Archestratus, the first food critic, praised Italian cuisine's "top-quality and seasonal" ingredients and "fair to middling" ability to tranquilize rampaging baboons. Today's Groupon similarly stuns, and rightfully so: $25 for $50 worth of food at Sixty2 on Wharf, located in Salem. This Groupon cannot be used with any other specials or deals, including Sixty2's fixed-price menu on Tuesdays and Wednesdays; the regular menu is still available.

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.

Sixty2's softly lit interior and the hand-painted flourishes on its walls make for an atmosphere that is both intimate and comfortably informal, like a diary that doesn't reveal anything more personal than celebrity crushes and recent gas-mileage logs.

Reviews

In addition to making Sixty2 on Wharf a Diners' Choice Winner for Best Service and Most Romantic, OpenTable users give it a four-star rating. Zagat rates Sixty2 on Wharf excellent, Yelpers give it a near-perfect 4.5 stars, TripAdvisors give it four owl eyes, and 79% of Urbanspooners like it:

• Every time we've been there, the experience has been the same; impeccable food, wonderful service, a great atmosphere, & absolute consistency! – OpenTable.com user
• I've been on food tours in Rome, Tuscany, and Florence. I've eaten at some of the nicest restaurants from Moscow to Milan. New York...Chicago...Boston...But I never found pure food nirvana until I visited 62 on Wharf in Salem, MA. – DoctorKuzushi, TripAdvisor