A special restaurant

We are going to Boston for our anniversary and would love some suggestions for a good restaurant to celebrate.

We are staying at the Crowne Plaza in Natick as they said it was out of the area but close enough to drive to. We would love to hear your suggestions.

Thanks!

A special restaurant

Hi Cat50,

Let%26#39;s see....

There%26#39;s the Capital Grille at 359 Newbury St., that%26#39;s got atmosphere and unbelievable food.

The Jury Hotel has the Stanhope Grill at 350 Stuart St., that%26#39;s getting unbelievably great reviews lately from every one in creation that I know that%26#39;s been there.

I don%26#39;t know if you saw my review before on the Oak Room? It%26#39;s at the Copley Fairmont Hotel. It%26#39;s just incredible there. I had dinner here one year for our Christmas affair? It was GREAT! I think I liked it better than the Capital Grille to tell you the truth.

You know what%26#39;s getting a lot of good hits lately? It%26#39;s at 21 Beacon St near Bowdoin Sq. the restaurant is called ';Scollay Sq.'; it%26#39;s got a roaring 20%26#39;s theme to it and it%26#39;s got all these old pictures of Boston all around it and it%26#39;s got a great atmosphere. I%26#39;m hearing it%26#39;s got incredible food too! It might be a really fun place to check out?

I%26#39;m sure you%26#39;ll get a lot of suggestions on this question! There%26#39;s so so many restaurants in Boston to try? We%26#39;re only touching base on a few ';good ones'; right here!

I%26#39;m going to Rialto%26#39;s Restaurant at the Charles Hotel on Bennett St. in Cambridge for the holidays if you wanted to check out the menu? I have relatives that won%26#39;t go anywhere else when they want really nice ambiance with great food! www.rialto-restaurant.com

What choices you have!

Happy Anniversary!

NOMO01

A special restaurant

I%26#39;m a big fan of Capital Grille (steakhouse) on Newbury and try to go there for all of my special occasions, as the service and atmosphere are unparalleled. Another place that everyone seems to love lately is Spire at the Nine Zero Hotel. I hear they have homemade donut holes with roasted banana ice cream for dessert - that alone is a good enough reason for me to want to try it! And if you%26#39;re looking for seafood, I understand that Great Bay in the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square is very good.

Hi Cat,

L%26#39;Espalier is a very romantic, wonderful restaurant on Gloucester St. in the Back Bay, that%26#39;s been a mainstay of the ';special occasion'; restaurants in Boston for many years.

Lydia Shire has taken over at Locke Ober and has done a great job reviving the restaurant. It%26#39;s got great atmosphere and lots of charm.

In the South End, one of my favorite, quiet, romantic restaurants is Icarus, on Appleton St. You can%26#39;t go wrong there; the food is fantastic and the elegant atmosphere and service can%26#39;t be beat (In my opinion...)

We dined at Cuvee on Newbury Street last week and the food, ambience and wine were all excellent. I%26#39;d certainly recommend it.

Celebrien, I had dinner at that Spire 2 years ago for our Christmas dinner! It was GREAT! They made a mistake on our bill so they brought all these trays of desserts over to our table, I%26#39;ll never forget it! We had the best time with the staff there! It was a very retro type atmosphere, we really liked it there!

BeantownMan, Last year we made reservations for Locke Ober%26#39;s! What an experience that was, we had heard about it all through the years and couldn%26#39;t wait to try it. We ordered the wrong things here I think, we didn%26#39;t really like it. We had dinner upstairs in the restaurant and the ';stuffed shirts'; that were there that night from Beacon Hill were so so infuriated with every one in the whole dining room! I guess we were all disturbing them because we were having a really good time! That%26#39;s what we didn%26#39;t like about it in there. The other people that had dinner near us were laughing like crazy outside over it too when we all walked up that alley way on the way out! It was an experience though, I%26#39;m glad I tried it! Never again though!

I%26#39;d go to Spire again though, that was really really a fun atmosphere and I loved all the staff in there that waited on us, they were just wonderful! I really felt bad for the guys in that Locke Ober%26#39;s you could tell they weren%26#39;t happy there at all!

Just my opinion....

NOMO01

Hi - you%26#39;ll certainly get a lot of opinions about great restaurants in Boston! I think most of them have their specialties, so for example, I personally (IMHO) would not recommend Capital Grille if you don%26#39;t eat steak. Something to keep in mind if you are not familiar with the area is that driving here is not that great, so I would recommend places that are relatively direct routes from Natick. In Brookline, which is a relatively straight shot down Route 9, there is Fugakyu if you like great Japanese and Sushi. Also relatively straightforward in terms of directions would be the South End - Icarus, Sibling Rivalry (awesome), and many other great restaurants there. I agree with someone about Icarus - it%26#39;s great, especially if you like a good wine list.

One option, if you decide to try a Natick restaurant, is a place getting very good reviews called Maxwells 148.

http://boston.citysearch.com/review/40050589

I recommend checking out one of the great websites with reviews to get some ideas, if none of these sound quite right.

Have a great time!

Oh my goodness! You guys are the greatest for suggestions! Thanks so much for all the info. I didn%26#39;t think about the driving to the restaurants. We are planning on using mass transit to get to Boston for the day but we will have to go back to Natick to change.

madukie, thanks for letting me know about the South End being the easiest by car. I was leaning towards the Capital Grille for one night as NoMo01 suggested. However, I am not a beef eater. I love fish and seafood and my husband loves the steak. May have to reconsider that one....

