1. Bayside Betsy’S
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-6566
Address: 177 Commercial St.
Description: Great views are the draw at this window-lined restaurant on Provincetown Harbor, where classic comfort food is infused with French and Italian accents. Take a booth in the white plank-paneled dining room and order from the satisfying breakfast (lobster Benedict, homemade potato pancakes), lunch (fresh native scallop rolls, triple-decker club sandwiches), and dinner (sesame-crusted Ahi tuna, natured Long Island duckling with orange Triple-Sec demi-glace) menus. Bayside Betsy’s is open daily in season and serves breakfast on the weekends from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Lunch is served every day from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and dinner is served from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends and until 9 p.m. during the week. Betsy’s is closed Tues and Wed from Feb through Apr.
2. Ciro & Sal’S
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-6444
Address: 4 Kiley Court
Description: Ciro & Sal’s is considered one of the better Italian restaurants on the Lower Cape, especially when it comes to such northern Italian delicacies as Abruzzese (scallops, clams, shrimp, fish, mussels, and squid sautéed with plum tomatoes, fresh garlic, and herbs over pasta) and Vitello Scaloppine Al Marsala. For desserts nothing beats the tiramisu. And it would be hard to beat the atmosphere: Nestled in a low-ceilinged plaster- and brick-walled cellar off Commercial Street, Ciro & Sal’s is filled with raffia-wrapped Chianti bottles hanging from the rafters and the sound of arias in the air. It’s open for dinner every day during the busy season and weekends only from Oct through May, starting at 5:30 p.m.
3. Front Street
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-9715
Address: 230 Commercial St.
Description: One of the town’s most popular and romantic restaurants—bistro may be a better word—Front Street is hidden in the brick-lined cellar of a Victorian house. Chef Donna Aliperti changes the menu weekly, showing off her culinary craft with such dishes as butternut ravioli, veal and shrimp piccata, and Tuscan calamari. The wine list is extensive, and the waitstaff knows just how to serve (they are there, but they never hover). Front Street serves dinner every day but Tues during the season.
4. The Lobster Pot Restaurant
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-0842
Address: 321 Commercial St.
Description: Ask anyone in town where to go for the best seafood, and everyone will tell you the Lobster Pot. The wait can be long in the summer because the Pot, as everyone calls it, doesn’t accept reservations. The seafood is the freshest available, and Tim McNulty’s clam chowder (now available frozen for takeout) has won more “best of” awards than anyone can remember. The menu is extensive, but almost everyone orders lobster. The Lobster Pot is open daily for lunch and dinner Apr through Dec.
5. Lorraine’S
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-6074
Address: 133 Commercial St.
Description: If your taste runs toward Taco Bell, you may not appreciate the Latin cuisine at Lorraine’s, where the enchiladas come with garlic shrimp and the tacos brim with blackened yellowfin tuna. Housed in an inviting cottage in Provincetown’s West End, this local favorite also attracts discerning drinkers to its in-house bar, which boasts an encyclopedic list of premium tequilas. Open daily from June through Sept; call for off-season hours.
6. Napi’S
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-1145, (800) 571-6274
Address: 7 Freeman St.
Description: Napi’s is a work of art, with walls built from pieces of discarded Boston factories and decorated with salvaged stained-glass carousel horses, artwork, and antiques. The menu is nearly novella length, offering international dishes such as Brazilian shrimp, scallops Provençal, Russian oysters, and Thai chicken and shrimp. Napi’s serves dinner nightly from 5 p.m. Oct through Apr, Napi’s also serves lunch starting at 11:30 a.m. An early-bird menu is available from 5 to 6 p.m. daily. You’ll find free, limited parking adjacent to the restaurant on the corner of Bradford Street.
7. Ten Tables Provincetown
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-0106
Address: 133 Bradford St.
Description: Like its much-buzzed-about sibling restaurants in Jamaica Plain and Cambridge, Ten Tables Provincetown offers an intimate dining experience (there really are just 10 tables) and a dinner menu featuring creative bistro fare and local, seasonal ingredients like Nauset striped bass with gigante bean and corn succotash and Cape Cod scallops with snap peas from the restaurant’s garden. Reservations are a must for the dining room, but the upstairs bar works well for drinks and oysters with friends or a casual weeknight dinner of buttermilk fried chicken or the famed TT burger. Open seasonally for dinner only Apr through Oct.
8. Provincetown Portuguese Bakery
City: Provincetown, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (508) 487-1803
Address: 299 Commercial St.
Insider Pick:
Description: In a city where Portuguese heritage runs deep, this bakery/cafe is a local favorite. Take a seat at one of the few tables, then order up breakfast with a Portuguese twist. Try the Portuguese egg and linguica sausage breakfast sandwich made on a soft Portuguese roll. Order it to go and it will be wrapped in wax paper for the beach. At lunch count on kale and potato soup to make an appearance. And day and night, malasadas—sugary Portuguese doughnuts without holes—fly out of the bakery. They sure are hard to resist—the fryer is located in the bakery window. Closed Nov through Feb.