Restaurant Week Boston - How to Maximize Your Experience

Want to dine in some of Boston's best restaurants at a big discount?   You can enjoy super deals twice a year during Restaurant Week Boston, the city's biggest food event - and one of the best ways to save money.  For two weeks in March and again in August, 200+ of the top Boston, Cambridge, and suburban restaurants offer special discounted fixed price 3-course menus for lunch and dinner.  I'm going to share with you 3 tips for getting the most from this exciting opportunity.

Tip 1.  Check out all the options

You'll want to find out which restaurants are participating, what meals they're offering, and where possible, what's on each menu.  Although many of the same restaurants participate during each 2-week event, new choices always appear, and a few places drop off the list.  Some restaurants offer only dinner, some offer only lunch, and others offer some meals only on certain days of the week.  Still others offer optional wine pairings, also for affordable prices.

You'll also find a lot of variation among the menus.  Some menus contain lots of options for each course, while others provide as few as only 2 choices per course.  Some restaurants include selections from their regular menus, while others offer somewhat different choices, perhaps involving simpler preparation or more affordable ingredients.

If location matters to you, decide which neighborhood or area you want to target.  You'll find that most of the participating restaurants are in Downtown Boston (including the Financial District and Waterfront), Back Bay, the North End, Beacon Hill, the South End, and Charlestown. 

Tip 2.  Develop your strategy for Restaurant Week Boston

First, decide how many meals your schedule, waistline, and bank account will allow.  If you're planning to go dine in just one restaurant, your strategy may be different than if you're planning to try a different place every day during the 2-week event.

Now decide: what kind of experience do you want to emphasize?  Do you want to try new restaurants that have just opened?  Have a meal in a fancy, expensive place where you'd never normally go?  Visit a place that you've heard about for years but never been to?  Eat in all your favorite affordable places, even if you only save a few dollars?   

Tip 3.  Make your choices - and reservations - as early as possible

Once you determine your strategy for Restaurant Week Boston, use the list of participating restaurants to make your choices.  For each meal, you may want to have a top choice plus one or two backups.  Competition to score reservations in Boston's best-known (and priciest) restaurants such as L'Espalier, Uni Sashimi Bar, Locke-Ober, Union Oyster House, Mamma Maria, and Aquitaine can be fierce.   You can either call the restaurants directly, or reserve (at most of them) through Open Table.  Be sure to reserve as early as possible to avoid disappointment!