My spouse and I dined at Porter’s Pub for lunch on a
Saturday afternoon in early March 2016. We did not have a reservation, and we
were lucky to secure a table for two because the restaurant was so crowded.
(Porter’s accepts reservations by telephone.) This was our first visit to
Porter’s, so we do not know whether they are always filled to capacity or if
some event was going on in Easton.
The restaurant is located on Northampton Street about five
blocks (a half mile) from the center square. Porter’s is open for lunch on Mondays
through Saturdays, Sunday brunch, and dinner daily. Street parking is
available; Porter’s has no nearby parking lot that we could see. The Pub has
been open since 1990 and is owned by the three Porter brothers. Live music is
sometimes available.
The interior of the restaurant has two main areas: the
dining room and the bar area (which also has a few low tables as well as a few
high tables). Sidewalk dining (enclosed by a short wrought-iron fence) is
available in warmer weather. Stone and brick (the space was built in the 1830s)
are visible on two walls in the main dining area, and the ceilings are covered
with pewter mugs belonging to frequent patrons (after you drink 60 different
beers, you receive an engraved mug). The mahogany bar is small but popular, and
amazingly does not feature any televisions (although travel photos from the
trips that the restaurant organizes were scrolling on a small monitor). This is
not a huge restaurant; it can probably seat 50 people at the most.
Porter’s pub offers pub fare as well as more upscale options
(mostly on the dinner menu), along with gluten-free and vegetarian choices.
Over 150 craft beers and hard liquor (scotch, bourbon, whisky) are offered. We
shared the house-made duck and bacon sausage as an appetizer (served as three
meatballs placed atop couscous with sundried tomatoes and arugula), followed by
a hamburger (topped with IPA bacon blue cheese sauce, lettuce, and tomato) and
the lamb burger (which was a daily special that included pesto sauce, feta
cheese, lettuce, and tomato). We ordered the burgers medium and medium-rare,
but both arrived more on the well-done side, which unfortunately made them rather
dry. Burgers and sandwiches are served with your choice of kettle chips (which
sadly, did not seem to be home-made) or the daily side dish (which on this day
was a yummy broccoli pasta salad). For dessert, we chose the coconut porter
cheesecake from the extensive dessert menu. In retrospect, we should have asked
for a description of the cheesecake, because we thought the “porter” in the
name reflected the restaurant name, when in fact, it reflected the beer used in
the cheesecake (so the cake was brown instead of creamy white as we expected).
Sadly, it had no hint of coconut taste to our palates. (In fact, because of the
color and flavor, we even questioned our waiter as to whether we mistakenly
received the chocolate espresso cheesecake instead.) The graham-cracker crust
was tasty, though, and the sour cream topping helped lighten the dark taste of
the cheesecake. Service was a bit uneven because of how busy the restaurant
was, but everything was delivered with a smile.
Although we will not run back to Porter’s, it is another
viable option for the Easton dining scene.
