Reviews of Black Trumpet (Restaurant)

Rick Farrar

Excellent food and a great atmosphere. Sat upstairs and the seating was not on top of each other. Great view from the window seat overlooking the water. Thank you for serving us!

Kit

Local meat, seafood, produce. Off the boat tuna and green crab. Luscious desserts. Interesting cocktails. All carefully crafted and served beautifully.

Jared Sharp

Excellent food and service. Menu was very interesting and food was presented well. Highly recommend

bob budd

Excellent food all around, always changing but always fantastic.

Maddie Conway

Had a great experience here, amazing food with small portions so come ready to try a few of the small plates plus entree. The homemade bread was great. Also, it is a subterranean space but very very cozy. We were dressed casually which felt fine, but you could come on a nice date here.

Michael Rodríguez Torrent

Creative, delicious dishes made from local ingredients.

Diane Barrington

Great food

Paul Gibula

Great food.

Chris Moore

Excellent cuisine and incredible atmosphere. The food is sourced locally and the wait staff are friendly. The downstairs seating is intimate and cozy, a wonderful restaurant!

Ryan Schwartz

Great food, great service. At a price that you would expect for those things. Thanks much!

Howard Fenter III

Great cocktails and small plates, friendly staff.

Katalina C

Looks amazing but the attitude and space was incredibly rude and uncomfortable. I would never go there again.

alex dinsmore

I didn't get any of the food, so the 2 stars may be a little unfair, but we went for wine and tried the primivito and the GSM. They were drinkable at best. For a place that markets themselves as a wine bar I was quite disappointed with their wine selections.

Stephen Tatasciore

The cocktails are interesting and outstanding. The fried almonds, olives and garlic are fanatic! The main and desert were fantastic... I would highly recommend this recommend this restaurant.

Rachel Potter

My husband and I came to Portsmouth from out of town. We decided to try black trumpet and hands down one of the best meals we've had. We loved trying the chefs sampler. He got the burger with plum ketchup and it was so flavorful. I got the gnhnocci and it was incredible. Very unique restaurant.

Kurt Norman

Cool place, great drinks

Laura White

Absolutely delicious! All 5 of us loved our dinners!

Scott Marcelle

Great menu and really good classic cocktails! Variety of local fare and seasonal offerings. Great little spot

Dave Bochichio

Food was good but the service was slow on the few times I've been there. It also gets very loud.

Elsa Kurt

We loved everything about this place! Awesome ambiance, friendly & attentive service, fantastic food.

Sean Kolb

This is a favorite of my wife and I we go here for all kinds important dates and are never disappointed. The dishes are imaginative and ever changing and they never disappoint. The dishes are locally sourced and seasonal and always cooked perfectly. I have never had a bad meal here, and I have been dining there for 9 years. The building is right on the waterfront and has an old world charm that is reminiscent of a European location. The bottom floor has large table seating with a dark cozy ambiance and the upstairs has a bar and smaller couples tables that look out over the harbor. The structure is very old and the exposed wood beams give the place a very warm relaxed feel. The Black Trumpet is a hidden gem. I can't recommend it enough.

Corinne Peters

The food along with the amazing wait staff make for a great experience on every visit.

robin lurie-meyerkopf

Love the Black Trumpet! Not only is the food amazing but the cocktails are delicious and the atmosphere is lovely! Upstairs or downstairs it’s always the same attention to detail.

Jeff Baker

Good cocktails but almost every aspect of the food was way over cooked. Sauce to quail egg.

Kevin Wallace

Unbelievable service and food. Will be back! Small bar upstairs but worth it!

Bridget Coolick

Hands down a wonderful dining experience full of surprising flavors and a seasonal menu. They have small, medium and large plates which are great if you like trying different items or sharing. The service was friendly and attentive. Try the mussels (you'll want to soak up the leftover sauce with your bread it is so good)! Also, the crab terrine, soft shell crab and spicy zucchini and mushrooms are fantastic. The donuts were a great end to a great meal!

Ryan Parcell

Amazing!

