Durgin Park – Hearty food, Yankee Charm
Durgin Park, that most Bostonian of eateries, centrally located in Quincy Market, has been the favorite of U.S. presidents, visitors, Harvard professors and native Bostonians alike since 1827. It’s “Where your grandfather and great-grandfather dined,” as the slogan goes.
The upstairs dining room with the trademark bare lightbulbs, checkered tablecloths and boarding house-style tables are part of its charm, but don’t let the Spartan décor fool you. The Yankee-style food is delicious—plain, hearty and plenty of it.
In fact, this is the restaurant where waitresses, prized for their legendary rudeness, may often bring a stack of overflowing plates to a table with gruff comments.
Notorious for flinging silverware randomly on the tables for diners to re-arrange to suit themselves, Durgin Park waitresses with salty remarks are part of the charm.
The original clientele were men of the meat purveyors’ and butchers’ shops, who dined with their laborer’s hats and aprons on, and the ambience seems largely unchanged since then.
Portions are generous, (no prissy nonsense here), service is plain and simple, but the boarding table style of dining is itself worth the trip. Here, you’ll meet visitors from everywhere – a botanist doing research in the Canary Islands; ice hockey fans from Denver, visitors from everywhere and the locals.
In this place, you’ll get the true flavor of Boston, with dishes that date back to Revolutionary times: Yankee roast beef, cornbread, apple pan dowdy, Indian pudding (made of molasses and cornbread baked for hours, with ice cream on top), New England boiled dinners, seafood chowder and the like.
Durgin Park’s reputation was built, not only on its reputation for hearty food and plenty of it, but the surly waitresses (one of whom replied, in response to a diner’s request for a coffee refill, “What do you think this is—a coffee shop?”) It’s almost a disappointment when waitresses are nice—which they generally are. Service is prompt and friendly for the most part.
The kitchen is open and you can see vats of whipped potatoes being prepared; slabs of beef being lopped over the sides of the plates. The general kitchen hubbub is part of the ambience. Frankfurts, knockwurst, Boston scrod and Poor man’s Roast Beef get ladled up with assembly line efficiency. This is obviously not the place for any purist vegetarian nonsense.
The second floor dining room looks out over Quincy Market with its passing parade—excellent for people watching if you get a seat near the window.
Downstairs, near the entrance, is a group photo of waitresses and cooks from the old days, Boston or Irish stock every one, and no need for politeness. Take a look, and you’ll see the essence of Durgin Park and why it remains so popular nearly 200 years on.
The downstairs Blackhorse Tavern features live music three nights a week – no cover charge, and a big-screen TV for sports fans.
One thing is certain: you won’t leave Durgin Park hungry. And the prices are still reasonable.
- Barbara Sealock
