Northey Street House Bed & Breakfast

We had a fantastic breakfast at the Northey Street House Bed & Breakfast last week, and as you may have noticed, good food pretty much guarantees a blog post. Northey Street House is a nineteenth-century Federal style home that is on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been renovated and restored into a lovely place to stay when visiting Salem.

I'm going to talk about breakfast first and then the bed, because breakfast was crazy-delicious. Innkeeper Flora Tonthat served apple-rhubarb crisp (with rhubarb from the inn's garden that she preserved from last season), whole grain banana nut muffins with sunflower seeds (yum!), goat cheese and herb scones, and fresh fruit. There were mini quiche, too, which I did not have because I was too busy with the sweeter side of breakfast. As if that's not enough, Flora happily whipped up scrambled eggs for a guest who was not a fan of quiche.

The coffee was phenomenal, too.

Flora told us that she likes to eat healthy and buy local, or in the summer season pick fresh foods from her garden behind the house. I can't wait to stop by during the summer to see the garden in full-bloom.

That was breakfast, now for the bed... Northey Street House has three rooms and a family suite. Two of the rooms have interior entrances, and the family suite and garden room have exterior entrances. The rooms are well appointed and the entire house is very comfortable. The family suite includes a kitchen, bedroom, sitting room with a daybed and bathroom. All of the rooms have private baths.

The house is walking distance from downtown Salem, the train station, and all of the attractions, but it is off the beaten path so you have the best of both worlds - secluded garden retreat, short walk to dinner.

During breakfast, we talked with Joe and Joan from Long Island about their visit to Salem. They came up to Salem for four days of their vacation, and here's how they were spending their time:

• Day one driving up the coast to see Gloucester and Rockport via the beautiful Route 127, and had dinner at Sixty2 on Wharf;
• Day two exploring Salem, specifically the Peabody Essex Museum and the House of the Seven Gables, with lunch at Reds and dinner at Bella Verona;
• Day three they took the train into Boston and explored the Public Garden, Charles Street, Boston Common, and the North End, where they had dinner;
• Day four they were heading into Boston again and hoped to go to Finz on Pickering Wharf for dinner.

Clearly Northey Street House can be a perfect home base for exploration of Salem, the north of Boston, and greater Boston regions.

Thanks for breakfast, Flora! It was fantastic!

(And there we are, team Destination Salem, photographed in the living room of the Northey Street House. That's me, Kate, on the left, and Stacia is sitting on the right.)