Best Fried Clams: We're Just Wild About Harry's

Article by Eric H. Photo, courtesy of Boston's Hidden Restaurants
Restaurants like Woodman's in Essex, MA, the Clam Box in Ipswich, MA, and Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere Beach, MA, get a lot of well-deserved press for their great fried clams, but perhaps the best of them all is at Harry's, a tiny, old restaurant stuck in time on Route 9 West in Westboro, MA.

Harry's has many good menu items that we recommend but its signature fried clams tops the list, getting high marks for its full-bodied, slightly greasy taste, and value for the money -- you get quite a few clams at a price lower than most competitors.

Founded in 1946 in nearby Shrewsbury and in its current Westboro location since 1968, Harry's brings in crowds to its restaurant (that looks like a diner, but they don't like to be called a diner) with its down-to-earth, plain atmosphere with counter and stools included, old tile floors, salt-of-the-earth waitresses, funny cartoon signs on the wall promoting their food selections and a menu seemingly as big as a Tolstoy novel. Whether it's those great fried clams or breakfasts, burgers, turkey or meatloaf dinners, club sandwiches, monte christos, fried chicken-in-a-basket, lean pastrami, crab-stuffed haddock, pesto stuffed salmon or a mammoth hot fudge sundae, Harry's is all about the food, the whole food and nothing but the food, especially those wonderful fried clams!


Harry's Restaurant and Dairy Bar, 149 Turnpike Road (Route 9), Westboro, Mass.(508) 366-8302.