Ali Hanyaloglu

Always a treat to dine at Black Trumpet. The service is excellent and the dishes are an innovative combination of fresh local ingredients, classic preparation in new combinations. And the mixologist is brilliant! Highly recommended!

Nadine Thompson

I absolutely love the food and service and the Black Trumpet is very cocktail ever.

Ben Penkacik

Interesting drinks and really good, original food. You can tell that the menu is inspired by fresh, locally available produce and it really shows through in the flavor and freshness of the food. Drinks were a little sweet for my taste but they were all solid ideas that you could tell somebody thought through and the flavors complemented each other nicely.

Melody M

We loved it!

Cesar DeSouza

Very Good restaurant. Waiting time is little long but once you get there it worth the wait. Food is fresh and delicious good drinks. Price is a bit high but you really get what you pay for. The Atmosphere is great .

rudy widjaja

Great service, got one my dinner were under cook. Sent it twice, one for under cook the rice, second they send me new set but under cook the fish. The first one the fish was grilled perfectly. Overall it's a great food. The Mexican tiramisu is just awesome

Paul Singleton

This is not one of those “trying too hard to be like big city fine dining” joints. It’s a genuinely stand out restaurant irrespective of locale. Service was attentive from all the staff. We had a reservation downstairs but ended up eating upstairs where the view over the harbor added to the atmosphere. We shared 6 plates in all and portion size was just as indicated (small, medium, large plates). Great flavor combinations. Good wine selection (although could have done with a less fruit-forward red option - the sparkling rose was excellent though). Will return next time we’re in the area.

Andrew Isidoro

Deviled duck egg was good. Pork belly was fantastic.

Luz Diaz

The stuff squid was unbelievable! The paella had a lot of different types of seafood which I enjoyed, but the chorizo was too spicy for my taste. Overall the food was very very good.

Joseph Mchale

What a wonderful surprise to be served food this good. Coffee rubbed skirt steak and the Kefta burger we're delectable. Total home run and thank you for the wonderful dining experience.

David Charron

Excellent experience here on our date night! What a great vibe being in such an old & historic building. Staff was friendly and the meal was amazing!

Keith Orr

The service was perfect and the food was very good. Definately one of the best in Portsmouth

Selena Daly

Superb service, tasty food and as consistent and you get. Love the little upstairs bar for a quiet glass of something special.

Joshua Rosen

One of the best restaurants in Portsmouth.

HurricaneHaleyBailey

It was okay. The food was good, but not great. For the price you pay, you'd expect either much larger servings or better food.

Leo Green

Beautiful restaurant in downtown Portsmouth. Great food and great service.

Jill Marie Kleiber

Delicious food and wine. Sort of a dark cozy old school eastern vibe inside. We had sort of a goofy experience where our server announced she was a vegetarian and couldn’t really recommend anything

Wes L

Wonderful meal in a very relaxed environment. The menu choices were very creative as were the cocktails. Go off the beaten path and try this place out.

Gordon Kwong

Always well prepared interesting dishes.

Richard Davis

Still number 1 in Portsmouth

Eric Davis

Lovely place with unique dishes. Great food.

Tom Migneault

It was one of the best meals I've had in a very long time. Menu is unique and selections are exceptional. Had crispy duck last night and thinking about going again tonight. Service was also excellent. Octopus appetizer was also very good.

Nic Ledoux

This is one of my favorite places in New Hampshire. The dishes have so many layers to them, I can’t explain. The flavors are so subtle, nothing too bold or overpowering. The first time I went I had the seafood paella which rivaled paella I had in Spain. The second time my wife and I split a bunch of small plates and a cheese boards. They make their own charcuterie and also have a really cool spice shop next door, where the Chef makes and sells his spice concoctions that he uses in black trumpet dishes. It’s a fancier place and therefore I only go once a year on special occasions, but it’s always a treat. Check it out!

Alex Perron

I've been coming here for years. Best restaurant in Portsmouth, period. The menu changes often to make full use of the freshest seasonal ingredients. The husband and wife owners are wonderful and friendly hosts, and their staff is among the best in town. If you are passionate about food, this is the place for you!

Mark Shriner

Met friends there for dinner - shared a bunch of small plates. Excellent food and service.

