Sat, Nov 14
The Move
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Meetups
Screenings, watch parties and nights out with Secret Boston.
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Sports & social
Morning Touchdown with Secret Boston
Sun, Nov 15, 2026 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Time Out Market Boston
Watch the game with Secret Boston. You don't need to be a sports person, but we love those too. Come to meet people, root for the Pats or spend the morning with some fellow fans.
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Social
Wharf Social with Secret Boston
Thu, Nov 19, 2026 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Night Shift Brewing, Lovejoy Wharf
Cocktails on the wharf with your current and future favorite IG handles. Put faces to usernames and have a little pre-holiday fun.
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SECRET BOSTON MEETUP
Tweed Night at The Haven
Tue, Dec 8, 2026 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
The Haven
Trade the inbox for a proper Scottish pub. Come solo or bring a friend and put some faces to the Secret Boston crew.
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Upcoming events in Boston
Sat, Nov 14
Sun, Nov 15
system_failure presents: Introspekt
2:00–10:00 PM
Fri, Nov 20
Somerville Ciné-Club Presents: SpliceTape #1 at Aeronaut
7:30–9:30 PM
Aeronaut Brewing Company · Somerville
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Merengue Restaurant
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Guides
9 Boston holiday guides for what to do, where to go and what to buy
Boston once banned Christmas. From 1659 to 1681, taking the day off or throwing a Christmas feast could cost you five shillings. Now the city’s holiday lightings start the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and the plans pile up from there. Every Secret Boston holiday guide is right here, plus our own shop, sorted into what to do, where to go and what to buy, with a line on what’s inside each one. Start with the lightings if you have kids, the party spots if you’re planning the office party, and the gift guide if you’re shopping for someone who loves Boston. Our Boston holiday lightings guide has all six, from Sat, Nov 21 through Thu, Dec 3, including the night Santa arrives by boat at Martin’s Park and the Boston Common tree that Nova Scotia sends every year. Boston has 6 Nutcrackers this December, with ballet, burlesque, big band jazz and one in French, and every show runs between Fri, Nov 27 and Thu, Dec 31. Our A Christmas Carol guide starts at the hotel where Dickens first read it to Americans, then sends you to the Muppets singing it and a 1795 tavern for a toast to Scrooge. Hanukkah in Boston runs Fri, Dec 4 to Sat, Dec 12, with a Hanukkah day at the MFA, menorahs on Hummer limos in Brighton and where to get your latkes. Mariah Carey’s holiday bar makes its Boston debut in the Seaport on Wed, Nov 25, and our pop-up guide has six more Christmas bars, with which ones take walk-ins and which are 21+. These 9 holiday party spots build the office party around a game, with axe throwing, skeeball, darts and dueling pianos, and room for 10 people or a few hundred. Our Snowport guide explains how the Seaport’s holiday market works, plus the curling, Betty the pink yeti and what to check before you go. Our Boston gift guide has gifts we designed ourselves, starting at $16, plus a gift membership we email on the day you choose. Our shop’s Boston Ugly Christmas Collection starts with the Boston Ugly Christmas hoodie, from $52 in navy, with knit-style snowflakes and trees, BOSTON across the chest and the CITGO sign worked into the pattern. The same design comes on a crewneck, a tee, a beanie, a pom-pom hat, an ornament and wrapping paper. Our Wicked Good Christmas Collection puts “Have yourself a Wicked Good Christmas” on a hoodie, a tee, a beanie and an ornament. Free shipping on orders over $50. Order by Saturday, Dec 5 to get it in time for Christmas. The Boston craft fairs guide has 20 markets, Snowport, SoWa and Harvard Square included, in date order through Christmas.
