Review of The White Mountain Hotel and Resort

Seafood delights at this North Country resort

The White Mountain Hotel and Resort at the base of White Horse Ledge in Hale’s Location near North Conway offers spellbinding views of Cranmore Mountain to the east and beyond. The Ledges Dining Room is set in a semicircular space lined with windows that bring the outdoors up close and personal. One can imagine the space is like being inside a snow globe on a snowy eve and the best seat for foliage as theater in the fall.

The restaurant had offered a Friday night seafood experience as a buffet that was well-loved to locals in the Mt. Washington Valley. Now, Executive Chef Josh Farrington brings in the same fresh seafood from Portland, Maine, but offers it as a five-course meal ($35) on Friday evenings only.

Diners enjoy white-tablecloth dining, the gentle sounds of live popular piano tunes and attentive service along with a wide choice of seafood entrées.

The main course offers selections that include fresh seared scallops with an arugula and mushroom salad to a hearty broiled haddock ladled with lobster sauce. Before the entrées, though, course one is soup with a classic creamy clam or seafood chowder and two is a salad. Three choices of salad include a light Caesar or an Asian spring roll lined with shrimp and avocado.

The most impressive pre-entrée choice is the Raw Bar Tower.

Although presented more like a raw shellfish platter, the choice gives you two each of oyster, clam, lobster and an impressive, superlatively fresh scallop still attached to the shell.

The hotel has excellent accommodations if you decide to make it a night or more. Golf is onsite as is a pleasant exercise room, sauna and heated outdoor pool.