Westfair Fish & Chips - Westport, CT

Westport is a very affluent town in the busy corridor between NYC and New Haven, where I wouldn’t typically think to stop in for a meal. Recently, on my way down to Philadelphia from Boston, I stopped in, largely due to its close proximity to the highway, but mostly due to a hankering for fried clams and the calming effect they have before one embarks on the George Washington Bridge.

Westfair Fish & Chips


Westfair Fish & Chips is tucked behind a strip mall on Rt 1 (Post Rd) just off the highway. Look for the handwritten “fish & chips” sign on the side of the road.

There’s not much to it other than a few tables and an order counter, with a permanent menu on the wall as well as the chalkboard menus featuring the day’s catch. Which happened to be, on this particular day, soft-shelled crabs, thwarting my plans for a hot lobster roll and whole bellies. I instead opted for a soft-shelled crab roll and some bellies.

Soft-shelled crab roll with fries


Whole clam bellies


They have a good hand with the fryer and, in the CT-style, a light hand with the breading. Soft-shelled was plump & meaty, bellies crispy & briny – this being my first shack of the season, it’s hard to say where Westfair will fall in the pantheon, but I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

Westfair Fish & Chips
1781 Post Road East
Westport, CT
P: 203.255.3184
F: 203.254.0437
Mon thru Sat
11 am - 10 pm
Sunday
1 pm - 9 pm

tatterdemalion wrote: . . . I stopped in, largely due to its close proximity to the highway, but mostly due to a hankering for fried clams and the calming effect they have before one embarks on the George Washington Bridge.

Nab,

Very interesting indeed. I've long suspected that clams have psychoactive properties, but now I see my suspicion confirmed by an authority in the field.

Thanks for posting. Hopefully we will add several more clam shacks to the list before the summer is over. Calmly. . .

tatterdemalion,

I follow your lead once again. My uncle and aunt are in town from Kansas City, and it looks like we are headed to Westfair. After googling around for an hour, I google again and end up "back at home" on LTH. It seems so right.

Josephine

Westfair turned out some top-notch bellies today. They were bigger and softer and clammier than the bellies I had earlier in the week at the Clam Castle in Madison, CT. I would be curious to know, Nab, how Westfair bellies compare to the clams you have eaten since your visit there. The thickness of the clam breading was perfect for me, but somehow the scallops did not work as well.


I preferred the Clam Castle's scallops. My uncle enjoyed the soft-shell crab, though I didn't try them, and my Mom had the broiled sole, which I thought very good, though I would have preferred the battered cod.




One thing I almost never enjoy is tartar sauce-no doubt due to some gradeschool cafeteria horror of the distant past. However, Westfair's tartar sauce was really lemony and picklish and I found myself finishing it off. Westfair's Rhode Island clam chowder (broth, no cream, no tomato) was very good, if a touch salty, with chunks of potato with skin and a generous amount of clams, as well as a smoky quality-I can't say where the smoke came from, though I did not detect any liquid smoke ashy taste. In the usually overpriced Greenwich-Westport corridor four of us ate well for about $16 a head.

A good deal for the area is also the catered clambake dinner they offer for $27.95 a head (minimum 25 people). This includes a 1 1/4 lb. lobster, steamers, mussels, chowder, corn, salad, and rolls.

By the way, the place is certainly tucked out of sight in back of the stripmall. We might have given up if not for my recognizing the font on the signage from the pictures upthread. No sign was visible from the Post Road. Those who are looking for Westfair will need some persistence. It will be rewarded.

Josephine, lately I have really only had the breadier MA-style bellies, not my preferred style and perhaps not an apt comparison either, but having said that, Westfair's bellies are still some of the best I've had this summer. There are many more CT & RI shacks on my list with empty check-boxes.

Bellies aside, they apparently have an "award-winning" fish & chips"



BTW, I agree and think that Westfair's prices are a couple of bucks higher than standard shack prices, but that's the neighbourhood for ya.

Menu







Glad you had a nice visit !

-Nab