Restaurants in Danvers

Sports, Spirits & Steaks combines the television-studded walls of a sports bar with the hearty comfort food of a neighborhood pub. Menu items include baby back ribs and half-pound burgers, as well as more internationally inspired dishes, such as tempura-fried shrimp with coconut breading. Cooks can also top hand-stretched, thin-crust pizzas with a combination of 17 available toppings, including basil, sausage, and red onion.

Although its menu might distinguish Sports, Spirits & Steaks from other bars, guests are also welcome to just knock back a beer while watching Boston sports teams compete for control of the world’s supply of silver-plated trophies. Sixty plasma televisions line the bar’s walls, and all booths boast their own small screen, which may have prompted Patch to describe the spot as “a veritable North Reading sports haven.” Even the color scheme evokes the feel of well-trodden sports turf, surrounding visitors with yellow-green walls and pool tables lined with emerald-green felt.

Named a Hidden Jewel by Phantom Gourmet, The Farm Bar & Grille's rustic wood furniture and floors and exposed brick walls inform the eatery's comforting vibe. To craft a menu of comforting southern-style fare, the kitchen team doesn't skimp by pulling ingredients from the freezer. Instead, they put together entrees from all-fresh components, including some of the vegetables they grow themselves in the on-site garden and the 90-acre cornfield they fit in their endless broom closet. As baby-back ribs bask in the smoke from a hardwood fire, the kitchen crew bastes them every half hour, in between searing burgers made from fresh angus beef. Starters such as fresh beer-battered jalapeno poppers are made to order. The staff also pours a large selection of draft beers and specialty cocktails.

In the center of Minglewood Tavern's acoustic space, a bar constructed from 180-year-old barn siding rises from the ground, with posts made from the dried trunks and branches of trees holding various drink glasses overhead. Bartenders swipe those glasses to fill orders of one of the 20 beers on tap, which rotate monthly, or to mix up one of their signature cocktails. As cold sips of icy drinks chill gullets, hot entrees such as hearth oven–baked pizzas or bacon-wrapped entrees travel from the kitchen to weathered wooden tabletops, arriving just in time to catch the end of a set from one of the live bands that plays Wednesday through Saturday or a rare glimpse at the one band that plays Wednesday through Saturday.

When the stage and mics stand silent, high-definition and projection-screen TVs pick up the slack, beaming sports games across the retrofitted bar. Each weekday night boasts its own food special, such as Monday's all-you-can-eat ribs and Wednesday's all-you-can-eat sushi.

Since its founding in 2001, The Upper Crust Pizzeria has fashioned artful thin-crust pizzas in 19 storefronts with modern, architectural touches. Chefs craft specialty pies inspired by local landmarks, from the sundried-tomato cobblestones of the Beacon Hill to the pesto-painted walls of the Green Monster. Diners can opt to spread sweet sauce over a regular or whole-wheat crust or request that any pie be served white without sauce, and combine slices with crisp salads or pounce on the geometric goodness of a spinach square or half moon-shaped calzone. Restaurant interiors are accoutered with modern flourishes such as flat-screen TVs and pan-decorated ceilings, allowing one to lie down and admire their reflection before a postmeal nap.

Sixty2 on Wharf is owned by Tony Bettencourt, the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts–trained former chef of the acclaimed Tomasso Trattoria in Southborough. Since opening in 2008, Sixty2 has seduced Salem stomachs with contemporary re-inventions of Italian classics. Bettencourt's meals use local and fresh ingredients shipped to the restaurant via seahorse-drawn gondola. The antipasti platter ($22) allows the chef to drop some knowledge on your plate, as he fills the plate with whichever antipasti options he deems best for the climate and current astrological alignment. Pasta dishes include the potato-filled cappellacci ($24 for full size) and the ribbon-like tagliatelle with a traditional meat-based Bolognese sauce ($26 for full size), while an assortment of entrees ($22–$30) include duck, lamb, chicken, and sea scallops seasoned and spiced to flavorful magnificence. The warm toffee-pudding dessert is a sweet salvo guaranteed to lob a taste grenade at any lingering post-entree hunger.

Wrapini's Houdinis work meal-making magic with a menu of wraps, paninis, pizzas, subs, and more—all prepared with the best meats and the freshest vegetables. Consolidate Thanksgiving into a single serving with the Mayflower wrap ($6.55)—containing real roasted turkey, herb stuffing, and cranberry sauce—or slip on your supping spurs for the Cranberry Bog Wrap ($6.55) and its patter call of chicken salad, cheddar, walnuts, craisins, greens and honey mustard on a spinach wrap. All wraps can also be grilled to create "wrapinis." Traditionalists can stick to classic "ini"-ism with Wrapini's paninis, such as the chicken-parm panini ($6.55)—served on focaccia bread and topped with marinara sauce and provolone cheese—or the Wild West panini ($7.95), a culinary Conestoga wagon of chicken cutlet, provolone, bacon, red onion, lettuce, tomato, barbecue sauce, and ranch dressing. Everyone can buy up to four Groupons, so give yourself a week’s worth of excuses to sneak away from the office during lunch.