Newton Center Restaurants Newton, MA

As of mid-June my wife and I have lived in our new digs in Newton Center. While we miss Brighton (we’d lived there for nearly 30 years), we were excited to see how many restaurants are within a ten minute walk of our apartment. We’ve not eaten at all of them yet, but I will list where we’ve eaten and a rating based on a scale of 5 for food and service/atmosphere. I will update this list when I go to more places.

Central
Food 4.5
Service 3
Enjoyed the food on our one visit, but the bartender was more interested in her friend at the bar than anyone else. Went back for a drink one other night, same bartender, same problem.

Lee’s Burger Place
Food: 4.5
Service 4.5
We ate in, but it’s more of a takeout place. Very good burgers, flat patty style. Great HUGE fries (the large fries are REALLY large!)

Sycamore
Food: 4.8
Service: 5
Our favorite restaurant in the center. Great cocktails, awesome food (only one item over 4 visits we ordered we didn’t like too much), and super nice bartenders.

Johnny’s Lucheonette
Food 4.5
Service:4.5
Great breakfast joint, with house made corned beef hash, and excellent crunchy French Toast

Tartufo
Food:4.5
Service 4
Old school American red-sauce Italian, with all male waiters. Good wine, really good food, but a bit pricey for what you’re getting.

Farmstead Table
Food: 4.5
Service 4.5
Excellent entrees and apps, though we found the apps to be not of a good value. Example, my trout was a whole trout fillet, both sides, on grains, veggies and fruit. It was $26, reasonable in my book. My app was 2 Mexican Street corn tacos. 2 Tacos for $15 I didn’t feel was a good value.

Union Street Restaurant and Bar
Food: 3
Service: 4.5
Nice bartender, standard pub food. Fills a need, not much more than that.

Sweet Tomatoes Pizza
Food: 4
Service: N/A
Got take out, so no service rating. Pizza is OK, in a pinch, but I’d rather run down to Route 9, and get me some Frank Pepe’s.

Number 1 Noodle House
Food 4.5
Service: N/A only have done takeout, so no service rating. Excellent Chinese food, though I do ask for things a bit spicier than standard. Ma Po Tofu and Spicy Schezuan Chicken have been standouts for me.

Terry O’Reilly’s Irish Pub
Food: 3
Service: 4.5
Great pub if you want a well poured Guinness or Smithwick’s. I had the fish and chips, and Irish bar should know better than to serve soggy fish with your chips.

Bill’s Pizzeria
Food: pizza 2 Subs/salads: 4.5
Service: 4
First off, I hate Greek pizza. This is probably the best Greek Pizza I’ve had, but it’s still not good in my opinion. Great subs and sandwiches, however.

We still have about 15 places to try!

6 Likes

What an awesome report, thank you!!

That stuff drives me nuts, if I owned that place and read this I would be deeply unhappy.

Fries themselves are huge or portion size? Asking for a friend :slight_smile: who likes big fat fries.

Dying to get to Sycamore.

Good to know about Farmstead Table apps.

2 Likes

just slightly farther out is Max and Leo’s too, which has very respectable pies.

Thanks for the blanket reviews. looking forward to the next fifteen!

1 Like

Lucky you - Sycamore is our Newton favorite, by a mile. Try the Ghost of Mary cocktail - invented by the head bartender at a previous gig. Had the beignets with milk jam yet?

Be sure to visit Rosenfeld’s for bagels.

1 Like

They are standard sized fries, but the large was a paper tray that had to be 10 inches by 6 inches, we had 5 people, and no one felt they didn’t get enough fries!

1 Like

Yeah, Sycamore is exactly the kind of place we love. We’re looking forward to Buttonwood reopening (just a T stop away) as well. I haven’t tried the Ghost Of Mary cocktail, but I generally don’t order vodka cocktails anyway. Scott makes a mean prescription sazerac (mixture of rye and cognac). The beignets with milk jam are sooooo good! Just finished my Rosenfeld’s bagels which were in my freezer. Went to Walnut Market the other day to get St Viateur bagels from Montreal, my favorite bagels on Earth. Will get more Rosenfeld’s when my Montreal bagels run out. I think the market gets them about once a month.

Rosenfeld’s Bagels
Food: 4.5
Service : n/a
Best bagels I’ve had in Boston (note I have not tried bagelsaurus or exodus bagels yet). Good Bialys, but I’ll grab some at Kosar’s on the lower East side of Manhattan next time I’m there.

Walnut Market
Food: 5
Service: n/a Great little market that specializes in hard to find international foods. About once a month they get Montreal bagels in from St Viateur bakery. I love, love, love these bagels! Slightly sweet (they use malt flour, and the boiling water has honey in it), but incredibly light inside, with just the right amount of chew to the outside.

3 Likes

I have gotten cryovac’d Montreal smoked meat there too, although not recently. Remember it as pricy but delicious.

Keep these reviews coming!

Does this happen on a fixed day every month?

Not sure. I liked their Facebook page, and they announce when they have them there. I figure the once a month thing, as it was the second notice I had gotten. The first was about a month earlier, but I had just bought some Rosenfeld’s bagels and didn’t have room for more.

you are close enough there’s no need to consign Rosenfeld’s bagels to the freezer!

Yeah, but I don’t want to go there every day I want a bagel! Plus, I have to leave for work before they open. They do just fine in the freezer, just need to cut them first.

I see you are no deeply-afflicted bagel nut. The dab nuts stand in line every day at bagelsaurus for their fix.

I’m glad you have the time and energy to do that. I do not.

No, no, you misunderestimate me. I do love me a fresh bagel, but I’m not one of the guys who stands on line for hours for one.

You should add Little Big Diner to your list/rotation

1 Like

Whew! I get it, I love fresh, un-toasted bagel, but I’m not standing in a hours long line for one!

Little Big Diner is certainly on our radar, but I don’t generally eat soup when it’s this hot out. Looking very forward to trying it when the weather breaks, though.

2 Likes

Comedor
Food : 4.5
Service : 4.5
Great small plates, Peruvian food. Excellent cocktails and interesting food. Will need to come back.

Also, I have to amend the service review of Union Street from 4.5 to 3. My niece and her husband were visiting, and they are very simple eaters. They don’t eat anything remotely fancy or spicy, so we thought that though we didn’t love the food at Union Street it was a good bet for them to enjoy it, which they did. However, after apps were served, the entrees came out. They put meals in front of my wife, my niece, and her husband., then left. I figured, oh well, they probably couldn’t fit everything on the tray. I had ordered a chicken Caesar salad. 5 minutes later, still no salad. I told them to eat so that their food wouldn’t get cold (though my wife’s chicken wings were already pretty much room temp when they arrived). After 10 minutes, someone finally comes over to see if everything is fine, and I ask if my salad is coming. Blank stare. “Let me check”. We were sitting near the POS system, where she went and put my salad in, which she’d obviously forgotten to order. Just a lame sorry from the hostess (NOTHING from our waitress), who ignored our table for the rest of the meal. Oh well, two and done, there’s no reason for me to give them any more of my money with the vast number of restaurants in the center.

2 Likes

What caught your fancy at Comedor?