Best of Boston

There’s no shortage of French technique in Boston, but few restaurants can effectively transport you to Paris for the night. Aquitaine, in the lovely old St. Cloud building (master architect Nathaniel J. Bradlee’s 1869 homage to the French flat), feels like a real 11th-arrondissement brasserie. Gold-stenciled mirrors, an oversize chalkboard, and voluptuous floral arrangements (courtesy of Spruce) look the part. But it’s the buttery, bouquet garni-rich classics—mussels en cassoulette, escargots de Bourgogne—that keep us coming back again and again.