Best of the City: The 10 best things Time Out Boston editors saw, ate and visited in 2024

Portuguese cuisine has long been a part of the Massachusetts landscape if you knew where to look. For a long time, that wasn’t Boston, but in the South Coast cities of New Bedford and Fall River and little pockets of East Cambridge and Somerville. That’s changed over the past year-plus, with the fall 2023 debut of Amar at the Raffles Hotel (by acclaimed chef George Mendes) and the March 2024 opening of Baleia, my pick for Boston’s best new restaurant. Helmed by chef Andrew Hebert, Baleia is a love note to the fresh, often rustic simplicity of Portuguese cuisine. Hebert’s culinary background is Italian; he’s also executive chef at Baleia’s sister spot, Gufo, and has worked at the owner Coda Group’s other two restaurants, SRV and The Salty Pig among other places. A trip across the Atlantic nearly a decade ago revealed to Hebert the breadth of Portugal’s offerings, and subsequent years of travel, tasting and learning informs his passion project. Set in a beautiful, modern space off the beaten path in the South End, Baleia offers a choose-your-own-adventure experience of Portuguese cuisine. Pro tip: Start with a refreshing white port tonic, a Portuguese happy-hour go-to; and an order of the plush, lightly sweet Portuguese rolls with chamomile butter. Other standout dishes are the salt cod bolinhos (like fritters made with house-cured whitefish), savory saffron-duck rice, and a seared cod dish that’s like deconstructed caldo verde, with a vibrant green sauce, crispy potato and salty, smoky bits of house-made chouriço.

For a city with stringent liquor licensing laws, Boston has nevertheless welcomed an exciting array of newcomers dedicated to all things drink. The one I can’t stop thinking about is Equal Measure, where innovation combines with timeless, classical consistency. Attached to Eastern Standard, ES Hospitality Group’s beverage director Jackson Cannon’s name and talent is associated with it, but principal bartender Liza Hoar is infusing exciting energy into the place night after night. Her culinary-inspired cocktails with quippy descriptions—like Down the Rabbit Hole (“curiouser and curiouser”), which combines tequila, Aperol, lime, turmeric honey, carrot greens and olive oil; and Oopsie Daisy, (“a little melty ice cream”), with honey-infused cognac, cream, crème de cacao, benedictine and lavender—may sound more intriguing than delicious on paper, but they prove to be balanced, beautiful and memorable every time. OK, I know Equal Measure has landed on “best of 2024” lists from Esquire, Forbes, Wine Enthusiast, Boston magazine and others—yet the comfortable, chic bar and its imaginative, impeccable drinks still feels like a secret that must be experienced to be believed. 

Has any Boston chef been busier this year than Jamie Bissonnette? The James Beard Award-winner opened four buzzy new concepts in 2024 with business partners Babak Bina and Andy Cartin, including the brand-new Zurito Basque pintxo bar in Beacon Hill, and a trio of faithful Asian-inspired concepts in Downtown Crossing. Anchoring the DTX spots is Somaek, which pays homage to the homestyle Korean cooking he’s learned from his mother-in-law, Soon Han. The mix-and-match menu of bountiful banchan (side dishes) and shareable plates is a shining example of an underrepresented cuisine in Boston—and what first landed Somaek on our living document of the best restaurants in Boston right now. Haemul pajeon is particularly craveworthy: It’s a green-onion pancake loaded with seafood, with crispy edges just asking to be dipped in savory soy.

Full disclosure: I live in Jamaica Plain and have covered restaurants in Boston for nearly a decade. So when JP restaurateurs Kristin and Dan Valachovic asked if I knew any up-and-coming chefs who could use their kitchen at Vee Vee during a transitional year for the restaurant, I was excited to connect them with Valentine Howell Jr., whom I had recently interviewed during his stint on Top Chef. Selfishly, I’m so glad I did. (And I know I wasn't the only one who floated his name!) Black Cat @ Vee Vee—the resulting matchup of Howell’s pop-up started in 2020 with his partner, Renea Adger, and the easy-going hospitality of the Vees’ neighborhood restaurant—is far and away my most visited restaurant of 2024. Howell, who earned a Best Chef: Northeast nomination from the James Beard Awards during his time at Krasi, hones in on Caribbean and Latin American foundations with Black Cat. Can’t-miss dishes are his creamy, bright street corn; the chili shrimp tostada; Jamaican beef empanadas with a tender shell and salsa rosada for dipping; and the crispy funnel cake plantain buñuelo, finished with salted caramel and coriander-roasted pineapple. Eater Boston, which also bestowed Pop-Up of the Year accolades on Black Cat, reports that the chef’s run at Vee Vee may be winding down, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, get there in December. We’ll keep you posted on what’s next for both parties.