20 Boston restaurants worth making dinner plans for
Choosing a restaurant is easier when you know what kind of evening you want. Sometimes that is a long dinner built around pasta, sometimes it is a lobster roll, and sometimes you want a room that gives you a reason to dress up. These 20 restaurants cover those different moods across Boston and the surrounding cities. The numbers help you work through the list; the right choice depends on what you want to eat, who is coming and how much planning you feel like doing. Sarma’s menu is built for sharing, which makes it a useful choice for people who want to order broadly rather than commit to one main course. Black Sea cornbread with jalapeño, feta, honey and sesame gives you a good idea of the approach, as do lentil nachos with feta queso. Reservations open 30 days ahead at 10 a.m., while the bar and high-top tables take walk-ins. Darling puts cocktails and Chinese-inspired dim sum together in Central Square. Its current menu includes hot-and-sour pork wontons with house chili crisp, scallop rangoon and a Filet O Fish bao with fried fish, tartar sauce and cheese. Choose it when you want drinks and several things to share, with a menu that leaves plenty to talk about. Mai brings French cooking techniques to a Japanese izakaya in the Seaport. Handrolls are made to order and served individually, while the wider menu includes miso butter cod and duck confit. It is a good option when the table wants Japanese food but not an evening devoted entirely to sushi. At 89 Charles, the drinks lead and the food follows. This subterranean Beacon Hill bar serves snacks including green goddess dip with Ruffles, sardines with bread and butter, and a wagyu hot dog with truffle kewpie. Pick it for cocktails and a lighter meal rather than arriving expecting a conventional three-course dinner. Giulia gives pasta lovers plenty to work with. Its latest menu includes bucatini all’amatriciana, braised-beef pappardelle and squash and brown butter agnolotti, so choosing one may be the difficult part. Tables can be booked two weeks ahead, with reservations released at 10 a.m. The 18-seat bar offers a walk-in alternative. Tonino takes inspiration from the neighborhood trattorias, wine bars and aperitivo spots around Rome. The emphasis is scratch cooking and a small neighborhood setting, which makes it appealing for a dinner you have actually planned. Reservations open 30 days ahead at noon; walk-in space is usually limited to one or two people and is never guaranteed. Holdfast is the choice when you want seafood without booking a long restaurant dinner. This Allston spot combines counter service with lobster rolls, oysters and crudo, giving you room to keep things simple or order a wider spread. It is especially useful for a casual seafood meal away from the waterfront. Fallow Kin comes from the Talulla team and chef Marcos Sanchez, with vegetables and relationships with local farmers central to the restaurant’s approach. Choose it when you want the produce to get as much attention as the rest of dinner. Its Cambridge location makes it another option beyond the familiar Italian and steakhouse choices. The Shawmut Inn serves dinner in its bar, dining room and patio, so there is more than one way to settle into this South End restaurant. It is a useful option when you want a neighborhood dinner and a full bar without making the evening revolve around a tasting menu. Qiao Lin makes dinner a shared activity. Start by choosing your broth arrangement, with single, half-and-half and triple-flavor pots available, then build your dipping sauce and cook at the table. Its Chongqing-style hotpot is an appealing choice for a group that wants something more involved than ordering individual mains. Parla is an Italian kitchen and cocktail bar on Hanover Street, offering a different approach from a straightforward North End red-sauce dinner. Its menu draws on Mediterranean influences, while cocktails are a central part of the restaurant. Choose it when you want to make drinks and food equally important to the plan. Oleana’s cooking draws on Turkey and the Middle East, with small plates, spices and produce from its farm helping shape the menu. It is a good choice for a table that wants to share and try several dishes. Reservations are available 30 days ahead, and the restaurant also holds space each evening for walk-ins. Da LaPosta gives you pizza and pasta options in Newtonville, with starters that make it worth sitting down properly. The current menu includes housemade ricotta with orange honey, cacio e pepe supplì and rigatoni carbonara. Build dinner around the pizza if that is what brought you, but leave room to look beyond it. Field & Vine lets ingredients shape the menu, which changes with availability from its farmers, fishermen and suppliers. Its online sample gives a sense of the cooking through dishes such as cheddar-scallion cornbread with miso butter and tuna tostadas with daikon kimchi. Use it to understand the style rather than to promise yourself a particular dish. Zuma is a good fit for a bigger night out, with contemporary Japanese food inside the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street. The dining room has views of three open kitchens, including sushi and robata counters, and signature dishes include saikyo-miso black cod and a mushroom rice hot pot. Consider the robata counter if watching the cooking appeals. Asta serves a multi-course tasting menu in Back Bay, making it a choice for people who want the kitchen to guide dinner. It is worth considering when the meal itself is the evening’s main plan. Discuss dietary requirements when booking rather than assuming a tasting menu can be changed once you arrive. Thistle & Leek takes inspiration from London’s modern gastropubs, with seasonal small plates, an Old World wine list and straightforward cocktails. Choose this Newton Centre restaurant when you want an interesting shared dinner in a neighborhood setting. There is