Restaurants in Amherst Center

Wreathed by an idyllic white picket fence, Sweet Pea’s pale yellow Victorian homestead belies the progressive cuisine simmering within its the kitchen. Chefs drizzle center-cut meats and grilled fish with exotic flourishes, such as ginger-soy vinaigrette and dill aioli. In keeping with the rustic exterior, the sunlit dining room serves as an antique gallery, letting eyes feast as patrons savor pan-seared salmon or taste the wood finish on the 19th-century pendulum clock to ensure its authenticity.

Within the stately Litchfield Inn, Bantam Bistro's executive chef Jonathan Gyles lends Italian flair to gourmet American dishes crafted from local and organic ingredients, such as mushrooms from Mountaintop Mushrooms and cheese from Cato Corner Farm. The expansive menu includes dazzling charcuterie platters, fillets of Atlantic salmon and tails of Maine lobster, and pastas such as bucatini and agnolotti. Barkeeps pour sips of more than 118 wines and muddle peaches into Bantam's signature take on the classic old fashioned, whose amber tones glow in the flickering light of tabletop candles in leaf-etched votives. The dining room’s brick-lined fireplace gives chefs a cozy place to store canapés shaped like Christmas stockings, and sparkling chandeliers twinkle above Sunday brunch dishes nestled inside pristine silver chafing dishes.

The old-fashioned photography lining the wood-paneled walls at The Tributary Restaurant sets the mood for modern camaraderie. Waiters emerge from the kitchen with arms laden with clams and mussels, bearing large portions of veal and filet mignon to tables. After spooling pasta layered with fresh seafood and leeks around forks, patrons can hug friends who let them finish their leftovers, or hug stuffed animals while drifting into contented postmeal slumber.

Ballistic Shrimp Steamed Seafood serves a menu of fresh, quickly prepared seafood with a healthy twist. Instead of deep-frying their fare like typical fast food restaurants, they steam or boil shrimp, crab legs, and fish to serve alongside fresh vegetables or homemade chowders and bisques. Combo meals allow diners to sample a variety of seafaring delicacies at once including Canadian salmon, Brazilian lobster tail, and American shrimp that spent a semester abroad. The ocean-blue dining room features starfish and seashell accents and offers limited seating at round, high-top tables.

The crunch of cracking peanut shells lends a steady bass line to the din of merry conversation and clinking pint glasses at Broadway Brew Biergarten. Servers in German-inspired dirndls and knee socks flit between hand-built picnic tables, ferrying plates of wiener schnitzel and Reuben sandwiches. Behind the wood-inlaid bar, taps unleash 16 German and Belgian beers, such as Duvel, Hofbräu, and Spaten. Bartenders also uncap 80 foreign and domestic bottled beers without even using their teeth and shake and stir cocktails. To complement meals, Broadway Brew Biergarten maintains a fleet of hookahs ready to unfurl plumes of smoke scented with mint, fruit, and other flavors.