Cottonwood cafe & restaurant offers award winning margaritas, three-season patio, and a fresh approach to Southwest cuisine!

This Au Bon Pain serves up tasty pastries, breads, cookies, and .. oh yea- sandwiches, soup, and stews. This Au Bon Pain has an outdoor patio that fills up with lunch-goers.

Rattlesnake is one of the only roof-top bars in Backbay. Serving up drinks and food on three different levels (including a second level pool area), Rattlesnake has a little bit of "scene" for everyone. The first level is crowded- with after-work drinkers. In the summer, the floodgates are open and people pile in to get a spot on the covetted spot on the deck. The menu features grilled pizzetas, burgers, and sandwiches (all of the south of the border influence. Link to the Dinner Menu

Tealuxe offers more than 100 kinds of tea
Tealuxe is a great neighborhood tea café that has hundreds of different types of tea. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable on the teas and can offer thoughtful recommendations. The menu is expansive, and is broken down by types of tea. Eat from a light menu downstairs consisting of sandwiches or salads, or enjoy tea and other house-made drinks upstairs. Tea leaves, herbs, and spices are blended into made-to-order tea bags, and come in a variety of flavors that often vary with the season.

Visit their website for online reservations. This is a small restaurant on Newbury Street offering up cocktails and menu items that are contemporary American. Prices range from $6-$15 for appetizers and $15-$30 for entrees. In the summer, there is a patio that holds up to 30 people. For $29, there is a prix fixe menu (Sunday through Wednesday). The regular menu highlights include a prosciutto/fig/arugula pizza and porchini ravioli. There is a bar crowd that is mostly neighborhood regulars.

The Parish Cafe is like the Norton Anthology of Boston's culinary cosmos. The list of culinary contributors reads like a Who's Who of Boston chefs: Todd English (Olives), Jody Adams (Rialto), Lydia Shire (Excelsior—formerly Biba) and other big stars descend from their constellations to endow the menu with incredible specialty sandwiches ($9-20) which do marvelous things with chicken, portabello, lobster, brioche, focaccia. The best bartenders in the scene also contribute towards a highly creative martini menu ($5.75-7.50). The Parish Cafe was voted the best purveyor of sandwiches 4 years in a row, and the Unofficial Guide heartily concurs. They also offer a beer card program in which you must taste all of their offered beers to earn a prized mug engraved with anything you like. This section contains information from Harvard Student Agencies' Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard.

Cuffs, the bar of the Jurys Boston Hotel is a great place to relax and have a drink if you are an out of towner staying at the Hotel or if you are a Boston resident who enjoys hip and fun hotel bars. Set in the basement, this is a hotspot for a variety of ages: mostly the 20-40 something set. The outdoor area is sunken, so although you are in the middle of a busy area in Boston, you feel secluded.

This three-meal-a-day, cosmopolitan restaurant at Jury's Hotel serves a variety of freshly prepared food selections, from hearty, authentic Irish breakfasts to a full a la carte dinner selection.

Globe bar is one of those sometimes overlooked, but great staple bar when you want to kick back with your friends and spend the night remembering funny stories. The almost always Irish bartenders will serve you up draft beers with an Irish smile- just don't cross them. The bar is narrow, with a tiny opening for groups to gather in the back. There is an upstairs overlooking the bar, but normally it's reserved for parties. In the summer, Globe's outdoor seating is a hot commodity during lunch and dinner. All the Copley workers scammer to get a seat. The menu is casual, and includes sandwiches, burgers, and salads.

Radius's team of hipster restaurateurs score yet again with this tastefully mod and highly authentic Italian experiement, which offers diners a choice of top-drawer food and drinks in one of four settings. Try the white-walled main dining room, the outdoor terrace, the late-night bistro and pizzeria, or the bar—a perfect place to meet dates for after-hours drinks. The restaurant offers a host of generously-portioned Italian regional specialties, like the phenomenal Fresh Pappardelle with Long Island duck, dried cherries, and rosemary ($19), but those in a drinking-and-snacking kind of mood should hit the bar for specialty drinks, scene-making, and lightly crunchy risotto balls ($10). The mostly upscale 30-something crowd packs this place nightly, so call for reservations. This section contains information from Harvard Student Agencies' Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard. The basil gimlet--fresh basil with lime and vodka--is not to be missed.