Passports

This is the most ridiculous place…
The food here sucks, I ordered the salmon and it came one side burnt and the other so over cooked it’s borderline salmon jerky. Oh and one side is ridiculously salty the ogre bland.
Though this is not as bad as the other dish ordered which was the scallops. It was crusted with sesame seeds. It was interesting but what took the cake was that the dish was served over rice and (drum roll please) wasabi, pickled ginger, seaweed and SOYSAUCE (sashimi style in a little dipping cup) and an American style garden salad.
I get the Asian fusion thing going on for this American cuisine restaurant but how do you come up to see these things going together…
Oh get this… My gf who ordered the scallops, literally puked 15 mins after…
How this place come to have 4 stars on Unilocal is beyond me.

This is consistently the best restaurant in the Boston region. Fantastic value for your buck, meals with a nicely balanced flavor overload, good drinks and a small but great selection of deserts. I’ve tried almost every item on their lunch menu and there isn’t a single «okay» item. They are all delicious.
After a nice walk stop on by here for a heck of a lunch.

We went to this place last weekend. We came on the later side and when we arrived there were no tables but as soon as we got on the entire restaurant cleared out about 8pm and we were the only guests. I guess this was annoying to the wait staff as they were very rude and inattentive. Worse the food was pretty mediocre especially for the price. We wanted lobster (it should be fresh around Cape Ann at the least). The lobster was stale and over cooked. We wanted to complain but no one ever came by to check on us. We actually had to go find someone when we wanted the check. I would never go here again.

Meh. French. Lobster was sweet & yummy, though, on its own without the gratuitous herbing. Filet seemed more braised than grilled, and had a hard crispy shell like it was pan fried or something. Otherwise cooked to order on the inside. Service was professional and friendly. Dessert was yummy: Italian lemon cake. Figures, I’m more about Tuscan than Parisian.

Pop-​overs were great, location and atmosphere are awesome and the food was delicious. Highly recommend the lobster roll and haddock.

Unbelievably delicious food, great service AND tasty popovers? I’ll be coming back even when the outdoor decks of other Gloucester restaurants beckon… It had been a long time since I’d been to Passports and I wish I hadn’t stayed away so long. It isn’t especially fancy and has no «draw» for it’s atmosphere, but the menu, and THE FOOD are so over the top that it makes up for everything else. After enjoying their Tuna Tower (appetizer), sesame crusted scallops (amazing) and salmon curry (companion’s dinner that I did not get enough of), I will be going back in a hurry!

You start off by getting these delicious popovers. I got the Phở with duck and it was so huge and good. I will definitely be back for everything else one the menu.

Food is really great and demands I don’t knock them down further based on recent decline of service. Great place, nice casual atmosphere, good food, just often understaffed for its level of popularity…
From our repeat visits it kind of seems like they need to hire a bartender as waitstaff apparently have to do all their own drinks and this ends up being a major problem combined with staff seeming to be not great multi-​taskers sometimes… Again and again people would come in (ourselves but we watched other tables as well) and get left completely alone at their table for 15+ minutes. No «quick get a drink order to you». Last time we had 15+ minutes before anyone talked to us, then another 10+ minutes before drinks came…
The old waitstaff were excellent professional servers and ran around like crazy being sure to check in with you, but at the moment no signs of them and a much more lackadaisical approach to attending to customers…
Sad because it’s one of our favorites and food is generally still great. Fried oysters are unbelievable. Short ribs are delicious…

The flavour combinations are very odd and the execution ok. The service is spotty. They do a good burger.
They hold charity dinners where they supposedly donate 10% of the evening’s proceeds but even though we packed the place, we never saw a penny, despite contacting them numerous times. Very disappointing.

I was visiting my daughter and her husband in Boston and they raved about Passports so on Sunday early February we drove to Passports only to be completely disappointed. The soap was great but the fried oysters were awful, the waiter said they had run out so we batter and about the one eight of one cut up. He was so rude and we weren’t stupid and knew that wasn’t the proper size. It was awful to say the least. My son in law said that if the tall blond manager was there this wouldn’t have happened. We weren’t the only ones on that Sunday that were disappointed., There was a couple sitting near us who had fish in batter and they heard us talking and they commented that they had come before and there’s was also almost all batter.

Really enjoy Passports and go there time and again. Yes, the popovers are insane. Good Wine, great dinners, and lunch too. Casual, romantic, friendly.

The popovers are really tasty and I enjoyed the salad I ordered. Overall, good food for the price.

