CITY GUIDES | NEW ENGLAND
These Are the Michelin-Worthy Restaurants in New Hampshire
From Portsmouth to Nashua, these Granite State restaurants are ready for the Michelin Guide
By Eric Barton | April 21, 2026
Moxy
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.
Back when I grew up in New Hampshire, I would’ve defined a fancy dinner by prime rib night at the 99. Tasting menus, wine pairings, and celebrity chefs? No. The Michelin Guide? I would’ve assumed it had something to do with tires.
That has changed, and not in some loud, overnight way. It happened piece by piece, with chefs who trained in serious kitchens and came back home. A state full of small cities, old mill towns, lake communities, and seacoasts now has destination restaurants with ambitious kitchens.
New Hampshire still doesn’t have an official Michelin Guide, though, which is why I set out to build this list, to imagine what restaurants in the state deserve recognition. These are the New Hampshire restaurants worthy of the Michelin Guide.
The Dining Room at Bedford Village Inn, Bedford
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This is where southern New Hampshire goes when dinner needs to feel like an event. Chef Colin O’Hara’s five-course tasting runs through dishes like lobster chowder with house bacon, grilled corn and saffron cream, mushroom pappardelle, coffee-rubbed filet, and a seasonal soufflé, all of it served inside one of the state’s grand old inn dining rooms with an 8,000-bottle cellar backing it up.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
Black Trumpet, Portsmouth
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Chef Evan Mallett and his wife, Denise, opened Black Trumpet in 2007 and named it for a mushroom he once found while foraging, which tells you plenty about how this place thinks. Mallett has been up for James Beard multiple times, and the food still moves through Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ideas, local sourcing, and the kind of cooking that feels personal rather than focus-grouped.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
Cava, Portsmouth
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Gregg Sessler and John Akar opened Cava in 2008, and it’s been one of Portsmouth’s more dependable arguments for small plates ever since. The menu moves between traditional and modern tapas, the wine list is serious, and the space has the kind of tight, slightly hidden feel that makes a long dinner here seem cozier as the night goes on.
What it deserves: Michelin Recommended
The Dining Room at The Lake Estate on Winnisquam, Tilton
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This $90 million resort arrived in 2025 and was quickly labeled the crown jewel of northern New Hampshire. And so naturally it brought in a big-name chef, Chris Viaud, who arrived with a résumé that included a James Beard finalist nod for Outstanding Restaurateur and national TV visibility. The room looks over Lake Winnisquam, and the menu is refined farm-to-table cooking in a luxury setting instead of the usual hotel-dining compromise. Even with all that pedigree, the dishes here are approachable: short ribs braised in beer and cider, spiced duck breast with mole, and a maple semifreddo with salted caramel and honeycomb toffee.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
Hanover Street Chophouse, Manchester
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Michelin doesn’t reward a lot of steakhouses, which can seem too cookie cutter from one city to another. But here, chef Stuart Cameron brings more than two decades of experience, and the place has enough polish to earn a seat at this table, thanks old-school service and dishes like chophouse meatballs in red sauce and pesto, a bone-in pork chop with apple chutney, and a strawberry-butter crumb tart to finish it off.
What it deserves: Michelin Recommended
La Boca, Wolfeboro
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Husband and wife chef duo Steven Lopez and Elizabeth Rice run La Boca, building menus around local agriculture and their travels. In the off-season, La Boca shifts into a four-course prix-fixe that, at the moment, takes its cues from Thailand. And while there’s no telling what you’ll find on the menu when you go, expect dishes like butternut squash risotto, Maine salmon with capers, and chocolate pâté with roasted cashew crust.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
Moxy, Portsmouth
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Matt Louis trained at The French Laundry, helped open Per Se, and then came back home and built one of the most recognizable chef careers in the state. At Moxy, that turns into a menu of “modern American tapas” with dishes like beef short rib marmalade with Great Hill blue cheese, seafood puttanesca with house-made spaghetti, and fried Brussels sprouts with guajillo and tamarind glaze.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
The Oak Room, New London
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Views of Pleasant Lake and Mount Kearsarge have helped keep The Oak Room a fine-dining institution for a century and a half. But the reason to come these days is chef Francisco Lopez Jr., who runs a dressed-up chophouse menu, giving the Sunapee region a restaurant that aims a lot higher than the standard inn dining room.
