A hotel restaurant used to be where you ate because you could not be bothered to go out. In Boston that stopped being true some time ago: several of the city’s best rooms are inside hotels, and several of the best hotels are worth staying in partly for what is downstairs. This list collects fifty of them — the dining rooms, the bars, the rooftops — plus the neighbourhood addresses that sit close enough to a hotel to become part of the stay.
How this list was built
- Every venue is open and trading, checked against its own site.
- The order is thematic, not ranked.
- Roughly half are inside hotels; the rest are the obvious address next door.
- Nobody paid to be here, and nobody was told in advance.
- Places with a closing date already announced were left out, however good.
The hotel dining rooms
1. OAK Long Bar + Kitchen · Back Bay
The Fairmont Copley Plaza’s restored ground-floor room, with a long bar running the length of the space toward Copley Square.
2. Parker’s Restaurant · Downtown Crossing
The Omni Parker House dining room still serves the Boston cream pie invented there, and will ship whole eight-inch pies.
3. Mooo.... · Beacon Hill
The steakhouse on the ground floor of XV Beacon, and the original of a small group.
4. Uni · Back Bay
Ken Oringer’s sashimi bar in The Eliot Hotel, with makimono, nigiri and a long sake list.
5. Zuma · Back Bay
A 160-seat Japanese izakaya inside Four Seasons One Dalton, part of the international Zuma group.
6. Ramsay’s Kitchen · Back Bay
Gordon Ramsay’s first Boston restaurant, opened at the Mandarin Oriental in January 2022.
7. Grana · Financial District
Family-style Italian set in the former Federal Reserve Bank grand hall at The Langham.
8. Rowes Wharf Sea Grille · Waterfront
The Boston Harbor Hotel’s seafood room, with terrace seating on the wharf beside the water-taxi dock.
9. Scampo · Beacon Hill
Lydia Shire’s Italian-Mediterranean restaurant inside The Liberty, in a wing of the former Charles Street Jail.
Hotel bars, lounges and one jazz club
10. Clink. · Beacon Hill
Dining set among the restored iron cell blocks of the old Charles Street Jail.
11. Alibi Bar & Lounge · Beacon Hill
Built in the jail’s former drunk tank, original brick intact, with a DJ programme.
12. The Last Hurrah · Downtown Crossing
The Omni Parker House’s whisky bar off the lobby, long a Boston political hangout.
13. The Fed · Financial District
The Langham’s cocktail bar, named for the building’s Federal Reserve past, with a seasonal terrace.
14. The Irving · Back Bay
The Lenox Hotel’s small lobby cocktail bar, styled to the hotel’s turn-of-the-century opening.
15. Trifecta · Back Bay
The lobby cocktail lounge at Four Seasons One Dalton, drinks and light plates.
16. Loyall Counting Room · Waterfront
A speakeasy-style bar at InterContinental Boston, open Wednesday to Saturday evenings only.
17. The Dark Bar · Waterfront
The Boston Harbor Hotel’s bar, part of the recent restoration of its ground-floor rooms.
18. Noir · Harvard Square, Cambridge
The Charles Hotel’s low-lit cocktail bar off the lobby.
19. Regattabar · Harvard Square, Cambridge
A jazz club running inside The Charles Hotel since 1985, long regarded as New England’s leading room for the music.
Rooftops, decks and courtyards
20. Contessa · Back Bay
The Newbury’s rooftop Italian restaurant, opened June 2021, looking down Newbury Street and over the Public Garden.
21. Lookout Rooftop · Seaport
On top of The Envoy Hotel at 70 Sleeper Street, facing the Fort Point Channel and the downtown skyline.
22. Deck 12 · Seaport
YOTEL Boston’s twelfth-floor bar above Seaport Boulevard.
23. Rooftop at Revere · Theatre District
Open-air bar and pool deck on top of the Revere Hotel Boston Common.
24. RTP · Back Bay
The Colonnade’s rooftop pool and bar, twelve storeys up, with cabanas and a paid day pass for non-guests.
25. Lifted Rooftop · Seaport
On the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport’s fifth-floor pool deck, heated and open year-round.
26. The Yard · Beacon Hill
The Liberty’s seasonal outdoor courtyard, open May to October, with a dog-friendly Wednesday hour.
More hotel tables, Boston and Cambridge
27. Row 34 · Kenmore Square
The oyster bar’s fifth location, at 498 Commonwealth Avenue in Hotel Commonwealth.
28. Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill · Kenmore Square
The Bromberg brothers’ sushi room on Hotel Commonwealth’s ground floor.
