The secret is out — there’s a great new restaurant at the corner of West Pearl and Elm streets in Nashua. In the space that used to be occupied by the speakeasy-styled Codex, which hid behind bookshelf-lined windows and a concealed entrance, Local Street Eats has changed the vibe from the Roaring ’20s to eclectic international. A friend who knows his way around the Nashua restaurant scene gave Local an enthusiastic “gotta try it” on social media, and that was enough to convince Mrs.
Gourmet that we should check it out. Our friend was right. We rarely leave a restaurant raving about the experience, but we were raving as we left Local Street Eats on a snowy Saturday evening.
Even though the secret speakeasy is no more, Local Street Eats is still pretty hard to find. There are small signs painted in the windows, but there’s nothing big, so you’ll need to keep a sharp lookout if you’re not familiar with the neighborhood. And once you find the entrance to the small, entirely generic vestibule (it’s actually around the corner on Elm Street), it’s up a small ramp and around a corner to a flower-bedecked door with a handle that’s also hard to find.
We were led to a table by the front windows, where we had a great view of the main dining room. Wood-beaded chandeliers hang from the black-painted ceiling, with matching sconces on the dark-green walls. Orange and white dragon print wallpaper formed an accent in our corner of the room.
Overall, there’s a subtle Asi.