What it deserves: Michelin Recommended
Otis Restaurant, Exeter
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Lee Frank has the James Beard semifinalist credential, and Otis has the format Michelin usually notices first: a tightly run tasting-menu restaurant where the kitchen controls the pace, the sequence, and the experience. Right now it’s serving five courses for a quite reasonable $80 that runs from a squash soup to a sticky toffee pudding with bourbon caramel. The restaurant will close after its lease ends (although Frank has hinted there’s a new project coming), so book this one quickly before it’s gone.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
Revival Kitchen & Bar, Concord
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Corey Fletcher opened Revival in 2016 after working his way up from dishwasher to executive chef, which feels relevant because the place still carries itself like a restaurant built by someone who earned every inch of it. The menu pulls together New England ingredients and Old World ideas without getting stiff about it, which is part of why Concord diners have treated it as both a neighborhood standby and a place worth booking ahead.
What it deserves: Michelin Recommended
Stages at One Washington, Dover
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If New Hampshire ever gets included in the Michelin Guide, this is the first place I’d put my money. Evan Hennessey opened Stages in 2012, has been a James Beard finalist, and serves tasting menus of six or nine courses that can move from panisse with black garlic and ginger to oyster tempura with apple, fermented potato, and fennel pollen, all of it rooted in farms, the ocean, and whatever the kitchen has preserved or fermented along the way.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
Stalk, Dover
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Nicole Nocella has helped turn Dover into a city that now has to be taken seriously in any conversation about the state’s best restaurants. At Stalk, the menu runs through huli huli steamed buns, tartare with crispy rice crackers, braised Spanish octopus, and seared halloumi with crispy pork belly and sweet-and-sour grapes, and her James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025 makes clear her reputation has moved beyond the Granite State.
What it deserves: Michelin Recommended
Taqueria La Doña, Nashua
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This is the Bib Gourmand pick, and it earns that designation the honest way, by making people come back for food rather than ceremony. Taqueria La Doña has built its following on birria tacos, birria burritos, tacos, and house-made desserts, giving Nashua a restaurant that values flavor, focus, and price over performance.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Tinos Kitchen + Bar, Hampton
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John Tinios built this restaurant around his family’s ties to the Greek island of Tinos, which at least gives the Mediterranean idea here some real backbone. In the kitchen, Gert-Jan Overmars brought experience from restaurants in the Netherlands, and the menu moves through scratch-made pastas, wood-grilled meats, seafood, and local sourcing with a kitchen that also talks openly about whole-animal use and cooking in beef tallow.
What it deserves: Michelin Recommended
Vida Cantina, Portsmouth
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David Vargas grew up in his family’s taqueria in California, his parents are from Jalisco, and Vida Cantina has become one of the clearest examples in New Hampshire of what happens when a chef brings both personal history and technical range to Mexican cooking. Vargas has picked up James Beard semifinalist recognition in both the regional and national categories, and the menu has enough range to go from fried avocado tacos and carnitas to duck confit enchiladas and local-catch pescado tacos without losing its footing.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Vino e Vivo, Exeter
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Tony Callendrello opened Vino e Vivo as a European-style wine bar, then brought in chef Paul Callahan, whose résumé includes L’Espalier, The Butcher Shop, Ceia, and Brine. That combination now powers one of the state’s clearest Michelin-style formats: a two-person chef’s table serving five- to eight-course tasting menus with pairings, which helps explain why Callahan landed on the James Beard semifinalist list in 2023.
What it deserves: Michelin Star
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