Christophe Bernigaud

Got THE table with the view. Cool athmosphere. Good wine list

Ken Peterson

One of the best. Food is great. Explore outside your comfort zone!

Rob Johnston

Small, casually stylish, special occasion place with both small plates and full plates. Good cooking.

Spencer Burleigh

Menu changed often to offer the freshest food for the season. Never fails to disappoint.

Anthony Papini

Food was just fine. I don't know how they can charge NYC prices when other area restaurants are less expensive and way more creative. The service was questionable and our waiter was strange. 1. They moved us mid meal to another table so that a large group could have our view of the harbor. 2. The waiter paid more attention to everyone else and was very abrupt and cold with us. 3. When the waiter delivered the check he dropped it in a spiteful manner and said nothing, not even thank you. I am not sure what his deal was but he has some soul searching he needs to do.

Gene Johnson

Food was excellent and the service was impeccable

Cliff Normand

The Best!!!

Ray Garcia

Swanky..... Very cool.

Mark Traeger

Great food and drinks. Cozy and romantic, a great date night place. Nice menu and wine list. Really nice mixed drinks. Service was top notch.

Paul Ford

My wife and I are regular diners of nice resturants. We came to Black Trumpet on recommendations of other, actually cancelled at the River House. This was a mistake. Menu was very limited and someone went to a lot of trouble scouring the dictionary for words/ingredients I've never seen. There was one pasta dish with escargot and one pork dish, nothng in the way of chicken. My steak was cooked perfectly but not a great cut. The mashed potato was excellent, though portioned for a child. Our waiter was good as was dessert, though again, choices were very limited with just 4 items that werent cheese or alcohol.

Dennis Britton

Great food, great service! One of the best restaurants in Portsmouth.

Katrina Ahuja

Black Trumpet is a great spot for date night. The first floor is a romantic dining room with big beautiful mirrors for a nice ambient reflection. Upstairs is more of a bar-styled room. There are social hour drink specials upstairs in the evenings. The food is expensive, but quality and soooo tasty!

Matthew Martinez

I don’t know what to say about this place. It was totally packed the night we went, which is usually a good sign, but there a lot of little things that were slightly off. The menu was a bit all over the place, the dishes didn’t seem to have any concerted theme. And while the food we ordered was tasty it lacked that beauty and graceful plating you would expect from a top restaurant. (Either that or it was just too dark to notice.) Finally, the wine situation was a bit strange. Firstly, please get rid of those awful wine glasses whose rims feel like they’re about half and inch thick. Secondly, the wine list is almost entirely oddball wines but never did anyone offer to help us select one that we might enjoy. In fact overall the service was a bit cold and aloof. Maybe we went on a bad night but overall I just can’t recommend it.

Joshua Brown

Don't go for restaurant week. We've been to Trumpet several times, and even celebrated our engagement there. We went for the Restaurant Week menu and it was an awful experience. We were seated for over an hour and had downed 2 drinks each before the waiter told us "our tickets weren't being sent to the kitchen." He explained everyone in the room was "in the same boat" even though several customers around us were eating bisque while we hadn't even seen our garden salads. The waiter's attitude was extremely off-putting and never once offered to make any amends. A free drink would have gone a long way in dealing with an hour wait for a single salad. When our entrees eventually arrived, over 2 hours after we were initially sat ,they were miserable failures. My beef steak was as cold as the service, and the side of rice pilaf had been apparently been kept warm near fires of Mt Doom as they were 1 degree from becoming molten. The goat was tasteless and the sides all seemed to be microwaved from a bag. A terrible experience at a location we had favored the past 3 years. It seems Trumpet has gone the way of the Library and other Portsmouth restaurants who have trended downhill.

Langdon Tarbell

This is the most exceptional, most romantic resistant I've been to. Food, wait staff, and atmosphere all first class!

