Best of Boston

2009 Best Brookline Restaurant, Neighborhood

Washington Square Tavern

In Europe, the luckiest of travelers lost on some tiny rue or strasse will happen upon the bar their guidebooks forgot: barely marked, yet packed with locals eating, drinking, and socializing with gusto. Such a find is the Washington Square Tavern, whose book-lined walls and scattered Orientals suggest a boozy study, an irresistible combination for largely literate, well-off Brookline (and the odd wayward traveler).

714 Washington St., Brookline, 617-232-8989, washingtonsquaretavern.com