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There are so many amazing eateries in Boston, it can be hard to figure out where to start feasting. These five superior restaurants are true destinations, places where service, atmosphere and menu combine to create an ideal dining experience.
MistralNamed for a warm wind that passes through the south of France, Mistral was a breath of fresh air in Boston’s predictable dining scene when it opened in 1997—foreign, formal and fastidiously hip. The ambience is one of chic yet cozy Provencal grandeur, with sixteen-foot ceilings, oversized pillars and French antiques. Jamie Mammano’s menu is both hearty and seductive: a black-truffle macaroni appetizer is served with Madeira and parmesan; the red wine-braised short ribs entree is plated with garlic mashed potatoes and smoked tomato. If indulging in one of the rich desserts seems a bit much (creme brulee or profiteroles), opt for one of the homemade sorbets—tangerine, raspberry-pomegranate or cider. 223 Columbus Ave-nue, Boston, 617-867-9300, mistralbistro.com
L’Espalier
The most beautiful food in Boston, served in the most beautiful space: That has long been the buzz about this classic French gem nestled in an 1880 Back Bay townhouse, with three floors of small, jewel-box parlor rooms in hues of taupe and cream, meticulously decorated down to the last orchid. Entrees read like a culinary symphony (“juniper-rubbed saddle of venison with black pudding cassoulet, escargots and cranberry-chocolate sauce”) and are followed by the best cheese course in town. Be among the last to experience the current ambience, or among the first to witness the new: In early fall, the townhouse is scheduled to close, and the restaurant moves to the chic new Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The setting will undergo a dramatic change but, according to James Beard Award-winning chef Frank McClelland, little else will. 30 Gloucester Street, Boston, 617-262-3023, lespalier.com
Radius
It’s the opposite of L’Espalier, but every bit as spectacular. Once a bank, this cavernous, high-ceilinged space says special event on a grand scale more than any other restaurant in Boston. The horseshoe-shaped room flanked by an elegant bar opens like a promise: that your entrees will be sophisticated departures from classic French, plated with just the right innovative sauce, and served amid the city’s best-heeled patrons. Chef Michael Schlow is renowned for his disciplined plates: an aesthetically exacting tableau of, say, sea bass with escargots and port reduction, or slow-roasted ribeye with haricots verts, pearl onions and reduced red wine. Never pass on dessert. Here, the unusual (goat cheese and huckleberry cheesecake? wu wei poached pear with honey-carrot sorbet?) is unfailingly sublime. So is eating beneath the most ornate ceiling in town, high, curved and circular as if there were once waltzing beneath. Er, waltzing bankers? 8 High Street, Boston, 617-426-1234, radiusrestaurant.com
The Elephant Walk
Ethnic food, even at its best, is typically relegated to niche status and small spaces. Not so here: The grand main room—where a collection of elephant statuettes march around the perimeter of the ceiling—is flanked by a more intimate sunroom front-ing Beacon Street, and both are always filled in a way that suggests the Elephant Walk has transcended the “ethnic restaurant” genre. In Cambodia, elephants represent luck, and the good fortune extended to Boston when Longteine de Monteiro brought her country’s cuisine here in 1991. The menu is an exotic hybrid of entrees a la francaise and a la cambodgienne, from the divine appetizer nataing (ground pork simmered in coconut milk with garlic, peanuts and chili) to loc lac (tender cubed beef in garlicky caramelized pepper, served with a ramekin of lime and fish sauce). 900 Beacon Street, Boston, 617-247-1500; 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 617-492-6900, elephantwalk.com
Sorellina
The visual centerpiece of the room—wall-sized lightbox art glowing with a dramatic black-and-white topiary garden—feels as if you’ve stepped into a museum of modern art and signals that this is as much about aesthetics as it is excellent Italian cuisine. The generous space fronting Copley Square is as slickly urban as the clientele, equal part corporate-card power brokers and old-money Brahmins. The dishes are innovative and memorable: The tuna tartare primi is so precisely formed as to be sculptural, and even mere pasta with meatballs is made with Wagyu beef. The restaurant is a relative newcomer (2006), but generous portions belie the current trend toward tapas-sized entrees. One Huntington Avenue, Boston, 617-412-4600, sorellinaboston.com
Copyright 2012 Rhode Island Monthly
