Boston's Greatest Steakhouse (& A PBR Joint For After)

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City Editions: Boston | Chicago | Las Vegas | Los Angeles | Miami | New York City | San Francisco | more Dec 01, 2011 STEAKHOUSE OF THE WEEK Grill 23 Why? The basics done right. You expect certain things from a steak house: handsome, "manly" décor; a retro air of sophistication; a cut of meat to die for; and lots of douchebags. You can find all of those at Grill 23, although the first three are enough to make up for the latter. The raw bar, wine list and whiskey selection are all well above the typical here, and you can splurge on cuts like the Kobe cap steak or the 100-day-aged rib eye, but the entrees, like the Yorkshire pork rack chop with potato mustard green cannelloni and bacon brown sugar vinaigrette are not to be overlooked and are surprisingly affordable.   ADDRESS: 161 Berkeley St., Boston PHONE: 617-542-2255 WEB: grill23.com   PUB OF THE WEEK Punter's Pub Why? Because it's very nearly a fortress of alcohol. Cash only? Windowless, fortress-like structure? Wasted college kids and woozy locals? Pizza you can order from a hole in the wall that reaches over to the adjacent pizza shop? Video games, pool, a beat-up interior, sports paraphernalia everywhere, and cheap beers? That's a dive bar. This Northeastern University mainstay has all of that in spades. We can't always afford to hit the ritzy bars, right? Sometimes a PBR and a slice in an unpretentious environment are what you really want anyway. We won't tell anyone.   ADDRESS: 450 Huntington Ave., Boston PHONE: 617-472-2330   RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK Lumiere Why? The shorter the distance from farm to mouth, the quicker we can eat. It's probably safe to assume we're never going to go back to eating the way our ancestors did, growing the vegetables ourselves, tending to the livestock and catching all of the fish -- not until the economy fully collapses and we revert to a hunter-gatherer society. But, until then, we have restaurants like Lumiere to do the good work for us. With most of its ingredients coming from Massachusetts farms and New England fisheries, and with a regularly changing menu, Lumiere lets you not only know where the good is going (down the hatch, asap), but where it came from.   ADDRESS: 1293 Washington St., Newton PHONE: 617-244-9199 WEB: lumiererestaurant.com   LAST WEEK'S TOP PICK The Hawthorne Why? It's already the best cocktail bar in the city (probably). Few people have done as much to elevate the art of the cocktail in Boston as longtime Eastern Standard barman Jackson Cannon. Often mentioned in the discussion of the best bartenders in the country, and certainly the most renowned here, he's finally opened his own place located, naturally, between the ES and Island Creek Oyster Bar locales he helmed in the Commonwealth Hotel, the owners of which he'll share operational duties of The Hawthorne with. No surprise that the cocktail list here is going to be top notch, but the real draw is how unique the old Foundation Room space looks now -- it's like a cross between a furniture design showroom, and a rich artist's loft. There's art on the menu here too.   ADDRESS: 500A Commonwealth Ave., Boston PHONE: 617-532-9150 WEB: thehawthornebar.com   If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, you may unsubscribe by changing your preferences. To read about our privacy policy, click here. Copyright 2011 IGN Entertainment, 625 2nd Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco CA 94107. All Rights Reserved.