Here's a look at the best new Boston restaurants, hotels, party rooms, corporate event venues, conference centers, and private rooms to open this winter. These new and renovated Boston venues can accommodate groups large or small for private and corporate events, meetings, business dinners, cocktail parties, conferences, weddings, and more.
The Rosebud Diner, a historic landmark in Somerville, reopened in September as the Rosebud American Kitchen & Bar, a casual spot that maintains classic diner style with an upgrade in food offerings. The original dining car is available for private events. The classic red booths measure 420 square feet and seat 50 guests. The menu includes craft cocktails and comfort food like St. Louis-style ribs and pie.
A sister location to the South Boston spot Temazcal Tequila Cantina opened in Lynnfield in early October. The 7,000-square-foot restaurant offers upscale Mexican food like swordfish Salguero and asada skirt steak tacos made with local ingredients. A group dining manager coordinates private events at the bar and restaurant, which seats 262 guests. Fittingly, it also has an extensive tequila list that boasts more than 250 varieties.
Formerly known as Woodward at the Ames Boston Hotel, King St. Tavern opened in the downtown hotel in September around the corner from Government Center. The ground floor of the 4,000-square-foot restaurant and nightlife venue has a stage and hosts live music acts onstage almost nightly. It seats 72 and holds another 44 for receptions. Upstairs, a 520-square-foot room is reserved for private events.
Tuscan Kitchen Burlington, a 14,000-square-foot Italian restaurant, opened in mid-October and offers four private dining spaces that can be combined for larger groups. The Wine Room seats 20; and the Garden Room, Sicilia, and Toscana each seats 50 or holds 70 for receptions an can be combined to seat 150 guests or hold 200 for receptions. The spaces all include plasma TVs, iPod hookups, and Blu-ray players. The eatery also has a patio that seats 100 guests.
Located in Cambridge’s tech capital Kendall Square, Le Laboratoire Cambridge is an art and design center modeled on the original Le Laboratoire in Paris. The 5,000 square feet of event space is spread across four rooms, some of which can be combined. The rooms include the Gallery, which seats 200 guests; the Lecture Hall, which seats 60 for dinner or holds 80 classroom-style; the Howard Brenner Studio, a cozy lounge area for smaller groups; and Café ArtScience, a 1,536-square-foot bar and restaurant. For receptions, the entire space holds 500 guests. It opened in late October.
Mother Juice, in Kendall Square, morphed from a popular juice truck into a brick-and-mortar mainstay in September. Mother still makes its classic raw, organic juices but has expanded beyond liquids with dishes such as the “Keen What,” a mix of quinoa with kale, carrots, beets, and avocado in tahini ginger dressing. The 700-square-foot space seats 15 or holds 30 for reception.
The Boston Marriott Burlington, located about half an hour outside of Boston, debuted three renovated meeting rooms in March. The rooms are three of the 20 meeting rooms that make up the hotel's 14,570 square feet of meeting space. Named “Ignite,” “Inspire,” and “Imagine,” the new rooms range from 486 to 850 square feet and hold as many as 40 people classroom-style. They features new audiovisual capabilities, wired and wireless Internet connections, and ergonomic chairs. Catering from Chopps American Bar and Grill is available. The hotel's Great Room lobby is being renovated and is slated to finish early next year.
After 16 years operating Common Ground’s Allston location, owners expanded to a new location in late September. Common Ground Bar & Grill Arlington is a restaurant with a 2,000-square-foot event space tucked behind the barroom. The space seats 104 guests and has extensive audiovisual capabilities including a 12-foot HD projection screen.
Located inside the Westin Waltham Boston, the restaurant Seventy at Third Avenue is the finishing piece of the hotel’s multimillion-dollar renovation. The open 2,400-square-foot dining room overlooks the Cambridge Reservoir, while a private dining space called the Waltham Room features floor-to-ceiling windows, audiovisual hookups, and room for 16 seated guests. A community dining table is also available in the main dining room, where the menu includes dishes such as green-tea-lacquered salmon. It opened in October. Located in the technology belt on Route 128, the hotel is near some of Waltham’s biggest companies.
Mast (as in “the master of one’s craft”) has a prime location across from Boston’s Old City Hall. The 4,000-square-foot casual bar and restaurant, which opened in late October, features Neapolitan-style food such as wood-fired pizzas and house-made pastas. It seats 50 inside and has a 35-seat outdoor space.
