current hotspot restaurants in boston?
 

taking client and wife to dinner. they are trendy 30's types, but new to boston. what's impressive for under $500 for four of us? have a month to reserve.

any particular neighborhood or cuisine type? also, lots of places you can do

(sorry, my cat sat on the mouse and posted before I was finished)
anyways, lots of places you can do for under $500 if you aren't going to drink too much. wine can put you over pretty quick though.

you might try Via Matta, I think thry do impressive Italian. One place I like a lot thats not outrageously expensive is Sel de la Terre. It's French (same owners as the very upscale L'Espalier) and the food is excellent. Its located down by the Aquarium, on the waterfront.

I don't know that it's a "hotspot" but I went to Marco on Hanover Street for a friend's birthday last week. There were four of us. We each had a drink before dinner, an appetizer, entre, dessert and shared bottle of wine. It was excellent and under $300 for all of us.

Funny - Via Matta was also the first place that came to mind. My husband and I make a meal of their crispy eggplant, a side of mushrooms and thier wonderful bread and basil infused olive oil. Oh and they have a fantastic house red with a generous pour.

as some have said, so much can depend on the wine/alcohol - do you know if they are likely to want only wine with dinner or are vodka/gin/etc drinks instead or a combo?

Also, for me, trendy and impressive don't always mean the same restaurant.
Restauranst we like that might fall into your final price range (look at sample menus online on either opentable.com or menupages- or restaurant web sites -

Mistral, Excelsior, Spire, Federalist, Oak Room, Hammersley's Bistro -
for great food, service and maybe more funky, casual, nice bars, you could consider Avila or 28 degrees (28degrees-boston.com) - 28 has a great, funky, space - more reminiscent of new york than the usual boston restaurant, if you want trendy - the decor, the tapas style sharing you can do with fabulous choices (the web menu is not updated to the new choices, but they are similar) - and the martinis are great -

Les Zygomates (winebar.com) is fun between the bar, great drinks and wine selection, exc food and then the music/bar side -

good comments. we are not close friends so the tapas style dining seems a little too familiar for this. via matta looks great, but what an annoying website. we will book there. i failed to say back bay would be good, but that's what you came up with anyway. thanks.

funny. i was doing a search for the same thing again, and my own post came up. any new ideas? we did go to via matta last time and it was good but since these are the same clients, what's really new? maybe not italian this time.

There is a new hotel that opened in a former jail a few months ago. It made a big splash when it opened and its bar/restaurants were the places to go for the trendy for at least a while. You can decide if its dining options suit your needs:

http://www.libertyhotel.com/dining.html

You might check out this review site of Boston restaurants:

http://www.yelp.com/c/boston/restaurants

I've generally found the reviews on it to be helpful and accurate.

Few more thoughts:

Sibling Rivalry is in the South End (not far from Back Bay):

http://www.siblingrivalryboston.com/

Stella, also in the South End:

http://www.bostonstella.com/index.htm

Teatro, on Tremont St next to Boston Common:

http://www.teatroboston.com/

I haven't been yet, but I've heard good things about La Voile on Newbury Street. (I have reservations in a couple of weeks!). the owners had a restaurant in Cannes, and they packed up and moved to Boston and brought their staff, and their menu and everything, so the place is supposed to be very authentic French, but not outrageously expensive. it got a very good review in last weeks Globe, and the chowhounds seem to like it too.

LaVoile sounds perfect. i've been reading review after review and i can't find a negative one in the lot. thanks. i'll try to do a better job this time and post back the results. afraid i haven't been spending much time here lately.

the jail place sounds good too, but the real restaurant doesn't open till march. the other one sounds like more bar than food.

I promised I'd report back so here it is. LaVoile was a great place. more casual than we had expected, but outstanding food. seared scallop salads were outstanding. we all had either veal or lamb which was very good and served with wonderful au gratin potatoes and stuffed tomatoes. creme brulee was as good as any in france. the weird part was they greet you in french and if you don't want to speak french you have to tell them. hey, where are we here? i thought that was a little too cute. also we asked for a little help with the french wines and they only wanted us to order champagne with our meals. we ended up with a nice bordeaux but they seemed disappointed that we didn't order champagne instead. is that a new thing?