29. Ruka Restobar · Downtown Crossing
Nikkei cooking — the Peruvian-Japanese hybrid — inside The Godfrey Hotel.
30. George Howell Coffee · Downtown Crossing
The Massachusetts roaster’s espresso bar off The Godfrey’s lobby, open to the street.
31. Henrietta’s Table · Harvard Square, Cambridge
The Charles Hotel’s farm-to-table New England dining room, with a long-running Sunday brunch.
32. Bar Enza · Harvard Square, Cambridge
Lydia Shire’s modern Italian room at The Charles, floor-to-ceiling windows onto the courtyard.
33. Bambara Kitchen + Bar · East Cambridge
The Kimpton Marlowe’s Mediterranean-leaning restaurant beside the Museum of Science.
34. Scull & Keel · East Cambridge
Opened June 2026 at The Royal Sonesta Boston, in the space long occupied by ArtBar, with indoor-outdoor seating on the Charles.
35. Tamo Bistro + Bar · Seaport
The Seaport Hotel’s waterfront bar and restaurant on Commonwealth Pier, evenings only.
The neighbourhood addresses next door
36. Grill 23 & Bar · Back Bay
The Berkeley Street steakhouse in the old Salada Tea building, a short walk from the Park Plaza and Copley hotels.
37. Atlantic Fish Co. · Back Bay
Seafood at 761 Boylston Street with a glassed-in front terrace, opposite the Prudential Center hotels.
38. Select Oyster Bar · Back Bay
A small basement-level seafood bar at 50 Gloucester Street, just off Newbury.
39. Yvonne’s · Downtown Crossing
The supper club built in the old Locke-Ober dining rooms at 2 Winter Place.
40. Union Oyster House · Faneuil Hall
Opened in 1826 and marking its 200th year in 2026: America’s oldest continuously operating restaurant, at 41 Union Street on the Freedom Trail.
41. Neptune Oyster · North End
A 42-seat, mostly walk-in seafood counter on Salem Street — the reference address for a hot-buttered lobster roll.
42. Mistral · South End
French-Mediterranean at 223 Columbus Avenue, a short walk from the Park Plaza and Back Bay hotels.
43. Coppa · South End
The small Shawmut Avenue enoteca that helped set the template for the South End’s Italian small-plates rooms.
44. Toro · South End
Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette’s Barcelona-style tapas bar on Washington Street, the original of a group that reached New York and beyond.
Fenway, the Seaport and Cambridge
45. Eastern Standard · Fenway
Reopened in October 2023 at 1271 Boylston Street after two years dark, having lost its original Kenmore Square home in 2021.
46. Bleacher Bar · Fenway
Built into the wall under Fenway Park’s centre-field bleachers, with a garage-door window looking straight onto the field.
47. Time Out Market Boston · Fenway
A curated food hall on Lansdowne Street collecting stalls from established Boston chefs under one roof.
48. Woods Hill Pier 4 · Seaport
Seafood and meat sourced largely from the owner’s own New Hampshire farm, on the water at 300 Pier 4 Boulevard.
49. Alden & Harlow · Harvard Square, Cambridge
Below-street small plates at 40 Brattle Street, two minutes from The Charles.
50. Waypoint · Harvard Square, Cambridge
The same team’s seafood and pizza room at 1030 Massachusetts Avenue, between Harvard and Central Squares.
What we left out, and why
A list like this is defined as much by the omissions. We took out anything with a closing date already announced, however good it currently is — an evergreen list that sends you to a shuttered door is worse than no list. We also took out the rooms that closed in recent years and still appear on other lists: readers deserve better than a tour of ghosts.
How this list is maintained
Restaurants move faster than hotels. We revisit this list as things change rather than on a fixed schedule, which is why there is no year in the title. If an entry has closed, moved or changed hands, tell us and we will fix it the same week.
How to get added
We add places because they belong here. If you run one and think it earns a place, write to us with the specifics — the room, the cooking, the thing that is only true of you. No fee, no arrangement, and no promise either way.
If you are on this list
Say so, and link to this page. That is all we ask in return.
Frequently asked
What is the oldest restaurant in Boston?
The Union Oyster House, open since 1826 and marking its 200th year in 2026. It is billed as the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the United States.
Where are the best hotel rooftops in Boston?
Contessa at The Newbury, the Lookout at The Envoy, Deck 12 at YOTEL, the Rooftop at Revere, RTP at The Colonnade and Lifted at the Omni Seaport. Five of the six are open to non-guests.
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