These Greater Boston restaurants make Yelp Elite's top-50 best

Deciding on a restaurant to try around Greater Boston can be a challenge. How do diners narrow it down to just one eatery on a given evening? Yelp, the crowd-source review website, made choosing a spot slightly more manageable with their “Yelp Elite” top-50 picks in and around Boston.

There are North End red sauce joints, inventive Mediterranean restaurants, the classics, newcomers, budget eats, and fine dining restaurants that made the cut to show the variety available in Greater Boston’s culinary scene.

Yelp’s Elite Squad — made up of the website’s most active reviewers — helped decide this top-50 list. Restaurants were ranked “using a number of factors, including the total volume and ratings of reviews given by Yelp Elite Squad members.” While the website and its sometimes hostile reviewers have a complicated relationship with restaurant owners and employees, these restaurants all had hundreds to thousands of reviews averaging four out of five stars. 

The “elite” reviews had to be posted between August 2023 and August 2024, and the restaurant needed to both remain open and pass a health inspection by Aug. 30, 2024 to be considered. 

To view all 50 restaurants that made the cut, visit Yelp’s website. Here’s a countdown of the top-10, according to the Yelp Elite:

10. Spring Shabu-Shabu: Hot pot, 304 Western Ave., Brighton

9. Sarma: Mediterranean, 249 Pearl St., Somerville

8. Krasi: Greek, 48 Gloucester St., Back Bay

7. Mountain House: Szechuan, 89 Brighton Ave., Allston

6. Neptune Oyster: Seafood, 63 Salem St., North End

5. Café Luna: American cafe, 612 Main St., Cambridge

4. Boston Sail Loft: Seafood, 80 Atlantic Ave., Downtown

3. Saltie Girl: Seafood, 279 Dartmouth St., Back Bay

2. Carmelina’s: Italian, 307 Hanover St., North End

1. Yume Ga Arukara: Japanese and noodles, multiple locations

Katelyn Umholtz

Food and Restaurant Reporter

---

Katelyn Umholtz covers food and restaurants for Boston.com. Katelyn is also the author of The Dish, a weekly food newsletter.

---