1606 Restaurant & Oyster Bar

55 Commercial St, Gloucester - 01930
547 reviews
American
(978) 491-5090

The restaurant and bar is beautiful and you have a fantastic view. The staff is very nice and professional. Unfortunately the food is not great. I keep going back every year expecting it to get better but it never does. The menus is uninspiring and has limited choices. We had lobster sprig rolls which had no flavor and was like eating latex. The seafood pizza was just ok, the chicken started out good but towards middle was dry and overdone, you get 2 small potato spears that were unappealing and the fish was plain. For the price atmosphere and view it was frankly terrible. They need a real chef with imagination and experience to go with the price and setting. There are far better restaurants in town to go to. I travel all over the country for work and eat at many good restaurants, this one isn’t one of them.

Food was fantastic and so was the service. 5 stars

I had the tuna tartare and it was not very good the tuna was soupy not cold and firm. There was an avocado purée that seemed store bought. Very disappointing dish.

We went for our anniversary. I put that in the note when i made the reservation. We were seated right away and that was it. No one came over to even give us water. We waited 20 minutes and then i had to ask the hostess if our table was assigned a server. She said some one would b right over. Five minutes later she comes back with a server who said she didn’t know she was assigned our table. She took our drink and app order and then disappeared again. It took forever to get her to take our dinner order. We finished our water and drinks and she never asked if we wanted another til after our food came. Then i was pretty much done with my meal before i got my second glass of wine. She also left the menus sitting on our table for the whole meal and only took them when she gave us our check. Which came VERY quickly. Also nothing was ever mentioned about our anniversary. Why ask if its a special occasion if it means nothing? Expensive restaurant with terrible terrible service.

From start to finish everything was fabulous!

The food overall was very good. We loved the crab cakes and the chowder. Thought the clam fettuccine needed more clams. If had more clams, food would have been 5 stars. Server was friendly but new to job and country. We really liked him but he needs more training/ experience. We asked for bread twice. It finally arrived w/ our entrees. For the crab cake, 1 of us is allergic to avocado so asked for something different. It did not come so asked again and finally got some kind of aioli or mayo. But we really enjoyed the atmosphere and food so will be back.

We arrived about 45 mins early and we told the host we will be seating at the bar. After getting a few Appetizers we decided to stat at the bar to eat dinner. Well almost 1/2 hour after our reservation past I went to the hosted and gave out name. She didn’t find my reservation and she said I’m sorry good thing we had a seat at the bar. Keep asking the hostess when your going to be seated one other couple had the same problem

Crunchy/sandy mussels for an app. Haddock Casserole was not prepared well. Seasoning was too heavy for certain bites and flavorless for others. Great ambience but food was a disappointment.

Lovely evening with our favorite wait staff person, Hollie. Thank you.

Beautiful restaurant with stunning view. Food and service were excellent.