Phantom Gourmet: Great Road Kitchen In Littleton

LITTLETON - Start your meal with an outstanding raw bar platter, move on to some Lobster and Bacon Guacamole, dive in to the perfect pile of Steak Frites, and finish up with an outrageous Ice Cream Sundae. Add in an open kitchen helmed by a top chef, a big, busy bar, and a beautifully stylish dining room, and you'll probably think this is one of Boston's hottest restaurants.

But you'd be wrong. Great Road Kitchen is actually located about 45 minutes west of Boston. While the town of Littleton isn't known as a culinary hot bed, owner Marcus Palmer and Chef Chris Frothingham are looking to change that.

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"We tried to bring a little bit of the city to the suburbs," Marcus said. "I hear this from guests all the time, 'I feel like I'm in Boston, but here I am in Littleton.' And that's exactly what we're looking for."

The food ranges from fun to fancy, with both affordable options and expensive indulgences, making it the kind of place that's great for any occasion.

"We're hoping it's your three night a week place, maybe four nights a week. It is somewhere you can have a fancy dinner and bring out a date, but it's also a place where we have a lot of business coming in after work, and a lot of local people coming in just to unwind and to have a good time," Chef Chris said.

The restaurant is only a few months old, and while it does boast around 200 seats, they fill up fast every night. When you pair a big full dining room with an active open kitchen, the energy is awesome.

"We designed the restaurant specifically so every seat has a view of the kitchen in some form, in some angle," Marcus explained. "You kind of feed off of that because you see how many people are back there, how fast they're working, how intense it is. You see all the staff that it takes to make an operation like this work."

For diners who want to really get close to the action, the seats at the raw bar are the hottest in the house.

"You really see what's going on," Marcus said. "Everyone we talk to every night has so much fun there, because we get to talk to them from the inside, and they get to see it from the outside."

Every meal at Great Road Kitchen starts with some buttery complementary rolls, but Phantom recommends upgrading to the housemade Focaccia smothered with caramelized onions.

After that, the Seafood Tower is a great way to sample some seriously fresh shellfish.

"Fun thing about the raw bar, it does change almost daily," Marcus explained. "We could have four, five six oysters every night, some East Coast, some West Coast. We have some forms of clams and we have shrimp cocktail. There's always a variety, but the nice thing is we make it really easy, there's a card on each table, lists every single oyster and how much it costs. There's a little golf pencil on there, and all you have to do is write how many of each you want, and it's out within minutes to get the table going."

Other great starters include Asian inspired fried Calamari Frites and the top selling Guacamole, kicked up with Bacon and Lobster.

"Guac is great on its own, but on top of that the salt from the pork, the contrast between the cool avocado and the cilantro, and that little bite of onion, lots of lime juice, with the salty bacon, and then on top of that, just again, the seafood, is just adding decadence to something that's already luxurious," Chef Chris described.

Entrees at Great Road Kitchen offer something for everyone, like Cast Iron Chicken with Grilled Broccolini, Baha Fish Tacos with Guacamole, Seared Yellowfin Tuna crusted with wasabi peas, and some of the best Steak Frites you'll ever eat.

"We marinate eight ounces, grill it to order, slice it, serve it over our housemade French fries that we toss with arugula and parmesan, top it with a whiskey onion butter, demi-glace, and a little truffle oil," the chef explained. "As that demi-glace seeps through the steak into the fries, you have different layers of flavor going through that dish, and when you get to the bottom, all those fries that have just been soaked up in the demi-glace and the truffle oil, you can't beat it."

For dessert, you could get the Banana's Foster Bread Pudding, but an even better choice is the enormous Ice Cream Sundae, served in a retro bowl.

On Sunday, Great Road Kitchen serves a killer brunch, with dishes like Huevos Rancheros, and Corn Flake Crusted French Toast. But the real hidden jewel on the menu is the Roast Beef Sandwich, served exclusively at lunch.

"Having lived on the North Shore for a while, I found down this way I can't find a good roast beef sandwich," Chef Chris lamented. "So instead of having to travel 30 minutes every day to go get one, I decided to put one on our menu. We actually roast roast beef in house, every day, really nice and rare, and we slice it very thin. We do a half pound of roast beef on a toasted brioche bun, that we top with cheese sauce, homemade horseradish sauce, little bit of barbecue sauce, and then crispy onion strings piled high. You just can't beat it."

Whether you come for lunch, brunch, or dinner, Great Road Kitchen promises an all-around great dining experience.

"If you go out that door and you tell me, 'I had the best server here tonight. I had the friendliest people, everyone was so nice,' I'm gonna be happy, because I know the food is great, but we want that hospitality piece on top of that," Marcus said.

You can find Great Road Kitchen at 613 Constitution Avenue in Littleton, and online at greatroadkitchen.com.

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