Last Updated on January 17, 2016 by Coppersmith

Tasteful Looks

Boston isn’t exactly known as a fashionable city, but our restaurants were certainly styling in 2015. Yvonne’s is an outright jaw-dropper, deftly balancing modern sexiness with the historic class of the space’s former inhabitant (the long-running fine-dining institution Locke-Ober). It’s not everyone’s taste, but you have to admire the unabashed Vegas-style glitz that STRIP by Strega brought to staid Park Square, where across the street Doretta Taverna & Raw Bar boasts gallery-quality art by star chef Michael Schlow’s wife Adrienne. Banyan Bar + Refuge moved entirely away from the white-tablecloth vibe of the late Hamersley’s Bistro, giving the South End space a contemporary Eastern-inflected air (thanks to designer Piya Wiwatyukhan, one of our 30 Under 30 honorees). Tiffani Faison’s Tiger Mama is even more exotic, embracing tiki style and a live green wall. (The tabletop Lazy Susans are a nice touch for shared plates too.) Hojoko, Fenway’s playful Japanese izakaya, is a bric-a-brac-strewn delight inspired by midcentury American kitsch, while South Boston’s Coppersmith successfully transformed a massive former foundry into a sprawling, multifaceted restaurant with built-in food trucks and an Airstream-turned-raw bar on its rooftop deck. And plenty of other newcomers, from the classy Parsnip to the trendy Committee, looked good enough to eat.

By Zagat Boston: https://www.zagat.com/b/boston/grading-bostons-2015-food-scene#5