Why In-the-Know Travelers Head to the Connecticut Coast for Their New England Fix
COME AUGUST, eastern seaboard travelers hankering for one last gasp of summer fun and saltwater breezes crowd beachy hot spots like Bar Harbor, Newport and Nantucket. But too many fail to realize that, en route, they’re passing another New England shoreline delight hiding in plain sight. I’m talking about the Connecticut coast.
Please, hold your jokes. As a third-generation native of the state, I assure you I’ve heard them all—which may explain why I’ve always had an outsize affection for the place, and an underdog’s conviction that it’s misunderstood. Poised between Massachusetts and New York and with divided identities to match, Connecticut has long been stereotyped as nothing but a succession of bland commuter towns populated by prep-school Chads and Buffys. But visitors willing to linger a bit will find a more charming, complex reality—minus the tourist hordes.
Nowhere is that more true than the approximately 50-mile stretch of coast from Guilford to Stonington, where velvety green farms, tidy historic villages, laid-back beaches and seafood shanties mix with buzzy cocktail bars and harbors studded with crisp white sailboats.
Growing up, I was captivated by my mother’s idyllic tales of her uncle’s bare-bones bungalow at Point O’ Woods in Old Lyme, one of many middle-class cabin communities that sprung up along the coast in the 1920s and ‘30s. When that cottage was sold, visits became less frequent. This summer, stirred by buzz about the region’s revitalized restaurant scene—and, OK, a bit of middle-aged nostalgia—I decided it was high time I got reacquainted with the seaside pleasures of my ancestral stamping ground.
I’m not alone in feeling the draw. Katharine Hepburn was raised in Hartford and returned later in life to her family’s waterfront estate in the tony borough of Fenwick. Brad Leone, a popular YouTube food star, experienced his Connecticut coast eureka moment a few years ago, while researching his cookbook. Originally from New Jersey, he was wowed by what he found. “You’re in between New York and Boston and there’s this incredible natural playground with farmland just crashing into the ocean—but it’s still not overdeveloped.” In 2021 he moved his family and production studio to the area full time. “In my opinion it’s where New England really begins,” he said.
Right off the bat, I found my visit’s logistics easy to love. Compared to slogging out to the far reaches of Cape Cod, the zippy trip my husband and I made from Brooklyn up I-95 to our first stop—a butter-yellow rental a block from the water’s edge in Old Saybrook—felt as effortless as slipping on flip flops.
Though you can still find some fine stretches of public beach—see: Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison and Rocky Neck State Park in Old Lyme—large swaths of Connecticut’s seashore are privately owned, presenting a conundrum for those hoping to spread out a blanket for just a few hours. Some towns contain spots where visitors can pay to park. But for longer stays, renting a place directly on the beach or within the bounds of a private beach association—as we did—is a simple workaround.
At low tide in Old Saybrook, the confluence of the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound creates a shimmering sandbar that stretches to the horizon like a maritime mirage, punctuated by swimmers, paddle-boarders and kids clutching Crayola-hued tubes. I can attest that it also makes a fine setting for sipping from a thermos of sangria. Cathy Branch Stebbins, 64, who’s been summering in the neighborhood since she was a child (and from whom I rented my darling bungalow via Vrbo), calls this ad hoc landmass the Beach of Beaches.
Hannah Moore, a nonprofit executive who lives in Manhattan with her husband and children, didn’t expect much when her father and sister proposed renting a cottage in nearby Westbrook. “But it was honestly shockingly perfect,” she told me. They browsed beach reads at Madison’s beloved independent bookstore, RJ Julia, stuffed themselves with fried delights at the Clam Castle, and even cheered on the local minor league baseball team. (Go, Norwich Sea Unicorns!) “I have no desire to do the Hamptons or party at the Jersey Shore,” she said. They’re returning for an extra week next year.
The Good Humor ice-cream man no longer roams the sands as in my mother’s day, but other simple pleasures remain. On a tip from Meredith Kurtzman, a pastry chef who recently relocated to the area, I puttered up Route 9 to the stylish river town of Chester. The winding streets at its center close every Sunday for a bustling market full of farmers, bakers and artisan food makers. I grabbed a scoop of sea-salt stracciatella at Honeycone Craft Ice Cream, a small-batch creamery run by a mother-daughter duo. Then I stocked up on picnic provisions: a pint of sun-warmed blackberries and a wedge of Mystic Cheese’s Melinda Mae, a buttery blooming rind named for a Shel Silverstein character. The next day, a brief detour from my cottage brought me to Scotts’, a fifth-generation family farm in Essex. For less than $20, I left with an armful of snapdragons, sunflowers and zinnias from their riotous cut-your-own flower fields, and a sack of Silver Queen corn that was out of this world.
Despite the state’s anodyne reputation, along its back roads, Colonial-era cemeteries and used book barns cozy up to gas station bait shops. And coastal Connecticut’s unpretentious charms are even more evident in its waterways. Emerald inlets make for a kayaker’s paradise and the protected waters of Fishers Island Sound provide smooth sailing. “You have all these islands to explore, hidden beaches, old lighthouses, incredible homes, restaurants you can boat right up to. It’s a whole lifestyle,” said Darin Keech, owner of Poet’s Lounge Charters. Ideal for yachtless schlubs like me, his small sailing fleet can be booked for anything from private sunset cruises to overnights to Block Island.
But if I had to pick just one stretch of Connecticut’s shore to crow about, I’d choose its farthest reaches: Noank, Mystic and Stonington—a trio of historic New England maritime towns so picturesque they could be mistaken for set dresser’s models. (It’s no coincidence that “Jaws” author Peter Benchley spent time in Stonington while penning the bestseller.) The southernmost of the three, the petite village of Noank was once home to one of the East Coast’s largest wooden shipbuilding yards. Now it draws a steady crowd to its casual dockside restaurants, including Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough, beloved for its warm, buttery “Connecticut-style” lobster rolls.
A bit more affluent and artsy, Stonington boasts both the James Merrill House—a literary center founded in honor of the poet and former resident—and Connecticut’s last commercial fishing fleet.
In the past, Mystic was best known for its seaport culture museum and world-class aquarium. No wonder I thought of it, growing up, as a place you went on field trips. Over the last decade, however, a few visionaries have helped the town shake off its sepia-toned past and be reborn as a hip shopping and dining destination. One is chef Dan Meiser. “Honestly, I got tired of hearing writers talk about Portland, Maine,” he told me. To bring attention to the region’s equally impeccable local resources, he and his former partner, James Wayman, opened Oyster Club in 2011. Now Meiser’s projects span a working farm and four more restaurants, including Port of Call, a convivial bar with craft cocktails and bites from award winning-chef Renee Toupounce, inspired by port cities around the globe.
A few blocks away, at the Shipwright’s Daughter inside the chic Whaler’s Inn hotel, David Standridge has drawn acclaim—including this year’s James Beard Award for best chef Northeast—for the clever dishes he crafts from “off-catches” like sea robins, that many cooks avoid. Among the most revelatory bites I’ve had in a while: his monkfish mortadella, a silky tangle of seafood charcuterie.
For Meiser the excitement is gratifying, but hardly a surprise. Years ago, when he was a cook in Hartford, he’d get up early to drive to the Stonington docks for fish before treating himself to blueberry pancakes and linguiça at Noah’s, a diner. In other words, like me, he’s been Connecticut-proud since before it was cool. “I couldn’t believe a place like this actually existed,” he said. “But it does.”
I told you so.