Julien Paquier-Galliard

Bon petit bistro , les prix sont plutôt élevé mais c'est bon

jpdandrea gmail

EU block menu with fair price and excellent service, nice casual atmosphere downstairs

S. P.

A colossal waste of money. Slow service. Mediocre food. Multiple wines on the list not available. Nightly specials not available--despite the fact that it was still early in the evening. I ordered the lamb. I love lamb. I eat lamb all the time. This was terrible. Poor texture. Poor taste. Poorly executed dish. I ordered a fine wine. I would have liked a second bottle, but they were out. Another similar wine was recommended, but they were out of that wine too. We ordered three deserts, but only two came. When we asked about the third desert, the waitress apologized and offered to bring what had been ordered, but by that time the mistakes had multiplied to such an extent we simply wanted to leave. Like so many Portsmouth restaurants, this one charges far more than it is worth. We have given this restaurant more chances than it deserves. Don't waste your money here.

misotam

Extensive wine selection, expensive yet disappointing food.

Don Ray

We had an outstanding meal here. The food was wonderful as was the service.

Clifford Sukeforth

We were just here for drinks. But the staff and atmosphere are some of the best in Portsmouth.

michael wittenburg

yankee shrimp and grits, and a really nice wine list.

Brian P.T. Blake

Four of us visited the Black Trumpet on Friday night, September 26, 2014. Nice ambiance, prompt and friendly service, but my pork loin, at $26.00, was abominable. Dry and tasteless, with stuffing like glue. I ate better after an operation at the VA hospital. Won't be back to the Black Trumpet for awhile.

Dennis P

Wonderful meal. Seafood paella was great. The dessert we had was unique and delicious.

Frank Verdillo

Best of the best here. Local farm to table with a great atmosphere

Deb Dionne

Great food and service. The restaurant is in a very nice old building in downtown Portsmouth.

Aaron Bevacqua

Beautiful historic building with a romantic view of the harbor from upstairs. Cocktails never disappoint, are well concocted and always interesting. The always-changing menu always has some surprises and the food is executed to perfection. Our favorite spot for dinner in Portsmouth, and that's saying something.

Dave Wescott

Great bistro. Excellent food, good service.

Kerry Baratier

I had an amazing experience here. The atmosphere was very warm and inviting. Evan greeted us at the door and welcomed us in and our waitress Caroline did an amazing job of explaining the items on the menu and overall her service was great. The food was amazing, perfectly sized portions. Overall, highly recommend this restaurant if you're looking for delicious, fresh food and extraordinary service!

Danielle St. Pierre

I would give this a 4.5. I absolutely loved my paella with rabbit, chicken meatball, and snails. Absolutely delicious. My husband loved his steak and celery root mash. We also tried the spicy mushroom appetizer. Don't make our mistake of ordering the chef meze plate for an appetizer though. We assumed it was a compilation of three of the listed appetizers, but it was not. On it came our least favorite part of the night which was a fried fish ball, which was too heavily fried for our liking. Our table wasn't quite ready when we got there for our reservation, and it took a while for our server to initially greet us. Despite these things, I would highly recommend this restaurant for a high end meal.

Kelvin William

Atmosphere was nice but the food portions were too small for the price

Kevin Broomell

Food is out of bounds good. Great service and a romantic setting.

Don Winterhalter

I've never had a bad meal at Black Trumpet & love the place. It's a good spot for special occasions, date night, etc. and their themed dinners are amazing. We went for a "Wild Game and Beer" dinner and I asked if it would be possible to substitute wine for beer because my wife doesn't like beer (nobody's perfect.) They said it was no problem at all and that's the kind of service we've always had.

Linda Hatch

Solid desserts. Fun and experimental drinks.

John Burke

Fantastic food, made on order! Seasonal menu, great wine and cocktail options. Love the Bistro atmosphere.

Joseph Pryor

Yes, smaller portions, but exquisitely crafted in an intimate space perfect for foodies or date nights. Genius at work here.

Kenard Puchalski

Nice intimate restaurant. The food was delicious and the staff very friendly.

