Albert T.
Yelp
We wanted to attend a fish boil while in Door County for the day and Old Post Office Restaurant seemed to be the most accessible in the area. We managed to make reservations for the 5PM boil the night before and were told to get there 30 minutes early to see the magic happen. When we got to the restaurant, we checked in at the hostess stand inside the restaurant and were given the table number we would be sitting at. Afterwards, we were directed to the field in the back to sit on the park benches surrounding a large cauldron of boiling water.
The boil master doesn't actually show up until about 15 minutes or so before the reservation time, so there's a bit of time to sit and relax in the sun before you get a nice show. He goes over the history of the fish boil, shows off all the fish he'll be cooking (which takes 7 minutes), and then towards the end, he chucks a can of kerosene into the fire, making a large fireball erupt from the bottom. It's certainly entertaining! After the show, you find your table and the servers start bringing out the food.
Fish Boil ($27) - The food here is very simple and reminiscent of typical food found 100+ years ago. It's really tough to say that the food is great, considering the decades and decades of food innovation and intermixing of spices and cooking techniques since the 1800s. It's honestly about as much as you can expect from purely boiling whitefish steaks, potato, and onion in salted water. The whitefish, served with a wedge of lemon to help brighten the flavors a bit, is tender and flaky with mild fish flavor. The potatoes are tender and buttery smooth, with a bland interior and lightly salted exterior. The onion is onion, having been boiled so that it's translucent and almost falling apart. The salt water doesn't really penetrate into much of the food, so this is the first restaurant in years I've had to actually use the salt and pepper shakers at the table - just a tad to enhance the flavor. The restaurant also provides a pitcher of melted butter and a shaker of seasoning salt to help vary things up a bit. The butter flavor is very strong and completely masks the flavor of the fish if you decide to use it. (3/5)
Old Post Office Restaurant is unique in that you can request the staff to debone the fish for you. They do it right at the table, but even afterwards, you can still find some pin bones embedded in the meat. Be careful when you eat! We actually got one plate of deboned fish and one plate left intact to see if there was any difference - we found no difference other than the fact that if you debone yourself, you waste much less meat. In total, they give you two large whitefish steaks which probably weight close to a pound in total. I thought it we weren't going to get too much food going in, but I was absolutely stuffed afterwards. (3/5)
On the side, there's a small scoop of their home made coleslaw. The slaw is filled with crunchy vegetables, green and red cabbage, carrots, etc in a very mild dressing that honestly doesn't add very much to the dish. It feels mostly like eating raw veggies. They also provide three small slices of bread served with individually wrapped pats of butter. One is a basic rye, not toasted or anything. The other two slices are essentially pound cake - one is scented with vanilla, the other is pretty interesting, with what seems to be zucchini pieces and cinnamon inside. Both are sweet which I found to be a bit strange served with all the other more savory items on the plate. (3/5)
The meal finishes with a slice of cherry pie, with the option of adding ice cream for a slight surcharge. The crust feels kind of commercial with a uniform thickness and composition. It's soft in the middle, with an outer crust that's more well baked with a caramelized buttery flavor. The interior is stuffed with a sweet, syrupy cherry concoction, mixed with whole cherries. I found the best part of the pie to be the sugar crust on the top. It adds a nice sweetness and crunch to add variety vs the softer interior. (4/5)
The Old Post Office is a place you go to once just to experience a fish boil. The food is really nothing to rave about - simple food that hasn't evolved much from the old 1800s recipes. I would personally not visit again, but I think the overall experience was worth it. And I do recommend anyone visiting Door County as a tourist to go to a fish boil, whether at Old Post Office Restaurant or elsewhere.
Bathrooms - Larger bathrooms with multiple stalls inside.
Overall rating of the food this visit: 3.25/5