The New New England A wave of ambitious eateries is cresting on Massachusetts' North Shore.

DUCKING INTO NIGHTSHADE NOODLE BAR from an industrial street on a chilly Sunday in Lynn, Massachusetts, I was unexpectedly greeted by a verdant oasis.

- Hannah Selinger

My table, part banquette, part high-top, shared space with a rubber tree that rose from the ground like a piece of scenery from Jumanji. It was 6 o'clock, and the reservations-only restaurant was already full.

Nightshade Noodle Bar serves Vietnamese- and Frenchinspired tasting menus from chef-owner Rachel Miller. It's not what I would have expected to find in Lynn, a once down-onits-luck city on the North Shore of my home state. "I moved to Lynn abruptly, out of the blue. I'd never been here before," says Miller, who relocated from the nearby city of Medford. "And it just seemed like the perfect place to try to start something different.

After 17 years away, I moved back to Massachusetts in the spring of 2022, and over dinner at Nightshade, I experienced Miller's take on "something different." A parade of flawless dishes-gooseneck barnacles alongside fiery lime-pepper sauce; bone marrow banh mi with green chile-citrus butter; Marblehead sea urchin filled with red curry hollandaise-made a compelling case for the region's transformation.

Massachusetts' North Shore is the coastal area that runs from north of Boston to New Hampshire. Tourists find our towns attractive in summer, arriving in droves for Ipswich's beautiful beaches and noteworthy clams. But a recent culinary revival has breathed new life into the towns of Salem, Essex, Newburyport, Gloucester, and Lynn, where travelers can come for pristine New England beaches, historic towns, lush pastureland, and an increasingly vital dining scene.