Ron Brouillette

Being a LOCAL resident of the Seacoast Area for 40 years and owning my business downtown for almost all of that...I have come to experience most of our wonderful Seacoast restaurant scene...and it really is fabulous. The Black Trumpet along with its many times nominated for the James Beard Award Evan Mallett is by far the BEST place to experience great dining in the Seacoast area. (my humble opinion) New menu every 6 weeks. He deals with local farms, orchards, breweries, etc...for their meats, fruit, vegetables, cheeses...all of it and they are simply amazing. You must try this restaurant if you appreciate great food prepared properly. You will not be disappointed, I can assure you.

Cindy Overholt

Great overall experience. Customer service, food excellent, ambiance, etc!

Brian Fox

The best place ever

Justin Richardson

Amazing. Reservations recommended.

Abby White

Former Blue Strawberry diner who read the positive reviews but felt the drinks and the view we're the only parts that matched the positive comments. We ordered the cod but later found they only had Pollock a tasteless fish that was served with salt and pepper. We ordered the chicken instead that was tough; the dark meat had some taste. We also ordered the paella. The fish in it was over cooked and the rest of the ingredients didn't make up for it. Lots of spicy Rice which was the best part of the dish Big disappointment !!

Melanie Burger

I've lived in Portsmouth for 20 years and all of my favorite meals have been at the Black Trumpet. Evan Mallet does incredible things with the freshest local ingredients available. Do yourself a favor and stop in for dinner. Order something that sounds weird to you, I guarantee it will be the most delicious meal of your life. (Pictured: a not very good shot of the dayboat cod. Much more impressive than my photography skills can represent.)

Catherine Stewart

I love eating here, the food and the ambiance is perfect for a great meal.

Dan Pierson

A favorite of my wife and I. Interesting flavor combinations with local ingredients that really stand out. Last nights highlight was the best ceviche I've ever had.

Robert Patton

Everything about Black Trumpet is perfection, from the staff to the vibe to the drinks. Except the food . . . It's good, but really nothing to write home about. I would expect more from the price point.

Kit Wang

Great food, cocktails, wine, beer. Attentive, personable, knowledgeable staff. Gourmet locavore heaven.

Nathalie Pelletier

What a perfect little place.. Very quaint, simply awesome ambiance, lots of charm.. Brace yourself for a palate explosion. Chef isn't afraid to prepare sinful richness into every dish. Turns Brussel Sprouts into tantalizing deliciousness that words cannot describe. Salt brings out the intense flavors, cardamom cleverly disguised to create confusion and bliss! Simply put, it's INSANE!! Don't miss out while in Portsmouth. Stroll down the alley, feel as though you're in a small old port (wait you really are!) Find the mustard yellow doors and be prepared to be blown away!

yao liao

not my style. and the small mosquitoes drove me nuts.

Alex Dobrowolski

The food was delightfuly interesting, everything tasted amazing, and the service was superb

John Dinyari

Great food.

arnaud vanderroost

Endroit très sympa que l'on a trouvé par hasard. Le long d'une petite ruelle; cet établissement nous a intrigué grace à leur panneau. Nous avons jeté un coup d'oeil à la carte et avons décidé de prendre le risque...et nous avons bien fait! Les plats étaient délicieux; le service impeccable et le vin à notre goût. Bref, une très bonne surprise qui mérite un 5 étoiles sur TripAdvisor!!

Ryan Contino

Excellent meal. Went on restaurant week

Pamela Micchelli

My new favorite ...so historical, such good food and friendly staff

Ted King

I've always enjoyed the Black Trumpet. Only been a few times with the family and on a hot date. I've eaten downstairs both times. It's an intimate setting right along the water, so when your date sees the homey atmosphere, scopes the waterfront location, and then sees the prices, (s)he knows you mean business. Oh, and the food is delicious as well.

Eric Olmon

Really great ambiance, and great food. Staff is friendly and accommodating. Would be good for a romantic dinner.

Bennett Rogers

Tasty perfectly portioned dishes. Everything is local and sustainable. Loved the style of the restaurant, and the staff is super friendly!

brian bridwell

For a place that markets themselves as a wine bar I was very disappointed. I had the primavito and my girlfriend had the GSM. Both of the wines were drinkable at best. For the price I could've went down the road to Cava And have a far superior wine selection. For two glasses it was $25 plus tip.

Steven Rainville

Great place to grab some food.