So here they are, the top 50 restaurants in Boston. (Two more things: Restaurants had to be open before September 1, 2023, and had to offer sit-down dinner service.) It took a lot of debate-and maybe one or two spirited arguments-to get here, but this is our list, and we’re standing by it. That’s why, as part of the process, we looked at not just food, service quality, and how the place made us feel but also how a restaurant fulfilled its core mission. After all, judging a white-tablecloth steakhouse against a crowded, dimly lit neighborhood boîte is like comparing apples to orangutans. Is a ranking like this subjective? You bet it is. Across the city, reservations are harder than ever to come by, and big-name restaurateurs and smaller indie groups alike have exciting openings on deck that we’ve already put on our must-try list for next year.

And after spending so many nights tasting and testing our way through countless courses of sushi, luxury cuts of beef, oodles of noodles, and artistic small plates for this year’s list, we can confidently say the restaurant industry is firing on all cylinders following a few years of pandemic-related challenges.

That’s how long it takes to eat at every important restaurant in the city (in some cases, more than once) to create our annual guide to Boston’s Top 50 restaurants. Pierre styling by Madison TrapkinĪ FULL YEAR.

An artful display of the mouthwatering New York strip from Deuxave.