White Horse Tavern

Francis Brinley built the original structure around 1652 as a two-room residence on land obtained from William Coddington, and in 1673 sold it to William Mayes, who enlarged it into a tavern; a formal tavern license followed in 1687. Mayes's son William Jr. — a notorious pirate who returned to Newport with pillaged bounty — took over the tavern in the early 1700s, and tavern keeper Jonathan Nichols gave it the White Horse Tavern name in 1730. Over the centuries the building also hosted meetings of the Rhode Island General Assembly, court sessions, and city business, and British and Loyalist troops were quartered there during the American Revolution. After declining into a boarding house, it was restored beginning in 1952 with Van Beuren family funding through the Preservation Society and reopened as a restaurant in the 1950s. It operates today as a fine-dining tavern and is a contributing property in the Newport Historic District National Historic Landmark.

One of its early proprietors, William Mayes Jr., was an actual pirate — he returned to Newport with a pillaged bounty, took over the tavern from his father, and in 1702 was granted a license to sell 'all sorts of strong drink,' apparently with the town's blessing.

What to order: Upscale New England fine dining served by candlelight inside the gambrel-roofed, clapboard 17th-century building — the tavern room itself, with its original beams and huge hearth, is the famous draw.