Customer Reviews

The Cook's Guide to Boston Restaurants, 2001-2002

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When first reading, I thought I'd find many of my favorites (I've lived here for 8 years & we eat out frequently in Boston & surrounding areas), but I found a surprising omission of many of the area's "gem" restaurants.
In particular, there was a huge oversight in not including Centro in Cambridge. What a fabulous rustic Italian spot, co-owned by one of the country's top chefs, Rene Michelena. It has also received rave press reviews so that omission was a shocker.
I suggest more homework next time.

The staff of Cook's Illustrated are a talented lot, and the editor, Christopher Kimball, is an incisive and witty food writer. All the more disappointing, therefore, to find their "Cook's Guide to Boston Restaurants" so limited in scope and so frequently off the mark. While providing reviews of chain restaurants (e.g. Bugaboo Creek), outstanding local restaurants (e.g. Campania) aren't mentioned at all. Ostensibly a guide to 200 Boston area restaurants "where the locals eat", such choices are unfortunate. This small volume is in format essentially a "Zagat-style" guide, presenting for each entry a brief review plus verbatim (often contradictory) comments from a cohort of non-professional critics, and providing ratings of food, decor, service on a numerical scale. The fact that the Cook's Guide to Boston Restaurants is ostensibly prepared by Boston-area locals does not provide it with new insights or more thoughtful choices than the nationally-based Zagat. I am sorry that I cannot recommend this promising new book with much enthusiasm: Zagat does it better.