I like Beantownman suggestion of Icarus and will probably go with that if we are driving.

Should I be reconsidering a hotel closer to Boston so we can get back and forth to it more easily. I think the mass transit ride is about 30-40 min. from what I am reading. That won%26#39;t be much fun to use at night time.

We have never been to this area so exploring it will be fun. However, I don%26#39;t want to get stuck on mass transit all day or crowded traffic lines at night.

Do you have any more suggestions, oh wise ones, of a hotel that is closer but in the mid price range?

Thanks again,

Cat50

Hi Cat50,

I just checked online. If you stayed right in downtown or uptown in Boston? You%26#39;re not

going to get a room for under $230 a night.

You might want to try this process because people are swearing by it here and it sounds like you really luck out this way...

www.betterbidding.com or

www.biddingfortravel.com

then www.priceline.com

The only hotel like some of these experts online here have sworn by that you could probably get-may be 150 to 180 a night? Is that Clarion Collection Bulfinch Hotel at 107 Merrimac St. It%26#39;s fairly new and pretty nice when you see it online. It%26#39;s got very very good reviews. Other than that right in Boston? I don%26#39;t know cat50, especially on a weekend! If I were you? I%26#39;d try one of these hotels from this site through this process above to see what you can get the room for a night, so many people swear by it and if you can go that route and save? Why not!

Or you know...see if you can get a room at

Jury%26#39;s Hotel at 350 Stuart St. in Boston!

I%26#39;m telling you, I%26#39;m so spoiled rotten with the gorgeous Vegas Hotels that are out there now, like The Ballagio -- the Mandalay Bay or

The Venetian? That now picking out a place to stay in Boston lately is getting just as tough! They%26#39;re all starting to do each other out around here too, one hotel is better and bigger than the next one!

You were wondering where to have dinner in Boston? That%26#39;s going to be tough you know! You mentioned that your husband likes steak but you don%26#39;t? Well you know, some people don%26#39;t care for the Capital Grille if they don%26#39;t want or like steak? Have you seen there menu? I thought it was just incredible there myself, and they have seafood too

on there menu. I know people that couldn%26#39;t believe how good it was there! If you were never there? I think you%26#39;d really like it

alot! Wait until you see this

place! I was there a few years ago and couldn%26#39;t believe it! We both ended up with steak, it was unbelievable! I was only there that one time though! There%26#39;s just way too many good places for dinner these days, you know what I mean! Good luck choosing a spot, it%26#39;s going to be a tough one! That Oak Room is incredible too, go online and see what I mean! It%26#39;s located in the Copley Fairmont Hotel, it was top shelf!

All day today we were in Boston on Newbury St and up at Copley Place, later on this afternoon we decided to go to this Scollay Square Restaurant for lunch. We heard so so much about this place that we said that%26#39;s IT, let%26#39;s go there to see what this place is

all about! I was on a mission! It%26#39;s located at 21 Beacon St.

Well I%26#39;m telling you, it was GREAT! I absolutely LOVED it there! The ambiance, the music, the people that worked there were terrific! We had SUCH a hard time deciding what to get on that menu it was so unbelievable! Everything we ended up with was positively delicious in the end. Go there some day, you won%26#39;t regret it one bit.

Have you ever had an Espresso Martini? Well I never did...I never even heard of it

before, it shows you how out of touch I am with these concotions! All these different Martini%26#39;s crack me up to no end; every where

you go! It%26#39;s JUST hysterical. I figured I%26#39;d try one. Well it was Absolute Vanilla, Kahlua %26amp; Bailey%26#39;s splash w/chilled Espresso. I had that thing as a dessert after this unbelievable lunch and JUST LOVED it! So remember that one when you go out! It was JUST the best. We got there Spinach %26amp; Artichoke dip, with baby spinach, artichoke hearts, parmesan cheese with tortilla chips for an appetizer. Then all different entrees

were on our table for lunch this afternoon...the George%26#39;s Bank Haddock, the Grilled Swordfish and also the Steaktips. Check the menu out here and try it some day when you%26#39;re in Boston! We talked about this place here so much that I said--that%26#39;s IT, I%26#39;m checking this place out today; since

we%26#39;re in town any way! It was a really fun place too! Very nostalgic for a lot of people that remembered Scollay Square way back when. It was before my time, but we got a kick out of seeing my mother in the place;

she remembered it very well and talks about it all the time and how it used to be in Boston years ago!

Good luck with your plans and hope you get a great deal on your hotel and you end up choosing a great spot for dinner. You might want to check out the Phantom Gourmet%26#39;s site and read the reviews and that%26#39;ll help you decide where you want to go may be?

www.phantomgourmet.com

Also the TA%26#39;s site is very good right here.

At least you get a lot of different opinions on all these spots!

Have fun and Happy Anniversary!

Hi NoMo,

Your excitement about your day made me chuckle. Actually, $230 is doable for a room..I would rather spend my money on the food and shopping. I will check out those sites and see what I can find.

Thanks again.

Cat

First of all, any place in the North End is good. We took the Topar walking tour and it was so informative.

On our last visit of many to Boston we eat at the Oak Room and have to say it beat out the Capital Grill and all the other heavy hitters. Service and food was excellent!

Charlie%26#39;s in Tampa is still the best!!!