Maybe I am feeling particularly crabby right now, but unless "they" are buying the wine for you, "they" have no right to be pushy about the wine you choose to have w/your dinner and their "disappointment" is not only irrelevant but most unwelcome!

somebody at chowhound reported a similar story about them pushing the champagne.

we ate there about 2 weeks ago, and had a wonderful meal. we ordered the wine we wanted, so they didn't suggest anything. i will say the service was a little shaky. Not bad, really, but a little off. we were given the Amuse bouche twice. we didn't get any bread until our entrees arrived. they were very slow to take our initial order.

they also didn't speak french to us, beyond saying "bon soir" when we came in. I understand the bus boys don't actually speak English however.

We had our second excellent meal at La Voile last week.

Both times we had excellent service, and the first time, when we ordered our wine (we were a party of 6 at that time) the waiter returned to tell us they were in fact out of that wine, but they would recommend one they think is most similar (and also about $20 LESS in price! ) so we tried it and liked it - we love it when they suggest a lower priced alternative :)

Everyone we encountered spoke english except one woman who appeared to be assisting with coats, direction to ladies room, etc - she spoke only french and she and I had a great conversation as we each apologized to the other for our bad french and bad english, but we got our points across -

our waiter spoke french and english, a local young man who said one reason he applied for the job was the chance to actually use his french -

according to him it was a big plus, because the chef and several in the kitchen speak french only, so knowing both is of great help in getting exactly what you want -

the two other gentlemen who assisted in serving our table also went fluidly between both languages, as did the owners.

Meanwhile, EVERYTHING we ate was absolutely perfect and we can't wait to go back again asap.

I'm sure they still have some kinks to work out, getting everyone on the same page in a new restaurant always takes a bit of time no matter how prepared you are.

I'm so glad to have this in town ! I'm bringing my girlfriend who is french there when she visits next week for her birthday, now living on the east coast here, and am interested in her take - she is excited to be able to speak with lots of people in french whenveer she can, of course.

My 21 year old daughter is a pastry chef. She has worked on cruise lines, catering places, and at Club Med. She was hired as head pastry chef for a new restaurant in the South End called Banq. My husband and I went to the friends and family opening last Saturday. I liked it. It's on Washington St. It has been extremely interesting seeing (vicariously) the process of building, decorating, outfitting, etc. a restaurant from the ground up. I hope this doesn't sound like advertising. We are extremely proud and hope it will succeed. DD just called and said that Darryl Hannah will be there tonight.

escargot, I realized my posting was more negative than positive and I didn't mean it to be. I also had a wonderful meal, and everything we ate was tasty. the fish soup was particularly wonderful, and something we don't find often. This is that thick, rich, fishy soup that has no chunks of fish in it, its just a smooth soup, creamy without cream. They serve it with grated gruyere, croutons and very garlicky aioli. It's PERFECT on a cold Boston night.

I will definitely return to La Voile, and I'm glad to have another good place that I can recommend to visitors, especially one conveniently located on Newbury street.

I do think the service has a few kinks, but they'll work it out. It sure wouldn't stop me from going back.

china cat - not for a second did I mean to imply you were being more negative than positive - I thought your post was great - honest and good points -
just goes to show so much can depend on the night, etc.

Shaz60 I can't believe you mention Banq - I was just there tonight - I missed Darryl Hannah though - or else she was beyond the bar which is as far as I got - my friend and I were walking to Sage - another favorite of mine, although I miss the coziness of the North End Sage... but we stopped in Banq to see the menu and for a drink !!

I have to say, it was a quick stop - however - the staff was fabulous- very welcoming- we chatted about the menu, the 'soft' openings for families and friends, etc over the past few weeks - and about the decor !!! How about that - what is it - looks like corrugated waves from the ceiling - I loved it - and I loved the vibe.

A great new space - can't wait to eat there asap , and , of course, taste the delights of that excellent pastry chef !!!

