Webster House

As children practiced their spelling with chalk sticks and inkwells at the Daniel Webster School in the 1880s, they never imagined papers imprinted with exotic words such as vinaigrette and escarole would someday replace their notebooks. But more than a century later, the cupola-topped Romanesque Revival building—now known simply as Webster House—houses a restaurant where just such words appear on its menu of sumptuous new-American cuisine. As Chef Matt Arnold sears scallops and sea bass for dinner or whips up brioche french toast for Sunday brunch, the sound of clinking flatware fills dining rooms bedecked with antique furniture in the style of an English country home. An antiques gallery invites guests to recreate this stately look at home from a selection of 18th- and 19th-century pieces from around the world, including cabinets hewn from Georgian walnut and French fruitwoods. A collection of genteel gifts, such as Chinese porcelains and bow-topped boxes of stationery, rounds out Webster House's dignified collections.