10 Boston Restaurants Where We Want To Be Regulars

Laidback Gray’s Hall has the feel of a bar where everybody knows your name—and even better, your taste in natural wine. The so-hot-right-now category is served with refreshing ease and accessibility at the South Boston wine bar, which similarly sates appetites with simple small plates including steamed mussels in green curry or grilled carrots with tahini hummus. And yet, it isn’t too fancy to serve an eponymous smash-style burger with fermented chile and American cheese.

Darryl’s is a community hub in the truest sense of the word, bringing people together at its corner of Columbus Avenue through music and food. That first draw takes the form of a jazz brunch every Sunday afternoon, with special live music performances held Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. As for food, it’s stick-to-your-ribs comfort all the way, with buttermilk hush puppies, pan-roasted wings in a molasses soy glaze and Cajun-spiced shrimp and grits.

Spoke Wine Bar has quietly flourished in its corner of Davis Square for 10 years, serving a thoughtful menu of globally sourced wines and New American small plates in an intimate, L-shaped space. They might be the neighborhood’s best-kept secret, and we’re fine keeping it that way — we’d like to see a stool open for a glass of sparkling Greek wine and a plate of sunchoke donuts with xo gouda or wagyu beef cheeks with raw scallop and matsutake (naturally, a Resy can always secure a seat).

Whether Brownstone belongs to Back Bay or the South End isn’t a question we can definitively answer. But we can say with confidence that the neighborhood-straddling institution remains a gathering place for denizens in either direction, whether they’re logging off from work with a pull of Jack’s Abby lager and a Black Angus bacon cheeseburger or tucking into Monte Cristos and housemade corned beef hash at brunch.

Mahaniyom is not your average Thai restaurant. First, it serves from a menu of small plates paying homage to Thailand’s tradition of street food, including housemade crab curry with vermicelli noodles or salt and pepper pork cheeks with Thai chile and sticky rice. And second, it hosts a top-notch cocktail program that infuses Thai flavors into classic cocktails, resulting in creations like the Mahaniyom Sazerac prepared with Thai tea-infused rye. This combination has turned it into that rarest of creatures: a beloved neighborhood takeout spot and watering hole.

As far as underrepresented cuisines in Boston go, Afghan food has got to be high on the list. Which makes this-long standing Cambridge restaurant even more special, as Helmand’s homey dining room is one of the few places in the region featuring such dishes as koufta challow (seasoned beef meatballs with sundried tomatoes and hot peppers) or kadda and banjam challow (pan-fried and baked pumpkin with eggplant and tomato sauce over rice).

The South End is so restaurant-saturated that stellar examples of the form can fade into the background. One such overlooked gem is Picco, which does two indisputably great things well: pizza and ice cream. The first is made from a cold-fermented sourdough and finished with a crackly, charred crust, while the second is made in-house and available in rotating flavors including vanilla caramel swirl, cinnamon or raspberry with dark chocolate chips.

The North End is chock-a-block with homey trattorias and inviting mom-and-pops, but few establishments replicate the feeling of Sunday dinner at your nonna’s quite like Table. It helps that the Italian restaurant’s 32 communal seats are divided between two farm-style tables, where diners will take part in a seven-course meal encompassing warm focaccia bread, beef-pork-and-veal meatballs, lasagna Bolognese and ricotta donuts with warm Nutella and housemade vanilla gelato.

Situated in a below-street-level space on a quiet side street of Beacon Hill, Grotto is as tucked away as any urban restaurant can get. And perhaps the regulars prefer it that way, so that they can have the subterranean, brick-walled space and its reliable plates of short rib gnocchi or brick chicken with black truffle all to themselves.

Cunard Tavern in Jeffries Point is everything you could want from a friendly neighborhood gastropub, complete with a rooftop patio, beer-braised carnitas nachos and a burger topped by candied bacon, Vermont cheddar and sweet apple and cabbage slaw. It’s also become one of Eastie’s default brunch hangouts, serving white chocolate chip pancakes or cereal-crusted fried chicken and waffles each weekend without fail.