Seeking Food inspiration – A Review of the Best Boston Restaurants
December 1, 2020
Seeking food inspiration, I have resorted to reminiscing about the (many) restaurants we went to in Boston. I miss going to restaurants, mainly for the great company and dinner chit-chat over a glass of wine (or two). But also there are multiple courses and someone else is cooking, clearing up and coming up with yummy dinner ideas. Since we’ve come back from our trip to Italy, we’ve quarantined for 2 weeks and we’re currently in a 4-week lockdown. Plenty of time for “revisiting” our favourite food moments.
Our Top 50 Boston Restaurants challenge
Anyone who followed our year living in Boston will know we attempted to eat at the Top 50 Boston restaurants. Starting from number 50 – The Loyal 10, and ending on the night before we left with number one – Uni.
Did we agree with the order of Boston Magazine’s top 50? While we haven’t ranked the whole top 50, we have had many a discussion about the ones we loved the most. I’m willing to torture myself with the photos of fantastic food to give our choice of the top 10 Boston restaurants (in no particular order) and hopefully get (and give) some food-spiration along the way.
Pig’s head, Pig’s head, Pig’s head! Still one of our favourite stories. That of the hard-working man who just wanted to go out and dine on the ‘they-only-make-18-a-night-burger’. Alas, his wife had other ideas and wanted the pig’s head (a main course for 2). He acquiesced, what a gentleman.
We ate at seven Italian restaurants during our Top-50 foray. Having lived in Italy and eaten amazing authentic Italian food, I always get nervous going to ‘Italian’ restaurants. If you listen to an Italian talking about food in other countries, you will often hear them say the food is nowhere near as good as Italy…Italy has the best food in the world. Ok, fair point, the food in Italy is in fact, fabulous. What you don’t realise is that the Italians very often eat at “Italian” restaurants even when they’re abroad. No wonder they think the food is rubbish. It’s never going to be as good as Italian in Italy. I digress. Fat Hen was definitely our favourite Italian restaurant in Boston. The menus are in Italian, the courses are Italian style (apperitivi, pasta course, meat course, dessert) and every dish was perfectly cooked and had some accompaniment that made the dish sing. Drooling right now.
This is all about the experience. The menus are created around a theme, for us it was “Roman Holiday. the eternal winter” after a trip the owners had to Italy.
What we loved about Juliet were the founders, who love travel as much as we do and tell stories through their food and the restaurant itself. We had a lovely chat with them about all our experiences of Italy. The food was perfection too and we couldn’t resist a flight of dessert wines to go with our dessert. We were so comfy and relaxed in this Boston restaurant, we were the last to leave. Well, someone has to be.
It’s noisy, it’s dark (phones were needed to read the menu) and it’s buzzing. This wins the prize for best sharing-plates restaurant and definitely one to go to with friends (when we’re allowed to do such a thing again…memories). I’ve noticed when Clark and I choose dishes, we often gravitate towards similar things; ribs, cheese, oysters, fish. Having Donna and Frank with us had us eating things we wouldn’t have chosen, stroganoff, caviar, chicken burger. Thank goodness they were there! One of our stand-out dishes at a Boston restaurant was the fried chicken sandwich (of the “hot-and-messy” variety). Must re-create.
This is where our education in Jewish food began. The standouts? For Clark, the Knish. The Jewish version of a Cornish pasty; meat and potatoes in pastry. For me, the tiny sweet rugelachs, which look like a mini croissant but made of pastry.
Did I go back to try some other dishes? Oh yeah. I took a lunch trip on my own with the sole purpose of trying Matzah ball soup and with a seat at the bar I extended my Jewish food vocabulary:
Matzah ball soup – usually a chicken soup with one big dumpling made of matzo meal (unleavened bread that has been ground up). I love soup so this was a winner.
Latkes (photo above) – basically a potato pancake, made from grated potatoes, flour and egg and fried. Served with sour cream and apple sauce…yum.
Blintz – Being rather stuffed from soup and latkes, I had a take-out blintz to enjoy at home later. It’s a pancake, rolled up and filled with a sweet cream cheese and served with fruit jam.
Can’t wait to happenstance upon more Jewish eateries to further my education.
One word – Johnnycake. It’s still the dish we talk about the most and is definitely up there on my list of must-recreates. It’s a fat pancake swimming in sweet honey and butter, topped with smoked fish and caviar. It sounds totally weird and quite disgusting, but it’s soo good. Mouth salivating. Our spot at the window was also a highlight; watching the hapless people standing outside in line waiting to put their names on a list to get a table. “OK, we’ll call you in about 2 hours”. We shouldn’t have felt so smug….but we kind of did. Fuelled by champagne of course.
I’m not a believer in saving fine-dining restaurants for special occasions (frankly at the moment any restaurant meal would be a special occasion). However, when we went to No.9 park, we were celebrating our anniversary. 
What makes a fine dining restaurant? Great food obviously, but it’s the little extra things that really make it stand-out; service that’s formal but still really chatty and friendly; perfectly laid tables with quality tableware; and extra dishes between courses to cleanse and whet the appetite for what’s to come.
I think the fact that we went to Row 34 about 10 times says everything about it. Great atmosphere, great beers and great oysters. We loved the fact that we could just rock up here and wait for a spot at the bar while drinking one of the many choices of beer. A definite favourite spur-of-the-moment night out. Man, I miss those Boston Oysters.
To us, this was the restaurant that surprised us the most with its innovative small plates and surprising elements to elevate each dish, like the puffed rice, burnt garlic and powdered leek. We also had the most amazing friendly waiter, who was happy to laugh at our (attempting to be funny) anecdotes. Stand out dish – the smoked butter bean dip.
Best Prix Fixe and in Clark’s opinion it holds the title of “best dish” of the year – Roasted Berkshire Pork Belly.
Another thing we encountered and loved in Boston’s restaurants, was the ‘counter-top’ seating. High stools at a bar overlooking the kitchen and the chefs at work. A great opportunity to see what’s going on and to have a chat with the chefs when they’re not too busy. We would now always choose this option if it’s available, although in the UK it doesn’t seem to be a thing yet (probably not very Covid friendly either).
Honorarey mentions go to...
It was tough choosing our top ten Boston restaurants when almost all of the ones we went to were fantastic. But I can’t finish without mentioning the other restaurants that had some of our stand-out dishes. Prepare to feel hungry:
- Bar Mezzana – winner of the best burger (in Clark’s opinion) and maker of the PB&J pop tart. Delicious.
- Toro – for their totally messy sweetcorn covered in aioli, chilli and aged cheese.
- Haley.Henry – memories of the prime rib slider still brings a tear to my eyes.
- Bar 23 – The best steak Clark’s ever eaten.
- Tiger Mama – Clark still talks about the ribs. Tender with a sticky, spicy sauce and a peanut crumb. Mmm.
I’m really pleased to say all of the above restaurants are still open and operating, albeit having had to adapt to the current situation.
In the meantime, writing this has inspired me to head to the kitchen and attempt to re-create some of our favourite dishes. Hmm, I wonder if my butcher sells pig’s heads?
