and sausages. So take some of those to go, after a dinner featuring anything pork, or a burger, or mac and cheese, or the legendary house-cured bacon, or…. 184-188 Wayland Ave, Providence, 274-7177, www.farmsteadinc.com/lalaiterie/

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More for your money at Rhode Island College

Nick's on Broadway, Providence

RIC is known as one of the best bargains in the state college system—word is you get a lot for your money. We feel the same way about Chef Derek Wagner, of Nick's, one of the state’s true restaurant innovators. Chef Wagner somehow manages to be among the best breakfast joints in the state AND his dinner menu is amazing—comprised mostly of local and organic ingredients. At breakfast, try the special with Baffoni farms chicken sausage, at lunch the Blackbird Farms burger is awesome and on the dinner menu we love the fluke crudo. When other top chefs in town take to Twitter to claim that chef Wagner does the best crudo in town, we take notice. And our stomachs and wallets are glad we did. 500 Broadway, Providence, 421-0286, nicksonbroadway.com/

Raucous and robust at Providence College

Siena, Providence

You can't attend PC and not be an enthusiastic basketball fan, and you can’t visit this close to Federal Hill and not go to Siena, one of the best restaurants in the city’s Little Italy section. Owned by chef Anthony Tarro and his brother Chris, Siena specializes in the food and drink of Tuscany. Chef Tarro studied at RISD and later in Bologna, Italy, and you can taste all of that experience in his food. Siena reminds us of eating at our grandparents’ house...loud, bustling, cramped and thoroughly delicious! We love to start with the wild mushroom grilled pizza, with cippolini onions and goat cheese. It is earthy and tasty. On the entree side, we love the lobster ciopino with lobster, shrimp, scallops, mussels, littleneck clams and calamari. It is literally and figuratively a mouthful of goodness! 238 Atwells Ave, Providence, 521-3311, www.sienari.com/

Proper and pretty at Salve Regina

Tallulah on Thames, Newport

Salve has one of the most gorgeous college campuses we’ve ever seen,

and that calls for dinner where the plates are equally pretty. Tallulah chef/owner Jake Rojas mastered the fine art of letting the quality ingredients speak for themselves at the hands of a couple of the world’s finest chefs,Joel Robuchon and Alain Duccase. A recent visit was highlighted by his scallop dish of the moment: seared Bomster scallops with Aquidneck Island potato puree, truffled popcorn, sweet corn bubbles and summer onions. It was like sunshine on a plate. A friend who is mostly a vegetarian almost fell out of her seat over the Pineland Farms hangar steak. Perfectly cooked to medium rare, it was accented by Pommes Robuchon, which was the most decadent potato puree she ever had, along with Japanese mushrooms and creamed spinach. It was perfect. 464 Thames St. Newport, 849-2433, www.tallulahonthames.com/

All about options at URI

Trio, Narragansett

Nursing, communication studies, engineering, there are hundreds of options for majors at the University of Rhode Island and that means hundreds of different types of kids and families coming to town. Trio, in nearby Narragansett, is exactly the kind of place that students and parents alike are happy with. A large menu is highlighted by great soups, salads, pizzas and pastas. A large bonus at Trio is that for students and faculty who present their ID card, you get a free appetizer with the purchase of an entree. We all have been hurting for cash during our college days, but we never had a place with the quality of Trio to fill our bellies at a reasonable price. The clams casino pizza is a treat with whole belly clams, applewood smoked bacon, scallions and mozzarella combining to make a great pizza. We also love the tortellini with lobster. This dish features wild mushroom tortellini, steamed lobster, fried fennel and an arugula salad. And did we mention a free appetizer? 15 Kingston Rd, Narragansett, 792-4333, www.trio-ri.com/