When I first started commuting to Boston from Chicago for work, several food-obsessed friends offered me a warning: “It’s not a great restaurant town,” they sneered. Four years later, not only do I find this opinion broadly inaccurate, and I’ve learned there’s plenty to love about the city’s dining culture.
First, Boston has an exceptional sushi scene. It’s also home to ambitious bakers and patissiers serving Eastern Mediterranean, Japanese, American and even gluten-free delights. Crowd-pleasing Italian? Check and check. And ready access to superb seafood? Well, that’s obvious.
I could go on. In fact, I did, in our newly updated list of the 25 best restaurants in Boston. Below, a rundown on the two new entrants to the list.
My favorite meal of 2025 (so far)
There’s plenty of 2025 left, but I’d be lucky to experience another meal as unexpected and delicious as the one I had at Lê Madeline in Quincy.
There’s a back story to the space at 409 Hancock Street. For years, it was a pho shop run by the parents of the restaurateur Tam Le. In 2014, Le purchased the restaurant and rechristened it Phở Linh in honor of his wife. Fast-forward a decade: Phở Linh has morphed into the more upscale Lê Madeline (named for Mr. Le’s daughter). He has been able to secure Peter Nguyen as chef, newly returned from cooking in Houston. That Mr. Nguyen grew up in the nearby Dorchester neighborhood made the Lê Madeline partnership an easy fit.
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