The 10 Restaurants That Defined Boston Dining in 2022

It’s not every year that Jamie Bissonnette and Ken Oringer open a new restaurant (their previous project, Little Donkey, debuted in 2016). And it’s not every year that a hyped-up new restaurant comes to Newbury Street. But the stars aligned in 2022, bringing a coastal Italian-focused spot dubbed Faccia a Faccia (originally Faccia Brutta) to that most tourist-packed of Boston streets, delivering handmade pastas and deceptively simple but delicious (i.e., spongy “grandma bread” with rosemary and olive oil, paccheri with Gulf shrimp and saffron tomato sauce) dishes to the shopping crowds. Even better, Faccia a Faccia proved to be a two-in-one deal: a trip downstairs reveals Bar Pallino, a separate concept offering high-end mezcals, pintxos, and music courtesy of Bissonnette’s personal vinyl collection. Rock on.

La Royal is not just a sequel — you might consider it the capstone of a Peruvian trilogy. After winning acclaim with Somerville’s Celeste, owners Maria Rondeau and Juan Manuel Calderón branched out to Vermont to open Esmerelda in 2021. But they came home to give us La Royal, which like any new entry in a series, replays the hits — blue cod ceviche, lomo saltado — while introducing lesser-seen Peruvian fare including Nikkei-style portobello sashimi and a trio of seafood-topped potato terrines that will have you rethinking your entire relationship to tubers.

More than ever, we’re thankful for the restaurants that have not only managed to navigate these last few years but have continued to grow and surprise. As Sarma approaches its 10th year in business, it’s riding high with the Globe’s first-ever five-star review, an accolade earned by its ever-evolving menu of playfully reinterpreted Middle Eastern fare like halloumi cheese curds with eggplant ranch or brisket shawarma sandos with pineapple hilbeh, smoked maple, and zhoug.

As a college town, Boston is chock-full of Ramen shops. Many are out-of-town (if not out-of-country) chains, but newcomer Bosso Ramen Tavern proved to be that rarest of birds: a homegrown indie. As such, it hasn’t been afraid to go its own way, offering unique broths like the sour sanmi prepared with tomatoes. All of its bowls (save for a plant-based vegan option) are made with both pork and chicken bones, and further enhanced by fish. The result is an umami symphony worth burning your mouth for.

There’s no greater sign of the transformative change that’s come to East Boston over the past few years than the existence of a raw bar-forward speakeasy with an enforced dress code. That would be Next Door Speakeasy & Rawbar, which despite its ostensibly incognito status, has been packed to the gills with revelers for most of 2022. Perhaps that’s because its glitzy interior, inventive cocktails, liberal amounts of bubbly, and the option to order shellfish towers by the tier allows patrons to make up for all the partying they missed in the years preceding.

From chef-driven Italian concepts to bawdy margarita bars, South Boston’s dining scene has a lot going on — but until the opening of Lenox Sophia, lacked the sort of intimacy that the 20-seat tasting menu restaurant now offers. Its remedy to Southie excess comes in the form of thoughtful, five-course prix-fixes offered in either “omnivore” or vegetarian formats and populated by the likes of king trumpet mushrooms with elderflower miso and dried plum or arroz negro with squid ink and smoked oyster aioli. As the cherry on top, Lenox Sophia also claims that most locally elusive of dining-out charms: a BYOB license.

Yes, in this instance, you absolutely can call it a comeback. The South End speakeasy that first opened in 2014 — and earned just as much attention for its ever-changing roster of “kitchen incubator” food concepts as for its cocktails — suddenly re-opened in November after being closed since March of 2020. Even sweeter, it opened hosting SubRosa, a fresh venture from chef Louis DiBiccari of the dearly missed Tavern Road, whose return to the kitchen is marked by a glorious blend of high and low Mediterranean-influenced dishes like monkfish puttanesca or white clam and smoked bacon flatbreads.

Tenderoni’s may be considered a latecomer to the 2022 party, as it made its debut at the end of November in the former home of Orfano. But its signature offering — a voluptuously doughy yet crisp-on-the-edges Detroit-style pan pizza — was first cooked up by Tiffani Faison in the form of a same-named food stall within High Street Place. As anyone who’s had the pleasure to bite into one of Faison’s pies knows, this pizza deserved an entire restaurant to itself (where it’s also joined by chicken Parm and “track suit shrimp scampi”). Fortunately, that didn’t take long.

The street-food focused Thai spot opened in Brookline Village in early 2020 and made an immediate splash with less-encountered but deeply flavorful dishes like housemade crab curry or turmeric- and garlic-seasoned “flying squid.” But it feels as if the little restaurant truly came into its own in 2022, garnering a five-star review from the Boston Globe while continuing to hone a bar program that’s turned it into a bona fide cocktail destination. Come for the chicken ka-praw, stay for the Thai tea-infused sazerac.

Shore Leave opened in 2018 with the intent to provide the South End with a “tropical oasis” where cares or setbacks could be forgotten over rum old fashioneds and okonomiyaki tater tots. No longer content to simply transport its imbibers to an imaginary tropical paradise, Shore Leave has committed to elaborate, seasonal transformations, turning into “Scare Leave” this past October with “blood bag” Tequila cocktails and ghoulish décor, only to once again shift into Sippin’ Santa mode for December with strung lights by the thousands and Kris Kringle Coladas by the hundreds. In an age where cocktail-making has become increasingly complex and “serious,” Shore Leave hasn’t forgotten that first and most important commandment: bars are where we go to have fun.