We’ll be spending two nights in Boston early this fall and would love some eating, drinking, and lodging recommendations. Bars, breweries, fine dining, casual, whatever (though we do love FR and IT food/wine). We’ll be without a car and would prefer a hotel with easy access to Logan if possible. Thanks for any insight.
Hey Gabriel,
Boston is coming back to life with restrictions loosening (or going away completely on 5/29) and the warm weather. The seaport area has a lot to offer these days. Newer hotels, nice restaurants, and one of the better breweries are all in walking distance.
Higher end hotels include Boston Harbor and The Intercontinental. Both are right across from the Seaport District. Other options are a Marriott Residence Inn that is pretty nice, the Westin, and the Seaport Hotel.
Restaurants are cropping up all over but we just had dinner at Nautilus which is new to Boston but a staple on Nantucket and it was very good with a really interesting wine list. Lola 42 is also a nantucket place that opened a place in Boston that is supposed to be good. Neither are italian or french though. Great seafood at Row 34 with an excellent beer list. Menton and OYa are both within walking distance and are some of the highest end places in Boston the former is french/italian and the other is japanese. Steak houses are all over including del friscos, mastro’s, ocean prime, smith and wolensky, and mortons. Trillium Brewery is in the seaport as well. They have excellent beers with a pretty wide range but known for hazy IPAs. They also have an outdoor beer garden right in front of the Boston Harbor Hotel (not sure it’s open yet).
The north end and the south end are short uber rides away and have a ton of restaurants. We love Toro and Coppa in the south end and Neptunes in the north end. North end is our little Italy and there are a bunch of red sauce places down there.
Chinatown is also close by so you could hit up Taiwan Cafe.
Grab breakfast at Flour or Tatte. Have a good time.
Seth
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Since you only have a few days, you may want to consider your hotel location based on your non-food/wine activities (museums, history, sports?) as it can be a little slow getting around town during the day (subway or Uber/Lyft). Getting across town in the evening for dinner is a little easier/faster. imho.
If I had 2 nights in Boston one of them would be at Troquet on South. http://www.troquetboston.com/ Incredible wine list and excellent French inspired/technique food. Go with the tasting menu and chat with the owner Chris on what he has open and what older Burgs he has. His list used to be very fairly priced. Other French inspired would be Cragie on Main and No 9 Park.
You didn’t ask for Seafood but Boston has some of the best in the country. Lunch at Neptune Oyster House is a great option. If you’re going to explore the North End get there around 10:45 am. You’ll wait in line then put your name on the wait list. They’ll call you when your table is ready usually in about 75 minutes or so. Walk around the North End and check out the historical sites. Lunch will be some of the best Seafood you’ve ever had. https://www.neptuneoyster.com/
Another choice would be B&G Oyster in the Back Bay. They do take reservations. Go early and explore the Back Bay. Terrific neighborhood to visit.
Italian- there are so many terrific options. Just be careful not to pick some of the more tourist focused locations in the North End. We like Lucca but prefer the North End location though the one in the back bay is solid. We also really enjoyed Toscano in Beacon Hill. Very nice wine list as well. http://www.toscanoboston.com/
Coppa is also a small terrific place doing some cool modern dishes and also terrific pizza. This is a pretty solid list of the top spots.
We like to stay at the Copley Marriott. You can walk to the back bay area or short ride to the North End. Getting to Logan is pretty easy so we choose hotels for the areas we’re going to explore.
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I’m pretty fond of deuxave
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Just back from a few days there and around, nothing you won’t hear from others - but yes, go to Neptune (get the johnnycakes!), and Row 34 for oysters is great as well. Ditto for B&G - those are the kinds of places I want when in Boston. We were in line with a long wait for Coppa and ended up going across the street to Formaggio market which has a world class cheese counter and a nice little wine selection to boot. We stayed at the Revere which is a great central location (and plenty nice, very friendly staff).