Many postgrads mourned the pandemic-era loss of the Pour House, but divey college bars aren’t really what the Boston scene needed in 2024. Inclusive spaces specifically for queer folks that also serve as showcases for diverse DJs and dance nights? That’s the vibe—and it came to life at Dani’s Queer Bar, the city’s first lesbian bar to open in years, WGBH reported, in the formerly down-and-dirty space on Boylston Street. The first brick-and-mortar venture for Thais Rocha, a founder of the ongoing Sapphic Nights event series in Boston, Dani’s Queer Bar is a permanent place for femmes (and their friends) to connect, create community—and let loose. The Back Bay haunt hosts frequent dance nights, mixers, drag performances and more events, and also serves lunch and dinner daily. 

Just a block from Boston’s storied art institutions on Huntington Avenue, The MassArt Art Museum is a hidden gem for modern art that’s free to check out. Comprising two moderately-sized galleries, MAAM opened in 2020 and has made contemporary art more accessible in Boston than ever before. Like you’d find at the city’s renowned Institute for Contemporary Art miles away in the Seaport, avant-garde exhibitions of global, national and local artists are MAAM’s mission. “Displacement,” a show of nine artists’ works up through December 8, explored human relationships with their environments with multimedia works that have stayed in my mind. MAAM is currently closed until January 23, when “Future Fossils” opens with “imagine relics” created by more than a dozen international luminaries including Ai Weiwei. Did we mention it’s always free?

Say what you will about the clown heads, but no one can argue that Downtown Boston’s inaugural Winteractive outdoor art experience that ran from January–April this year was anything less than memorable. The provocative, giant and some may say “creepy” clown heads—a work called “Endgame (Nagg & Nell)” by artist Max Streicher—hung between buildings on Washington Street and got the most press, but the installation I enjoyed most was “Territories 2.0” by Olivier Roberge, a walk-through cube situated on Federal Street, which hid a large-scale, yet miniature mountainscape. Other works, such as the illuminated, rideable bicycles on the Summer Street pedestrian plaza, and the massive whale structure on Franklin Street that echoed unsettling noise when observers got close, gave the 16-work public art pop-up a gotta-catch-’em-all sense of discovery. Winteractive is coming back in January 2025 and I can’t wait to discover what’s in store.

In the more traditional art world—well, mostly—the Museum of Fine Arts continues to be unmatched in Boston. (Shoutout to the gorgeous and illuminating display of John Singer Sargent portraits, which graced the special-exhibit level from October 2023 into early January.) The MFA’s summertime special, “Hallyu: The Korean Wave,” was something very different: It brought Korean culture to the venerable institution in vibrant and compelling ways, and for the first time. I’m no K-pop fanatic, but learning some dance moves and starring in my own sort of music video in an interactive part of the exhibit illuminated for me what’s so fun about the artform. I also appreciated seeing the gorgeous textiles and clothing on display, as well as artists Timothy Hyunsoo Lee and Julia Kwon’s touching explorations of their Korean American experiences.

Before embarking on her Wicked-related nostalgia tour this year, Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth was in Boston for a wild good time. The Queen of Versailles premiered in Boston and ran for six weeks this summer at the Emerson Colonial Theatre before heading to Broadway in 2025–26. The show reunited Chenoweth with Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, as she originated the “queen” in question, Jackie Siegel. A real-life mother of eight and wife to a billionaire businessman (played by F. Murray Abraham), Chenoweth carried this show, which is an adaptation of Lauren Greenfield’s award-winning riches-to-rags documentary from 2012. “Chenoweth’s star turn [adds] hilarity and pathos to this wild true-life saga,” arts writer Tara Bellucci observed for Time Out Boston. “Her Jackie is tenacious to a fault, brilliantly oscillating between out of touch and in on the joke… And Chenoweth’s unique voice breathes Schwartz’s songs to vibrant life, especially in bops like ‘Caviar Dreams.’” Bostonians who caught the show before it heads to New York saw something special. 

Outsiders may say Boston sports fans are spoiled, but followers of basketball endured years of high expectations, only for the Celtics to falter, since the historic organization’s last championship in 2008. And before that, the C’s hadn’t won since before I was born. Suffice to say, Banner 18 was a long time coming—and celebrated in an iconic way on Friday, June 21. The Celtics organization and the City of Boston hosted the customary rolling rally, but the history here made it a party for the ages. Superstar players like Jayson Tatum (and his young son Deuce, of course), Paul Piece of the ’08 team, fan-favorites Derrick White and Payton Pritchard and scores of other players—not to mention coaches, famous faces from TV, and their families—reveled in adoration from more than 1 million fans who lined the streets from North Station to the Hynes Convention Center. It was truly a sea of people all along the two-mile route, with joyful and ecstatic energy for this beloved franchise.