Bars & Clubs
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Rock Club
The Sinclair
Most millennials won’t remember when mohawks were practically mandatory for loitering in Harvard Square on a weekend night...
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New Addition
Hojoko
The “Ho-Jo” wink in its name captures the playfulness of this captivatingly camp hangout inside the Cali rock-inspired Verb Hotel, once a humble Howard Johnson that housed a tired Tiki bar...
Photo Credit: Diego Navarro -
Beer
Brewer’s Fork
When Brewer’s Fork opened early last year, residents of restaurant desert Charlestown would have settled gladly for its great wood-oven pizzas, gastropubby small plates and Moody’s charcuterie...
Photo Credit: Nicole Popma -
Cordials
Parla
The North End is beloved for its quaint Old World charm and 100-plus restaurants, so the dearth of skilled bartending is possible to forgive...
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Dance Club
Royale
Six years after a Roxy-to-Royale makeover reasserted this king-sized venue as Boston’s pre-eminent nightclub...
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Dance Night
Tuesdays at Bijou
Industry nights are a lot less exciting when they’re filled with more hangers-on than actual hospitality biz types...
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Dive Bar
Cantab Lounge
Grandiloquent laudations of lowly dive bars usually tick through this checklist of charms...
Photo Credit: John D. Keegan -
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Drag Shows
Jacques Cabaret
Now that RuPaul’s Drag Race made a fabulous leap into the mainstream, drag shows are even hotter draws within the LGBT community and outside it...
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Drinks with a View
Lookout at the Envoy Hotel
Boston, you look as sexy from the front as the back—and those aren’t our martini goggles talking...
Photo Credit: Eric Leven -
First-Date Destination
Wink & Nod
This sexy, animal print-accented subterranean speakeasy is lit low enough to encourage smoldering stares over the rim of a stiff Scotch cocktail...
Photo Credit: Eric Luciano -
Photo Credit: Sam Waxman
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Hidden Gem
The Rooftop at Felipe’s Taqueria
Sometimes you want to hit a rooftop bar that’s filled with stunners sipping martinis...
Photo Credit: Diego Navarro -
Hotel Bar
Eastern Standard
As Yoda was to Luke and Mr. Miyagi was to the Karate Kid, so has Jackson Cannon been an indispensible mentor to Boston’s collective beverage industry...
Photo Credit: Adam Krauth -
Industry Hangout
Moonshine 152
It’s not hard to see how Moonshine became a hit with hospitality types...
Photo Credit: Jesse Dupuis -
Jazz Club
Scullers Jazz Club
They call it “Allston Rock City.” But for 27 years jazz haven Scullers has been swinging from its Charles River-side perch inside a DoubleTree hotel, outlasting many local music venues...
Photo Credit: Bob Festa -
Mocktails
Estragon
Gentlemanly paragon of hospitality Sahil Mehta oversees the bar at the South End’s lovely Madrid-style tapas restaurant Estragon, where a new full liquor license gives freer rein to his endless creativity and fine technical chops...
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Patio Bar
Precinct Kitchen + Bar
Boston has a way of breathing unlikely new life into historic buildings—you know, like giving us the chance to get schnockered at the former police headquarters...
Photo Credit: Dominic Miguel Costa -
Place to Drink Alone
Tavern at the End of the World
Everybody has reasons for drinking solo: Your friends are busy, your dating life is all swipe-lefts, you’re just not in the mood for any goddamn company...
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Pre-/Post-Fenway Park
The Lower Depths
It’s a rookie move to waste your gameday elbowing for personal space amid tourists at a Lansdowne Street bar...
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Lower Depths -
Pre-/Post-TD Garden
The Tip Tap Room
Whether ramping up for a Celtics showdown or closing out a concert night, boisterous crowds crow nightly over brews at genial chef Brian Poe’s gastropub on the backside of Beacon Hill...
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Pub
J.J. Foley’s Cafe
In a city full of Irish bars, Foley’s rises to the top like a layer of frothy foam on a pint of Guinness...
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Rooftop Bar
Rooftop @ Revere
From its drab concrete exterior, you’d never know the Revere Hotel Boston Common hides this discreet, lively treat on the roof of a seventh-story outcropping...
Photo Credit: Nicole Popma -
Singles Scene—Over 30
Legal Harborside
Few could have expected that this cruise ship-sized spinoff from the surf-and-turf-slinging Legal Sea Foods family would somehow wind up a hot, happening meat market...
Photo Credit: Paul Saraceno -
Singles Scene—Under 30
Clerys
We mean it as a compliment when we say Clerys is a perfect stepping-stone for 20-somethings dipping their toes into the post-collegiate dating pool...
Photo Credit: Brian Samuels Photography -
Spirit Specialty
Citizen Public House & Oyster Bar
It’s easy to mistake Fenway’s lively Citizen Public House for just another gastropub, with its whole pig roasts and post-Sox crowds...
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Photo Credit: O’Neil Photography
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Tiki
Drink
Old-school 1930s-vintage Tiki cocktail craft has found a foothold in Boston’s better bars, but none nails the artistry of this exotic genre quite like Drink...
Photo Credit: Diego Navarro -
Watering Hole for the Well-Heeled
Gold Bar at Menton
The 0.1 percent-set lolls prettily amid the flattering, literally golden glow of Gold Bar, the posh little lounge that Barbara Lynch installed last summer in her ultraluxe French restaurant Menton...
Photo Credit: WEC Photos -
Wine Bar
BISq
Inman Square’s BISq, kid sibling of beloved Somerville indie Bergamot, is an intimate charmer...
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Winter Scene
Chalet at Bastille Kitchen
Even when half the city is blanketed in snow, there’s a sizzling scene at this subterranean cocktail den inside hospitality kingpin Seth Greenberg’s behemoth Fort Point French restaurant...
Photo Credit: Richard Bertone