Pickup beer or hang out at Trillium brewery (3 locations). Hit Tatte for casual lunch/breakfast/pastry - their shakshuka is very good, and they are practically every few blocks, which is a very nice thing. George Howell for coffee.
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All of these recs are pre-pandemic, but…
Completely agree with Troquet and Craigie on Main- looking forward to going back to both in the coming months. Craigie requires either a Red Line trip and a walk, or an Uber/Lyft ride.
Sorellina in Back Bay is a favorite of mine for Italian, with a fascinating, Italian-focused wine list.
For something a little more casual, I’ve really enjoyed the Butcher Shop in the South End.
Trillium is probably the top brewery in the city - looking forward to their Greenway beer garden again this summer.
Just back from Boston, make sure to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, they have a fantastic Monet exhibit.
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Troquet in the South End has the best (and surprisingly affordable) wine list in Boston. I’ve been there 3 times recently and it is still excellent. You can even get the legendary Boston Speed hot dog that the WSJ called the best dog in the US (they bought the rights from Speed’s widow) and a killer brew for something casual. They always have good oysters and Krug by the glass.
Have always loved Craigie (Cambridge) but they are currently only doing outdoors 3-course prix fixe, which doesn’t excite me. So check before you get here since things are rapidly getting back to normal (MA has 2nd highest rate of vaccination in the US).
Recently been enjoying Grand Tour, a French bistro on Newbury St in Back Bay, and their nearby sister restaurant Select Oyster Bar (which is much better than touristy Neptune in the North End). Row 34 in Seaport is also a great seafood spot. I’m a total fanboy of Cafe Sushi in Harvard Square (only for omakase at the counter with sake pairings), but they haven’t reopened for indoor dining yet. Contrary to tourist’s expectations, Boston isn’t a great seafood town, but there are some good places.
My favorite Italian closed, and I haven’t found a replacement, but I like SRV (Venetian), Pammy’s, Guilia. If worst comes to worst, you can always eat pretty well at Eataly at the Pru downtown. The Italian North End is full of tourist traps and mediocre food, but still fun to wander around (also Boston Public Market across the street). Walk from the North End along the waterfront to Seaport and back via the “Big Dig” (Rose Kennedy Greenway park, one of the world’s biggest construction projects where they buried the highways leaving a mile-long park above ground).
MFA is great, but if you’ve never been to the Isabella Stuart Garnder, it’s sort of Boston’s version of Philly’s Barnes Foundation, an amazing, quirky collection in a cool space (also the site of the world’s biggest, still unsolved, art heist).
FWIW, here’s Eater’s list of Boston’s “38 essential restaurants” (I’ve been to 22). It sorta covers the gamut:
Boston Magazine Top 50 is more biased to the high end (sad how many are no longer open):
BTW, supposedly Boston has some of the worst waiting times for Lyft/Uber currently in the US (there was an article in the Globe recently recommending you book your ride while you are deplaning!). I drive everywhere, so I haven’t expereienced this personally, but something to keep an eye on. Hopefully it is resolved by the time you get here.
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Oh man someone above said they would do a night at troquet if they had a few nights in Boston. I’m here for three nights and if they were open the other nights I’d go back! Food is solid (my duck was not amazing but everything else was really good) but that wine list is unbelievable. Decent amount of burg and tons of back vintage Bordeaux and Rhone (beaucastel, guigal, etc) at fair prices…
Troquet is the best. Glad to hear its still going strong. We haven’t been there for years and hope to go back when in Beantown.
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Just got back from Boston. Dined at Frenchie - wasn’t worth the Uber ride but was good. I think we enjoyed Uni the most of the places we dined on the trip. Troquet is definitely worth the trip and we would return. No 9 Park was also excellent especially given the show a table (mother, daughter, father, boy friend) gave us. The first time I’ve seen people thrown out of a restaurant this nice. The mother was a monster and the rest of the family did as much as they could. Alcohol was involved and they hadn’t even been served any food.
The wait time for Uber was very, very long and not a lot of cabs around. We quickly learned to give extra time when ordering up an Uber.