CITY GUIDES | NEW ENGLAND
Where to Eat in Nashua, According to a Native Son
By Eric Barton | April 16, 2026
Surf
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
My journalism teacher at Nashua High, Mrs. Provencher, took the entire class to Martha’s Exchange for lunch one day. This was back when Nashua had a downtown that you mostly drove through on the way to somewhere else. I ordered a burger, wrote with the confidence of somebody who had not yet earned any confidence, and came away thinking: restaurant critic sure sounds like a fun thing to do.
Back then, Nashua had an Applebees, places people had been going to for years for no particular reason, and very few spots that had ambitions beyond feeding people before nine. That’s changed. The best restaurants in Nashua now include serious Mexican, polished nights-out, old-school institutions that still know what they’re doing.
I grew up here, and I’ve spent most of my career writing about restaurants, which means I know exactly how much hometown sentiment to mistrust. These are the Nashua restaurants to book tonight.
110 Grill
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110 Grill is a chain, sure, but it’s also one of the more useful restaurants in Nashua, especially when the group includes somebody avoiding gluten or dealing with food allergies. The Nashua location runs through the expected upscale-casual playbook with burgers, tuna, steak, seafood, and salads in a polished suburban room at Trafalgar Square.
1Best for: A dependable group dinner spot
Bonhoeffer’s Café & Espresso
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More than just a coffee shop, Bonhoeffer’s serves up house-roasted beans and baked goods that taste like someone’s grandma is back there making magic. The cinnamon buns are sticky, sweet, and large enough to share—though you probably won’t want to. But maybe the best part is that this is a nonprofit operation—all proceeds at Bonhoeffer’s goes to Hope and Life.
Best for: Cinnamon buns, coffee, and lunch, with a side of virtue
Crosby Bakery
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Growing up in Nashua, everybody knew Crosby Bakery as the place with the darn good donuts even if you were a Dunkin’ type. But Crosby isn’t the kind of place to rest on its half-century of laurels. Instead it churns out sourdough breads, baked goods, and sandwiches that look ready for Instagram, from the Fruity Pebble-spiked glazed donut, to the short rib breakfast sandwich. Of course, there’s still custom cakes that taste like your childhood birthday parties. And now there’s a second Crosby in the atrium of St Joseph Hospital, so at least your latest mishap can end with something sweet.
Best for: Donuts, birthday-cake nostalgia, and a proper breakfast
Cucina Toscana
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In a modest strip mall, Cucina Toscana proves you don’t need a flashy address to deliver respectable Italian cuisine. The interior is warm and dimly lit, while the menu leans heavily on authentic recipes. Don’t skip the tiramisu; it’s impossibly light yet decadently rich. Regulars rave about the friendly service, which feels more like dining with family than a night out.
Best for: Old-school Italian
jajabelles
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Locals know jajabelles best for the house-made baklava, pop tarts, and brownies. But it’s also a spot for breakfast, lunch, fresh fruit smoothies, mimosas, and mind-blowing breakfast sandwiches. The spanakopita you’ll always find on the counter are reason enough to why they’ve passed the 10-year mark on Main Street.
Best for: A community gathering spot that also has great breakfast
K'sone's Thai Dining & Lounge
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This unassuming spot tucked into a strip mall does Thai food like you’ve never had it before. The drunken noodles at K’sone’s are as bold as the name suggests, and the green curry has just the right kick of heat. There’s a full bar, and I’ll just drop a quick Mai-Tai suggestion.
Best for: A cold-weather-beating Thai dinner
Martha’s Exchange
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Still going strong decades after that fateful high school field trip, Martha’s Exchange is a brewpub that does everything well. The burgers are perfectly messy, the beers are brewed on-site, and the baklava cheesecake will make you wonder why you ever bothered with cake.
Best for: Burgers, house beer, and downtown Nashua history
Pressed Café
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With a couple locations now, Pressed Café is what happens when you combine healthy food with actual flavor. Their avocado toast is piled high with radishes and sesame seeds, and the smoothies are packed with enough kale to make you feel smug about your life choices. And while this spicy unicorn burger was only a weekly special, maybe if you believe hard enough, they will bring it back?
Best for: Lunch that lets you feel healthy without punishing you for it
Prime at Sky Meadow
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Prime at Sky Meadow is open to the public at Sky Meadow Country Club, and it leans into the things a steakhouse ought to get right: a strong wine list, broad views over the course, and a menu built around steak and seafood rather than gimmicks. Chef Joe Peterson oversees the kitchen, which runs from hand-cut steaks to pan-seared scallops and miso sea bass in a space that clearly wants dinner to feel important.
Best for: Steaks and special-occasion dinners
Riverwalk Café
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Riverwalk Café is a downtown staple, an independent bakery and café at Railroad Square that produces its own coffee in-house on an old-school drum roaster. The place changed hands in 2022, when Rachel Manelas took over from longtime owners Steve and Jane Ruddock, but it still works best for what it has long done well: espresso drinks, breakfast, sandwiches, and pastries in a room that feels like part of the neighborhood.
Best for: A coffee run and one of the city’s better sandwich fixes
Sabor Brasil
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Sabor Brasil has been on Canal Street for more than 20 years, which in restaurant terms is long enough to prove it isn’t surviving on novelty or homesick sentiment alone. Owner Shirley Fonseca runs it as a Brazilian standby for Nashua’s sizable community, with a buffet priced by the pound, a $34.95 all-you-can-eat rodízio, feijoada, grilled meats, and caipirinhas that keep the place feeling busy and lived in.
Best for: A filling buffet that earns the nap afterward
San Francisco Kitchen
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The first place I ever ate sushi, San Francisco Kitchen has been downtown on Main Street since 1986, and it still handles the useful middle ground between neighborhood Chinese restaurant and full night-out sushi spot. The menu runs wide—specialty rolls, cocktails, lamb chops, Chinese-American standards, and house specialties from the original chef-owner’s recipe book—which is probably why the place works as often as it does for groups that can’t agree on dinner.
Best for: Downtown sushi when the table wants a little bit of everything
Stella Blu
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Stella Blu has been one of downtown Nashua’s steadier date-night addresses for years, built around small plates, a serious cocktail program, live music, and a space on East Pearl Street that knows how to handle a crowd. Chef Sam Slattery’s menu leans into American tapas with dishes like wagyu sliders, chicken lemongrass dumplings, truffle fries, steak frites, and to end the night, a s’mores cookie bar every bit as indulgent as it sounds. Duck in next door to their bar space, The Pearl, for drinks and snacks before or afterward (or maybe both?).
Best for: Cocktails and a night out that feels a little more dressed up
Surf Restaurant
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You don’t go to Surf for quiet—it’s boisterous, and you’ll likely be close enough to your neighbor to ask what they’re having. But the seafood? Worth every decibel. The lobster roll comes crammed with buttery claw meat, and the crispy calamari has a tangy lemon aioli that’ll ruin you for marinara forever. It’s the kind of place that makes you glad Nashua’s not on the coast; they know how to bring the ocean to you.
Best for: Seafood in a space that always feels fun
Taqueria La Doña
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Taqueria La Doña’s tiny spot on Orange Street gives away little of the magic happening inside: authentic birria tacos, tortas, tamales, burritos, and quesadillas that feel transplanted from a Mexico City street corner. Eugenia Escobar and Mario Salas Duran moved from Los Angeles to Nashua in 2001, running a taco truck first before opening one of the mightiest little restaurants in the city.
Best for: Tacos that remind you Nashua has gotten a lot more interesting
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