Margaret’s Restaurant Review

Over the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge lies the magical land of Margaret’s, where you can get a scrumptious seafood lunch of New Bedford scallops, shrimp, and fish for a bargain price. In a recent trip there, I ordered a dish with all three, perfectly prepared and not overdone, in a delicate yet simple tomato and aioli sauce for less than $10. If that sounds too fancy for you, classic fish and chips, wraps, and sandwiches are also on the menu and are just as carefully prepared and delicious. Their fried fish is always delightfully crispy and flavorful without being oily, and their fries are no joke either.

Margaret’s is located on 16 Main Street in Fairhaven in an unassumingly quaint wooden-shingle house, but serves up dishes that could pass at some swanky hotel for millionaires by the bay. Upon being seated, you are served homemade, crumbly onion bread with some whipped honey butter that you can enjoy while deciding what else you would like to stuff your face with.

Breakfast offerings (before 11 am) include comforting, fluffy pancakes sprinkled with powdered sugar and light-as-air, crepe-like Norwegian pancakes served with your choice of seasonal fruit.

The lunch menu is a steal (and also the source of my recent less-than-$10 seafood feast) and contains a variety of fresh seafood dishes expertly paired with creative ingredients that bring out their full flavor. Daily specials keep the regulars coming back for new and unique dishes, though there is enough on the regular menu to keep you from being bored even if you went there every day for a week. For health nuts out there, the goat cheese and pear salad, filled with pecans and cranberries, is top-notch and always fresh.

Dinner at Margaret’s can get busy on the weekends, but if you go on a weeknight, it can be peaceful and romantic, great for impressing first dates, girlfriends, wives, or even your mother-in-law. The prices increase a little for dinner, but not unreasonably so, and you’ll definitely get a better value than you would at some generic seafood chain. It’s also BYOB, which is always a plus.

For the food it serves, the atmosphere at Margaret’s is never snobby, and the cozy ambience and great service make you feel at home. Seating is limited, but on the one occasion I’ve had to wait for a table, I was directed to an upstairs waiting room that had such quaint seaside charm that it sufficiently distracted me from my hunger enough so I did not mind. The clientele, depending on the time of day, range from families with kids, to gruff old fishermen on their lunch break, to Justin Timberlake (as proclaimed on a framed newspaper clipping on the wall). If you go alone, you can sit at the bar and chat with the friendly staff as they shuttle food from the kitchen window to eagerly awaiting patrons.

The only drawback of note at Margaret’s is their funky hours. Margaret’s closes between lunch and dinner, and on three separate occasions, I have arrived at the restaurant, visions of seared scallops dancing in my head, to find that it had closed an hour before or was not open that day. Had it been some other restaurant, I may have given up, but Margaret’s is so delicious that I don’t care and now I have their hours written on the back of my planner.

Margaret’s Hours:

Mon, Wed-Sat 7 am – 2 pm, 5 – 9 pm
Sun 7 am – 9 pm