Woodman's of Essex — Restaurant in Essex

I'm no fried seafood enthusiast, but I was underwhelmed by the fried plate.

I found this place by quickly checking Google/Reddit for 'best seafood in Gloucester' and I saw this place pop up several times. I figured that was enough recommendation for me and I bee-lined towards this place after finishing all of my tourism during the day.

Parking is very simple - pull into the driveway and you'll be greeted by a surprisingly spacious lot. It shouldn't be trouble finding a spot here.

Upon entering the restaurant, you have a sense of familiarity with other seafood shacks and coastal restaurants. You will feel right at home here if you're a Massachusetts native. I NEED to mention that the restroom signs were very amusing - Gulls and Buoys. fantastic.

I'll be honest, I am only comfortably experienced with eating Kimball Farm fried seafood in central MA. I don't know where they rank in comparison do these classic restaurants, but they will serve as my benchmark.

I wanted a good experience and ordered 3 items... totaling $93. Goodness.

Clam Chowder (small) - wow, I think this is the best clam chowder I've had. It is notably a very thin chowder, which I guess that makes it more like a soup. But the potatoes and clams REALLY taste like potatoes and clams. Deliciously flavorful, and they did not skimp on the clams. Would totally come back just for a huge bowl of this.

Lobster Roll - I will preface this by saying I love eating plain, steamed lobster with zero condiments. I love the taste of pure lobster, and lots of it. This lobster roll delivers on the plain lobster taste - which is probably a negative for a lot of people. And man, they DID NOT SKIMP on the lobster serving. Underneath the layers of meat is just more meat. Totally satisfied, even though I still cringe at the idea of paying $36 for a roll. Fries were good and plain too.

Half/Half Calamari + Scallops - what happened? compared to Kimball Farm, this plate just did not deliver on the taste, and the quality of the frying and batter were extremely subpar. Everything was easily flaking off and didn't feel crispy/crunchy. The calamari tasted so plain and seemed a little undercooked, and the scallops were unremarkably sized with not much juiciness to them. The onion rings were extremely oily and I just did not feel great after a few rings. At 42.99, I am very unhappy about what I got.

Overall I kind of wanted to give this place a 3/5 because I'm sure most customers are coming here for the fried plates, but I cannot ignore the great quality of the chowder and...

So this was our 2nd trip, the 1st was not favorable. Woodman's without question made sure we would come back. So we did and probably on the worst weekend of the year, July 4th weekend! It was well worth it. The line was out the door and down the side walk to the next building. We questioned if we wanted to wait since they had a table set up with water and other items to pass the time. The wait was not bad at all, we had ordered 20 minutes after we started our wait and had our food in under 10 minutes. So a total of 30 minutes, not bad at all. I'm still baffled that there were so many empty tables available, where did all the people go that were in line? We got clam chowder, a fried whole belly clams plate, a fried scallop plate and 2 fried lobster tails. All of it was excellent. The chowder was full of substance with good flavor, the fried seafood was also excellent, the fried food was clean with no old or bad frying oil taste, the fries are typical fries, the onion rings were outstanding, you can see them battering the onion rings behind the register and the lobster tails were also excellent. We had a beer and a mix drink which both were excellent as well. I actually told the bartender just make something fruity and strong that my wife will like. She made something which she said had no name but my wife was very happy. This was all nice priced at $110 for the food and another $20 for the drinks. Yeah I know $130 sounds expensive and I agree so that's why we only do this once maybe twice a year. It was worth it to us! I will be honest I did believe the fried lobster tail was a little small, I think they were a lobster tail that was split in half so 2 pieces out of 1 tail. The only other thing we saw was that the portions are a LITTLE small. Don't get me wrong these plates were not loaded with fries and onion rings to appear they are big portions. There was a good portion of fries and onion rings and a good amount of good sized seafood as well. It was more that when we go to these places when not knowing the size portions we each order a meal and share each other's. At the end of the meal we grab a to-go box and are like holy crap we should have just ordered 1 and shared it which we do the next time. This time we both finished our meals, left full and happy. In the end this place is well worth it. Speedy, friendly service, great food, priced comparable makes this place a must visit. In the end I would give this place a...

Worth trying once if you like fried food, but not worth the long drive if you're far from the North Shore. It's a tourist trap, i.e. very popular, always busy (constant stream of people), mass production food prep, fries come from big plastic bags, and everything is a little to more than a little overpriced. The Good: they do separate the fryers (so the fries/onion rings don't taste/smell like the seafood and vice versa), their batter is good though it's not seasoned nor salted (so if you like flavored batter then you find it very bland), and the white fish, onion rings, scallops, and clams tasted fairly fresh, pretty well cleaned/prepared, and fried golden brown (though the fish had no taste). Although they were busy, there is a lot of seating, so seats clear out reasonably well as you wait to pick-up your food. The Bad: the clams were small (but I guess this is the luck of the draw and timing of the year), you don't get that much for the price you pay (they pile it high, the paper plates are on the smaller side), and I saw plastic bags of fries - not fresh cut, so who knows what else they buy frozen versus fresh. I've had the same but larger clams in Wellesley. If they seasoned their batter or seasoned some of their items, I would make the trek again. But I think they are happy with...