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Lucky's
One of Boston's top-notch bars, Lucky's is a delightfully gritty lounge that looks straight from 1959 and earns extra street-cred by having no sign. Enjoy well-priced drinks, excellent martinis and, frequently Motown-inspired bands playing tunes to which people actually dance. Sinatra Sundays remain a perpetual favorite, and the after work scene is lively.
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Matt Murphy's Pub
For a friendly crowd and lots of bartenders from the Emerald Island, this laid-back pub pours a fine stout and sometimes hosts folk bands. At dinnertime, small tables are jammed together and are full more with diners than drinkers. Enjoy hearty Irish fare including fish and chips and a fine rabbit stew.
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Middle East
The Middle East is a multi-roomed venue that offers everything from belly dancing to club nights, cocktails to cover bands. They book some top rockin' bands and you are guaranteed to see some sweaty locals belting out their best tunes (or someone else's) at eye-bleeding volumes. They also do kinda decent Middle Easternish food.
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Middlesex
The sophisticated minimalist design of this beautiful modern room uses a well-done sequence of wood paneling reminiscent of Japanese tatami mats. Black modular furniture sits on heavy casters, allowing the cubes to be easily rolled aside when the place transforms from lounge to club on nights when the fashionable crowd becomes entranced with DJs experimenting with French pop and electronica.
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Midway Café
In addition to hosting a kick-ass dyke night , this queer friendly rock and punk bar books some of Boston's finest independent music, ranging from rockabilly to dub. Inside, find Pabst beer signs of antique vintage, some long horn skulls, pinball and a genuinely friendly atmosphere.
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Milky Way
Though this subterranean bar acts more as a retro lounge and nightclub, it was originally a bowling alley back in the 1960s and six of the old lanes have been retained for your candlepin pleasure. The hourly charge covers shoe rentals and everyone in your party (up to six people). If there's an event (band, karaoke) you'll also have to pay a cover. While individual kids are cool, bringing a group of them is a no-no.
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Miracle Of Science Bar & Grill
With good beer on tap, this triangular shaped bar caters to MIT brainiacs with a periodic table inspired black board menu (eat a burger). Large windows open garage-style on summer nights and there's some weird sciencey crap near the bar.
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Model Cafe
This two-room joint and its loud jukebox attracts droves of precisely dressed hipsters and rockers who enjoy drinking cheap beer (sometimes stale) and crappy liquor while complaining about how either (1) the place is too much of a cool kid haunt or (2) about how the placed used to be cool. Either way, it's a scene near closing time and the pool table is too close to the wall.
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Modern
With clean lines and a sleek chrome and glass bar, this narrow lounge is the most elegant space in the Lansdowne complex. Though there's little in the way of a dance floor, high heel depressions embedded in a long leather couch running along a wall reveal how some girls improvise when the hip-hop gets loud. Dress to impress or be denied entry.
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Mojitos
Come inside this large, Latin-inspired club to experience two spaces. On one level, find a lounge where house bands play salsa and timba tunes (free salsa lessons at most nights). In the basement, a club caters to the scantily clad with hip-hop, Brazilian, reggaeton and sounds related to the Tropic of Capricorn.
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Mr Dooley's Boston Tavern
With Irish bands playing tradition tunes several nights a week and a decent list of appropriate beers, this cozy bar is one of the best bets in the area. Sit in a booth and linger over a copy of the Irish Immigrant or Boston Irish Reporter to learn about current events on the other side of the Atlantic.
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Muddy Charles
Opposite the MIT sailing pavilion and run by an MIT student association, come for a sweet riverside locale and signed photographs of astronauts on the wall. Feel like pizza? Order at the bar and some guy from a local joint will deliver it. He's here so often he has a private parking spot.
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New England Conservatory of Music
Founded in 1867, the NEC is the country's oldest music school and hosts professional and student chamber and orchestral concerts in the acoustically superlative hall that dates from 1904. The Boston Philharmonic and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project both make use of the hall.
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Noir
Nearly elegant with artful red lights and summertime terrace seating, Boston's ubiquitous flatscreen emerges to sabotage the atmosphere, analogous to the reasonably well-dressed ladies being attended to by men failing to hold up their end of the style bargain. It's in the Charles Hotel.
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O'Briens
For serious punk and loud amps, head for this shithole where the stage is shoved oddly into a corner, making for weird sight lines. It looks like a wood-paneled basement from the 70s with a sound system.
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Om
A well-dressed crowd heads to Om's fashionable lounge where big windows fold away for views over a small city square. Chic decor includes a rough brick wall behind the bar, which is illuminated with eerie green light. Elsewhere, a sheet of water slides over another textured wall, this time illuminated purple. Come for frilly drinks and avoid the food.
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Opera Boston
Playing out of the gilded Cutler Majestic Theater, this acclaimed opera company has been impressing Boston for almost three decades. Expect innovative set design and intelligently selected shows that bring to life the rarely heard works of masters, plus innovative repertoires of more recent vintage. Recent performances include Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito and Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny .
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Orpheum Theater
A lovely worn out old theater dating to the mid-1850s, the Orpheum hosts the likes of the Decemberists, Brian Wilson, the Scissor Sisters and Alice Cooper. Since the hall has great acoustics, it comes as no surprise that the New England Conservatory began here and the Boston Symphony Orchestra first played here in 1881.
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Pa's Lounge
Oh PA's Lounge! We love you and you book cool shows, but couldn't you maybe buy some Christmas lights or something and at least pretend to decorate? Come see Final Fantasy, Christina Carter and lots of indie acts. Though crowds are small, there's no stage so shorter patrons might need to push to the front.
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Paradise Lounge
A small club known for eclectic musical tastes and for booking big acts, it hosts live rock bands nightly such as Lambchop, Apollo Sunshine, and Badly Drawn Boy. Most shows are for those aged 18 and up.
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People's Republik
Outside, older drunk ex-pats discuss with bravado the merits of deer hunting (neither had done it) under the Soviet inspired signage of this waterhole for townies, bike messengers and students. Inside, find darkness, a few darts boards in good repair and seats arranged around a U-shaped bar allowing for awkward stares or new friendships depending on your approach.
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Plough & Stars
Stringed bands play Irish tunes in this charming neighborhood pub. While many Boston bars fraudulently and irritatingly exaggerate their 'Irishness,' the Plough & Stars is the real deal. It serves up bangers, eggs and gastropub fare in a cozy wooden room with stout on tap and bottles of Fin du Monde and Narragansett (Rhode Island's best worst beer). Weekend soccer matches.
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Pour House
For years, young college students have introduced themselves to urban nightlife by enjoying cheap drinks and cheaper patty burgers in this pleasantly ratty bar. At least one of the TVs is playing Kino, not the Sox game.
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R&D
Take an odyssey through Frank Gehry's Stata Center (MIT's Building 32 -the giant angular thing that looks like a pile of windsails) to enjoy style cred in this quiet bar and restaurant, which has a cool skylight. Clue: it's on the forth floor. Other clue: some elevators only go down.
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Reel Bar
Among the trendy spots in Allston, this bar ranks among the cleanest and most laid-back. So nuzzle up to the bar, nurse a reasonably priced beer from an unusually good selection and ask someone to pass you the joystick for a remote-controlled Galaga arcade experience. Odd movies often play on a screen.