Coming to a seaside town is great for seafood, but I always wonder how the rest of the menu is. My fish allergy gives me very little choice in the matter, so I jump on those afterthought menu items just to ensure that the chefs are paying attention. If you are in a rush to choose a restaurant rather than enjoying the fine literature on Unilocal,my TLDR is: Passports is bland, and careless.
This must be quite the popular spot, because it filled up so quickly. I came with a group of coworkers for a professional lunch, and the place was completely empty, not another soul at the tables. We were set up in a side room, at a series of smaller tables pushed together.
One of my biggest pet peeves with large groups at restaurants is when the servers push tables together into one, because this presents a number of problems. First, the people against the wall need to slide down a long distance to reach their chairs, and are blocked in if they need to get up. Secondly, this side room was small enough that the people against the wall were essentially wearing a radiator as a hat. I took the initiative of moving the tables out to protect us from brain damage, and made a break in the tables so that the people in the middle could walk right in. I expected this to be OK, because the room was small, but was sorely mistaken.
The restaurant filled completely during our lunch. I was surprised that the place went from zero to sixty like that, which is good for them, but bad for us. Rather than solving our problems by allowing a little more room, every one got a piece of either the wall, or people constantly shuffling by. I would not recommend Passports for large groups.
The server distributed popovers to every one at the table, which was a nice touch of service. Normally restaurants just dump some bread in the center, and let us fend for our selves. The actual bread was fairly bland, but still enjoyable with butter.
For my part I ordered Adele’s gumbo, and the meatloaf tower. The gumbo exceeded my expectations in being strongly flavorful, and delicious. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and highly recommend it if you ever end up at Passports against your will.
The meatloaf tower delivered every thing it promised: meatloaf stacked on mashed potato stacked on garlic bread. It just never promised any real flavor, so I was pretty disappointed by how Passports managed to make the all three items share the same, weak flavor. That is a pretty remarkable culinary feat, because beef, and garlic have very strong, very distinct flavors. The portion size was decent, but that is pretty meaningless when the food is not enjoyable.
I expect a restaurant in Gloucester to heavily favor seafood, and I hope that their cooks invest more effort into their numerous fish dishes. The gumbo was surprisingly great, but the rest of my experience at Passports was bland, and forgettable.

Never had a bad meal here. Is a go to for is when we have loca business meal needs. Only had the seafood options so far but can’t go wrong. Staff is super friendly and handle larger sittings really well. A must go to staple for great quality food.

Visited Passports today for lunch and ordered the steak quesadilla and was served chicken quesadilla. I did say to the server no problem however on the other hand it was my perception that she really didn’t care. I would go back and give this restaurant another chance. It is small but quaint and for some reason I really want to like it.

WOW. What a complete and utter disappointment this restaurant turned out to be. We dined there on ¹²⁄₇ for my bday and then returned 5 days later for my husband’s birthday. I am still upset by the way we were treated.
First off we made reservations, when we came in at 5:45pm they had tables available, and they saw that my husband is 6ft6 and wanted to seat us at the smallest table up against the wall where you were crammed into a space with people totally on top of you.
We asked for a different table and they were very rude, they talked about us right in our face about where we wanted to be seated. They sat us in a different room but then proceeded to ignore us. I had to ask after 15 minutes if we had a waitress. Our waitress walked by us 10 times not even acknowledging us. The gal giving out fresh popovers who was the youngest was the most friendly and professional.
Eating at this restaurant would seem like you are eating in a friend’s kitchen, but not on this night. We must have done something cosmically incorrect because it seems we were alienated from the moment we walked in! We watched other tables being serviced and the waitress would not give us the time of day. The food seriously wasn’t anything to write home about either. My salmon was totally raw inside. I had to ask to have it cooked more and then they ruined it… my saying is if this was the very first time I ate at your restaurant would I come back? This is what do you do every day, take pride in your work!

My favorite place to eat in Gloucester, hands down and three cheers! Everyone is welcomed with a fresh out of the oven popover rolls. I love the service, the selection, the quality of food and they make the best lobster rolls on Cape Ann– they come on a giant Virgilio’s roll with plenty of lobster meat and chunks of avocado. Delish!

Great food. Had the Cajun Tuna Burrito. My wife had the smoked chicken salad. Both were excellent. The dinner rolls they served before our meals were to die for.

Been here many times. Today was nice Sunday end of summer. Waiter was very inattentive and lackadaisical. Messed up our order which we have had at least six times before and then tried to convince us it was ok instead of just acknowledging and correcting. Very disappointing.
Chef is very Good here

I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Passports but had never been to check it out until last night. I was excited to try this restaurant as I heard that it was called «Passports» due to the various cuisines that were offered.
We dined later in the evening on a somewhat busy night. The waitress let us know there would likely be a wait, but they were able to accommodate us with dining barside.
I was very impressed by the menu. It offered pretty much any type of cuisine you could imagine from Spanish Paella, to Asian tuna, to Vietnamese Banh Mi as well as many classic American dishes. It was very hard for me to decide what to choose. My fiancé and I each started with a salad (I had the goat cheese special which was incredible!) He had the Caesar and was very impressed. For entrée I had the Banh Mi Sandwich and he had a Steak Au Poivre. The portion sizes were very large, which was nice, I couldn’t even finish mine! His was slightly overdone (medium, not medium rare as he’d requested). The bread pudding at the end was as delicious as we had hoped.
I do think the ambience leaves a little to be desired. It seems somewhat old on the interior, and although the menu and cuisine have a very modern feel, the building does not. That was my only criticism of the restaurant. Service was friendly and quick. And– they start you off with a fresh popover which was a welcome treat!
We certainly will be back and you should check it out!