An Insider's Guide to Ipswich and Essex

If we’re going to talk about Ipswich and Essex, we should start with the clams. Both towns sit on the Great Marsh, a sweepingly beautiful and biologically rich wetland that stretches from the New Hampshire border down to Gloucester. And something about the muddy flats of the marsh—the cold water, perhaps, the precise blend of minerals in the mud—has made the soft-shell clams that grow there a coveted seafood delicacy. The Ipswich clam has become an iconic name, famous for being tender and plump, sweet and briny. But it is Essex—Woodman’s restaurant specifically—that lays claim to creating the fried clam that is an indelible sym

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An Insider’s Guide to Ipswich and Essex

We share where to go and what to do in these two historic coastal New England towns.

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