Congrats to your daughter -

I did bump into D Hannah once, in the days she was with JFk Jr. - walking thru a parking lot in CT - have to say, in those days, all I could think of was the supposed comment his mother made about her wishing she could dress better, that she too often looked like an unmade bed - dont' know if that was a true comment or not, but the day I saw her she did look like an unmade bed - just her style I think -
you'll have to ask DD and let us know :)

Escargot -

My daughter never got to see Darryl. She was stuck in the kitchen. She was explaining to me that the restaurant is supposed to be the inside of a tree. The wine room in the center of the dining room is the trunk and the ceiling is the underside of the branches. Pretty esoteric for my DH and I although he was very interested in the construction and walked around examining and touching. I agree that the staff was very nice and not at all stuffy. I was particulary taken by a very good looking bartender. I hope they succeed. So far they have complaints about the bathroom signage- symbols only (hard to remember after a few drinks), a line cook who said he was using the restroom and never returned, a dishwasher who was caught on camera purposely breaking a plate and cutting himself, broken pipes, etc. And they have only been open a week. I never envisioned starting up a restaurant to be so daunting.

the restaurant biz is very daunting - the percentage of restaurants that fail is extremely high - it takes getting rid of those wrinkles, then trying to keep the pace once you find it - perfect night after night - and to keep the patrons loyal and new ones coming with so many choices around - it's a tightrope in many ways - but hopefully they will succeed !!

<<we ended up with a nice bordeaux but they seemed disappointed that we didn't order champagne instead. is that a new thing?>>

We just ignore all that, along with being urged to order ridiculously pricey bottled water before we're even asked about cocktails...

djbooks :)
I hear ya, except if you knew my friend who does the water testing for restaurants and refuses to allow any of us to drink tap water in any restaurant....if you heard his stories, you'd either ditch the H2O in restaurants altogether, or pay the ridiculously high prices -! his stories area like many other stories we would really rather not know, about even the finest of restaurants.....

really nice review of Banq in the Boston Globe last week. the decor looks very interesting. I look forward to trying it out, one of these days.

escargot, I'm curious what you're saying. Are you suggesting that most restaurants' taps aren't connected to the regular city water supply? Or are you suggesting they do something to their taps inside their own buildings that would foul the water?

Patrick: sorry I was in town w/out my laptop for the past four days -
No, I'm not saying they aren't connected to city water.
What the inspector who came to my house, to test my private well water told me (he usually only does the health/safety checks for restaurants but periodically does x amount of homes/ something to do with company certification, etc)

What he told me was this: He often hears people say they got 'food poisoning' or just didn't feel well or 'just made it home' after eating in a restaurant - and many times this is not food poisoning, but from 'tainted' water, esp if it happens before you get home -
It has to do with the cleanliness factor of how they keep their water/ice - he said he mostly writes up restaurants for these types of citations; for example:
using a bucket to transport ice from the ice maker to the bar/waiter station/etc and using the same hand held scoop and putting it back in the ice instead of hanging above as supposed to with slip on gloves so infected hands are not reaching in and out of the ice; for things like placing that bucket afterwards, on the floor - and then it is again picked up, (with a filthy bottom) and used to "scoop" ice out of the machine, in a hurry; for placing the empty buckets on the floor, under mops, or hanging dust pans, etc -
for infractions that have to do with how they transport their water after it is taken out of the tap - where it is stored, what is used, what is cleaned, where water storage pitchers, etc are stored, placed, etc -
that this is how the water gets 'tainted' with germs,bacteria, etc - not when it comes out of the tap.

He said this is the number one violation he writes up - water and ice and not storing, transporting, cleanliness, etc - and this is why he will only drink bottled water in a restaurant.

I am not saying this restaurant does it or not; just saying this is what he told me and why he does not drink tap water in restaurants himself.

Many excellent restaurants get health violations from time to time. Not long ago in the Boston Globe there was one that listed infractions, minor and otherwise, at several excellent 'top ten' restaurants in town -
I don't know if I can find the article, but when we read it people we know in restaurants just sighed and said they all do the best they can.

ALso just realizing that while the OP returned, this thread originated in 07 !!
Well, since my last posting on 2/17 we ate again at LaVoile (lovely yet again), Sorrelina's, Mistral, Pops and Addis Red Sea, Metropolis .... I confess to paying for water :) ...... as well as a few others.... all excellent experiences as usual...

I think the manager/owner of Banq used to be the manager at Mistral...or somehow involved there

Thanks for the explanation. I've long known that I wouldn't want to see what happens in the kitchens of most restaurants -- including supposedly very good ones. But I had never thought about city tap water being a problem. But I do understand about the ice, etc. Thanks for providing a new "fear". LOL

Patrick: here's that story I was thinking about - and Mistral, as well as some of the others mentioned, are still some of my favorite restaurants - we just had yet another great meal at MIstral this weekend, and yet I do still have to say "forget that article' every time I walk in the door :)

oops, here's the tiny url to the link:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/36lcwt