also weekday lunch, which gives you another way to try it without arranging a full evening. La Padrona brings Italian cooking from chefs Jody Adams and Amarilys Còlon to Back Bay. It suits the kind of dinner where you want to make a reservation, give yourself time and turn the meal into an occasion. Browse the current menus before booking so you can decide how extensively you want to order. All’Antico Vinaio is here for the days when a substantial sandwich is the right answer. The Boylston Street menu includes La Paradiso, with mortadella, stracciatella and pistachio, and La Favolosa, with salame toscana, pecorino cream, artichoke cream and spicy eggplant. This is a lunch choice worth making deliberately. Bogie’s Place sits behind a curtain inside Jm Curley, with white tablecloths, leather seating, steaks and classic cocktails. That change of setting is part of the appeal: you enter a busy downtown bar and continue into a more intimate steakhouse. Choose it when you want a steak dinner with a little more character to the arrival. Bogie’s Place in Boston, MA If everyone wants something different, start with a shared-plate restaurant such as Sarma or Oleana. If the occasion calls for a longer meal, look at Asta or La Padrona. For a more casual plan, Holdfast and All’Antico Vinaio give you plenty to look forward to without building the whole night around a reservation.
Get to know Boston
Fenway Park is the oldest active MLB ballpark
Fenway Park has been the Red Sox’s home since 1912. It remains the oldest active ballpark in Major League Baseball, ahead of Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which opened in 1914. The age shows in the brickwork, the narrow seats and the steel column that can insert itself into your view of the pitcher. It also shows in how the park fits into Boston. Streets run tight against its walls. Apartments, restaurants and bars surround it. On game days, the crowd starts well outside the gates, spilling through Kenmore Square and along Lansdowne Street. You are visiting a ballpark built for another era. Fenway makes very little effort to hide that. Fenway Park’s first game went into extra innings The first regular-season game took place on April 20, 1912. Boston beat the New York Highlanders, the team now called the Yankees, 7–6 in 11 innings. Tris Speaker drove in the winning run. The crowd presented its own complications. According to SABR’s account of opening day, spectators stood behind ropes in the outfield, and balls hit into that overflow crowd counted as doubles. Fenway was finding unusual ways to affect a baseball game from the start. The opening came five days after the Titanic sank, with coverage of the disaster overshadowing the ballpark’s debut. Boston’s season ended on a happier note: 105 regular-season wins and a World Series victory over the New York Giants. The Red Sox had moved from the Huntington Avenue Grounds, their home since 1901. The new park took its name from the Fenway neighborhood. The Green Monster wasn’t always green The left-field wall stands roughly 37 feet high, with the foul line marked at 310 feet from home plate. Its height can turn a potential home run into a ball rattling back toward an outfielder. Its proximity can reward a fly ball that would stay in the park elsewhere. The wall was once covered in advertising. It received its green paint in 1947, the same year Fenway introduced night baseball. Seats arrived on top in 2003. Below them, the manually operated scoreboard remains part of the game. Someone still has to change those numbers. The rest of the outfield refuses to settle into a predictable shape. Right field reaches just 302 feet at Pesky’s Pole, named for longtime Red Sox player and coach Johnny Pesky. The deepest center-field corner stretches to 420 feet. A ball’s destination matters as much as how hard it was hit. Boston nearly replaced it Fenway’s survival was a choice. In 1999, Red Sox management announced plans for a replacement ballpark across the street. Preservation advocates organized, and financing the proposal proved difficult. The ownership group that bought the team in 2002 chose renovation. As SABR’s ballpark history documents, a structural study found the existing park viable, and substantial investment followed. Fenway had already undergone a major rebuild in 1934. The surviving wooden grandstand seats date to that renovation, rather than opening day. Later improvements expanded concourses and added seating without erasing the park’s recognizable shape. The result is a working stadium with more than a century of alterations. Some brought better facilities. None made every seat comfortable. More than a baseball field Fenway has accommodated football, soccer, hockey, concerts and political speeches. The Boston Patriots played home games here from 1963 through 1968, decades before their Foxborough years became the default association. Baseball supplies the moments most fans remember, including Carlton Fisk waving his home run fair in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Fenway also hosted the first two games of the 2004 World Series, when Boston finally ended its 86-year championship drought. The clinching win happened in St. Louis. Going to a game or taking a tour For the full experience, go when the Red Sox are playing. Arrive with time to walk around the neighborhood rather than heading straight from the train to your seat. Official tours offer another way inside, with access subject to availability. Check the particular tour before booking. The address is 4 Jersey Street. The MBTA’s Fenway directions identify Kenmore on the Green Line’s B, C and D branches as a nearby stop. Fenway station on the D branch is also within walking distance. Commuter rail passengers can use Lansdowne on the Worcester Line. Before buying game tickets, check the view from the actual section, row and seat. Grandstand support columns are part of the architecture, but you don’t have to spend nine innings admiring one.
