10 Great Restaurants in Boston

Brassica Kitchen + Café offers casual dining, coffee, and delicious pastries using locally sourced ingredients in playful ways that draw inspiration from the world over. The clear menu highlight here, and among the most popular dishes available, is the fried chicken. The restaurant is also famed for its creative fermentation-forward menu with tons of unique and interesting items like koji risotto and charcoal-roasted mushrooms. Don't forget to enjoy a delicious pastry and outstanding coffee after you're done with your meal.

The chef here has served under iconic teachers, and the restaurant has gone from a pop-up to a mainstay. It's about 24 minutes south of Boston in Stonybrook.

Sarma is an exclusive and upscale restaurant offering a fine dining experience featuring unique Middle Eastern fusion cuisine in elegant yet welcoming surroundings. This restaurant is so popular that it's difficult to get a reservation, which you will absolutely need to get in the door. When you do get in, however, you'll be treated to the full range of the Middle Eastern spice palate. Here you'll enjoy such unusual fare as lamb sliders with sumac onions and yogurt, harissa barbecue duck with sweet dates and orange blossom, and nectarine Shirazi salad, among others.

The menu highlight is the meze. This restaurant is one of the most beloved in the area and is about 13 minutes north of the city.

Regina Pizzeria is a mainstay of the North End food scene, offering outstanding pizza and Italian food since 1926 with indescribable craft pizzas made from fresh ingredients. The secret to the success of Regina is its dough that's left to proof for almost a week and its oven that was originally built in 1888 and still uses the same cooking surface. That's over 130 years of seasoning. It's little wonder that there's usually a wait to get into this place. The pepperoni and mushroom is the menu highlight, but tons of toppings are available, and don't forget to add a pitcher of Peroni.

If you can, stick to the original location on Thatcher Street. It's just 7 minutes north of downtown.

O Ya is a sushi, seafood, and steak house that serves up stunning food in an upscale, fine dining environment that's a hidden gem of Boston's Leather District. This tiny restaurant has gathered tons of local, regional, and national awards including a James Beard Award. This place has become a de facto destination for Bostonians celebrating special occasions from birthdays to retirements. It has only one menu offering: a whopping 20-course omakase dinner with food ranging from toro hand rolls to Kumamoto oysters with watermelon pearls and cucumber mignonette, and seared petit strip loin.

This is a pricey restaurant, but the food is well worth the cost. It's just a few minutes south of downtown.

Grill 23 & Bar is a gorgeous, classic, and traditional steak house offering elegant surroundings and cultivated selections of fine food from meats to oysters combined with a cigar bar. This restaurant is a throwback to the days when businessmen would get together for 3-drink lunches with highballs and martinis, but today it welcomes all through its doors and features a world-class, carefully picked wine list from a world-renowned sommelier. It's also the place to grab a perfectly chilled martini. As for the cigars, they are still hand-rolled, but these days have to be smoked outside.

From thick steaks to oyster towers, you'll find all the classics here. It's only 10 minutes south of downtown.

Celeste is a supper club turned Peruvian restaurant in Somerville and a winner of the Restaurant of the Year Award offering up Peruvian standards and unique specialty dishes. Whether you're here for the ceviche, lomo saltado, pisco, or other pachamanca dishes cooked up in authentic Peruvian style on hot stones in an earthen oven, you'll find broad smiles and good food here. What sets this restaurant apart is that while it offers up international ethnic cuisine, it somehow feels like you're coming home when you step through the door.

With a second restaurant on the horizon just around the corner, this one is sure to continue to grow in popularity. It's a mere 15-minute drive northwest of downtown.

Deuxave is a French-American fusion restaurant offering up outstanding, high-class cuisine in welcoming, homey surroundings. This is a restaurant where it's truly all about the quality of the food and traditional, elegant presentation. The chef here lives to buck trends and ignore fads. Food here is serious business, and it's all about quality and not cutting corners to make an extra buck. When he's not advocating for struggling restaurants on TV, the chef here is serving up spiced duck on a bed of pearled barley and basil pistou.

This upscale restaurant uses only fresh, locally sourced ingredients. It's located about 10 minutes west of downtown.

Mahaniyom in Brookline Village is the Thai response to a tapas bar and has become a foodie destination thanks to shareable plates and staple dishes with a twist. Here you can enjoy fresh Manila clams with purple basil and spicy chili jam, crispy chicken skins, rice and pork sausage, seasonal fruit salads, salt and pepper pork cheek, and a broad selection of craft rum and gin, dressed up with pandan leaves and berries.

Every night, the restaurant hosts a "welcome back" party that's become a popular place to go for locals and visitors alike. It's an easy 20-minute drive southwest of downtown.

Carmelina's is a traditional, casual restaurant in Little Italy offering up classic Sicilian comfort food with Mediterranean fusion spins from the chef's family recipes. This is the place to gather up the family for delicious modern Italian cuisine, or head out for a date night for a romantic dinner with that special someone. The restaurant is famed for its open kitchen where you can see what's going on, and for its decor of family photos all over the walls. The result is an intimate dining experience of pasta, seafood, and classic Sicilian food.

During the summer months, the front walls retract for open-air dining. It's in the heart of downtown, a 10-minute walk from the center of the city.

Toro offers up tapas bar signature dishes in a vibrant and exciting locale where everyone who comes through the door is treated like an old friend. Some of the menu highlights here include grilled corn with aioli, a spicy, Thai-style fried chicken sandwich, and more elaborate dishes pairing charcuterie with seafood. This is one of the most popular restaurants in the city, and as such you can expect a wait to get in, but it's well worth it with something to offer everyone from the basics to complex flavor palates.

Toro's popularity never slows, and the menu is a staple of the foodie scene. It's only about a 15-minute drive south of downtown.