Best of Boston

You’ve never crave artichoke-goat cheese lollipops until you tasted Pino Maffeo’s daring cuisine at Restaurant L. Like other mad gastro-wizards, Maffeo employs a host of high-tech gadgets (including a centrifuge) to whip up plates like caramelized scallops with poached asparagus sous vide and citrusy, unripe almonds. But unlike some of his counterparts, Maffeo makes sure it’s taste, not science, that rules. That’s what we call chemistry.