Why Bostonians say “wicked” so much
“Wicked good” is a compliment. “Wicked expensive” is a complaint. The same word does both jobs without any concern for whether the subject deserves praise. In Boston, “wicked” often means very or extremely. It turns up the volume on whatever comes next. Say someone is wicked tired and you mean they are very tired, not that they have become a worse person. The meaning comes from how the word is being used. That is the useful thing to know before attempting a Boston impression. You can pronounce every R and still use the word correctly. You can also drop every R and put “wicked” in a sentence where it sounds like you learned to speak from a souvenir sweatshirt. Why Bostonians say wicked before almost anything In this usage, “wicked” is an intensifier. Merriam-Webster records its adverbial meaning alongside the older adjective meaning morally bad. The two uses can occupy the same language without confusion. A wicked person and a wicked good sandwich are different propositions. Think of “wicked cold,” “wicked funny” or “wicked crowded.” The word strengthens the description. It does not tell you whether to like the thing being described. Someone saying the restaurant was wicked busy might be recommending it, explaining a long wait, or wishing they had stayed home. The placement is more important than putting on an accent. “That was wicked good” has the familiar local construction. “That was wicked,” meaning excellent, is another slang use, but it does a different grammatical job. Adding the word everywhere will not make every sentence sound more Boston. The Puritans do not get automatic credit Boston’s reputation makes an origin story involving stern Puritans tempting. But the fact that an old word existed in England does not prove that seventeenth-century settlers brought this particular local use with them. The language program A Way with Words discusses “wicked” as a New England intensifier. That regional association is useful. It does not supply the name of the first person who said it, or a neat date when everyone in Massachusetts agreed to start. There is no need to invent a founding ceremony. People repeat words they hear in their families and communities, and a familiar expression can feel entirely ordinary to one speaker and immediately regional to another. “Wicked” works perfectly well without a colonial certificate of authenticity. Ordering a frappe does not require dropping an R Other local words need a little more translation. A frappe is a thick milkshake; the familiar New England pronunciation rhymes with “cap.” The spelling can make visitors expect a different word, especially if they are thinking of a coffee drink. For an order, the menu is more useful than a debate over terminology. Ask what is in the drink if the distinction matters. Regional vocabulary is interesting until it becomes the reason you receive something other than the ice cream you wanted. “Bubbler” means a drinking fountain, with a history that reaches beyond Massachusetts. Our bubbler explainer separates the regional word from a frequently repeated manufacturing story. Calling it a water fountain is also a perfectly effective way to ask for water. Vocabulary is not the same as an accent The Boston accent concerns sounds: which R’s a speaker pronounces, what happens between words, and how vowels are formed. Vocabulary concerns the words chosen. They overlap in conversation, but one does not require the other. A person raised here might say “wicked” constantly, occasionally, or never. Another might arrive from elsewhere and pick it up. Neither case is a useful citizenship test. Boston contains more than one way of speaking, and ordinary conversation is less uniform than the movie version. If the word is new to you, listen to what follows it. Good, bad, fast, slow, cheap, expensive: the next word does the describing. “Wicked” just makes sure you heard.