Rising Eagle
Delicious food tastes even better, when it’s served with a side of history. So let’s visit an historically tasty restaurant: Rising Eagle Publick House in Melrose, Massachusetts. The Rising Eagle opened in 2020, but it was inspired by American history dating back to the 1700’s. And it’s run by the same family behind Turner’s Seafood, including owners James and Kathi Turner.
“The Rising Eagle is an American revolutionary public house. It's a community gathering space… You control your dining experience. You meet your friends. Here you come. You stay as long as you want. You go as quick as you want. It truly is stepping back into time to the original public houses of the early revolutionary days. We want to take you back to the early 1770s. It's warm, it's inviting. We have a natural wood burning fireplace. We have an old historic bar behind us. Everything is meant to make you feel as if you had gone step back in time.”
The food was inspired by history as well, so there’s a lot of classic Yankee cooking and comfort food coming out of the kitchen. Just check out the fresh-baked corn bread, served piping hot right in the skillet, just waiting for you to slather on some butter. But for some traditional New England cooking, you gotta try the famous Fish Cakes served with black eye peas and a lemon caper butter sauce.
“So our fish cakes are actually Nana Turner from Newfoundland, her original recipe from the early 1940s. So you really do get a combination of the potatoes, a little bit of onion and the salt cod. And for those people that like fish cakes, we always like them to have a slight crust on the outside, and then they're a lot softer on the inside.”
Since the Turner family has such a long history in the seafood business, you can even get a great Shrimp Scampi Flatbread, boasting a super thin and crispy grilled crust, fresh shrimp, lots of butter and garlic, with some arugula and tomatoes over the top. And on the sandwich side of things, they make a truly outstanding Thanksgiving Turkey dinner stacked on toasted sourdough, featuring hand-carved house roasted turkey breast, housemade stuffing, mayo, and cranberry sauce. I’m giving that one 5 out of 5 gobbles. Great sandwich. But honestly, the Greek inspired Lamb and Feta Burger might be even better.
“Oh, the lamb and feta burger is awesome. We use a fresh ground lamb from upstate New York. They grill it so it has a little crispiness on the outside, and then we serve it with a tzatziki sauce. It's one of our best selling items, and not too many people have lamb burgers on their menus anymore. So that's another kind of step back into kind of colonial times and other foods that would have been available back in the 1700s.”
If you’re looking for something really hearty and satisfying, you can’t do much better than the Yankee Pot Roast. It’s slow cooked, super tender, and served with a rich pan gravy along with a mound of mashed potatoes and green beans. Or you could go for the Chicken Parm Dinner. It’s made with a hand-breaded panko crusted chicken breast, along with a three cheese blend, lots of linguine, and housemade marinara sauce. But the best on the entire menu, might be the bubbling hot Seafood Casserole.
“So we take our great fish that we get fresh off the docks every day… and it's a combination of shrimp and scallops and fish in a nice little bit of a cream sauce. And it's really with a little crust on the top. It's delicious. It's simple, it's clean, and it's really been one of our best sellers… It's a mild blend with just enough seasoning to pull out some of the great flavors from the shrimp, from the scallops and the fish.”
To finish off your meal, get the Rising Eagle Toffee, basically a bite-sized buttercrunch made with butter, sugar, roasted pecans, milk chocolate, and sea salt. So you’ll leave with something a little sweet, after experiencing an historically delicious meal at The Rising Eagle in Melrose.
“We have great floor hospitality out there, but you truly control your own dining experience. We don't care if you get up. Move tables. Move tables together…. But in terms of seafood, the Turner family has been in the fish business for 100 years, over four generations, and their mission is to serve you the freshest, best quality New England seafood on the planet. It really, really is meant to be a home away from home, where you step back into time and can just be feeling comfortable and control your own dining experience.”
