1. Samuel Sewall Inn
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Accommodations
Telephone: (617) 713-0213
Address: 143 St. Paul St.
Description: This gracious Victorian home is discreetly located on a residential street in the leafy “streetcar” suburb of Brookline and is a perfect romantic hideaway. Each of the 14 guest rooms (5 are suites) has a private bath and is individually decorated in rich, warm colors with antique beds and wood floors overlaid with Persian area rugs. Enjoy the included buffet breakfast each morning in the dining room or retreat to the delightful, secluded outdoor garden patio in good weather. Boston’s attractions are just a short trolley ride away (it’s a 3-minute walk to the T) and the inn offers on-site parking (for a fee).
2. Publick House
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (617) 277-2880
Address: 1648 Beacon St.
Description: This atmospheric Belgian-inspired brasserie is a Boston mainstay for a low-key evening. It features a Eurocentric beer menu with almost 40 taps and more than 100 specialty bottles that represent a full range of beer choices including rich triple-fermented Belgians, traditional English ales, and a solid selection of New England craft beers. The menu features buckets of mussels served with paper cones of thick-cut Belgian-style fries, generous charcuterie and cheese boards, and a renowned mac and five-cheese sauce that arrives sizzling in a cast-iron pan.
3. Brookline Booksmith
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (617) 566-6660
Address: 279 Harvard St.
Description: Long established and well regarded, this independent bookstore in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner allows community spirit to thrive. You can sense it in the staff recommendation notes interspersed between the stacks and in the enthusiasm behind the store’s writers and readers series, which hosts more than 200 events a year. The stock is wide-ranging: from best-selling fiction and nonfiction to local interest as well as used books (in the basement) and children’s books, plus cards, gifts, and stationery.
4. Clear Flour Bread
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (617) 737-0060
Address: 178 Thorndike St.
Insider Pick:
Description: This small-scale artisanal bread bakery looks to France and Italy for inspiration to produce its repertoire of loaves. Everything from the pain au chocolat to morning buns, baguettes, and focaccia is top-notch. Try the dense, nourishing buckwheat walnut loaf, a crunchy powerhouse of whole grains. Just add some butter for satisfying proof that the simplest things are often the best.
5. Kupel’S
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (617) 566-9528
Address: 421 Harvard St.
Insider Pick:
Description: The Sunday morning line out the door pretty much says it all. Opened in 1978, Kupel’s prides itself on producing bagels that have a balance between chewy and doughy. They offer more than 2 dozen varieties of bagels, lots of cream cheese choices, and several smoked fish options, too. There’s also an extensive bakery selection including challah bread and bubkas and strudels. It’s takeout only with no seating and kosher, too, so it’s closed Friday afternoon and all day Saturday.
6. Party Favors
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (617) 566-3330
Address: 1356 Beacon St.
Insider Pick:
Description: This beloved Brookline party supply store is packed to the brim with coordinated invitations, paper tableware, balloons, and favors. Party Favors is also a great resource for custom-designed special-occasion cakes in any size. The cakes are dense with a true buttercream frosting. Flavor-wise, cake choices include chocolate, gold, white, carrot, mocha, and lemon, to name just a few. Also in high demand here are cupcakes and personalized sugar cookies with elaborate icing art.
7. John F. Kennedy National Historic Site
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (617) 566-7937
Address: 83 Beals St.
Description: On May 29, 1917, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in the master bedroom of a modest 2 1⁄2–story home on a quiet residential street in Brookline, Massachusetts. Now at this National Historic Site park rangers take small groups of visitors on guided tours of the home. Early in the tour, visitors of a “certain age” will be asked where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated. On the first floor, you will see the dining room set for company and the living room, where the piano has pride of place. Upstairs you will peek in the nursery, the master bedroom (with two single beds!), a guest room, and the home’s only bathroom. The best is last—the early 1920s kitchen is the home’s historically most accurate room complete with a soapstone sink, enamel stove, and icebox. Apparently the kitchen was the domain of the family’s cook, but you will hear an audio recording by Mrs. Kennedy recounting how the family would eat warmed-over baked beans with brown bread for Sunday supper—very Boston.
8. Larz Anderson Auto Museum
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (617) 522-6547
Address: 15 Newton St.
Description: This museum is a car buff’s delight. Located on the grounds of the former Anderson estate, now Brookline’s largest public park, this is one of America’s oldest car collections. Larz and Isabel Anderson were a prominent and wealthy family at the turn of the last century who amassed an outstanding collection of early motorcars. Among the nearly two dozen cars on permanent display in the estate’s 19th-century carriage house are the 1899 Winton Runabout, which began the collection, a 1907 Fiat, and a 1937 Packard Limo. The museum itself is open year-round Tues through Sun and some Mon holidays. From May through Oct the museum also sponsors Sunday lawn events; past themes have included Studebaker Day, Tutto Italiano, and Micro Mini Car Day. The sloping hill offers great views of the Boston skyline.
9. Coolidge Corner Theater
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (617) 734-2500
Address: 290 Harvard St.
Insider Pick:
Description: Located in Brookline, this 1933 Art Deco theater is one of the Boston area’s most beloved independent movie houses, devoted to bigger indie films, foreign films, and midnight cult shows. The crowd is low-key, parking is easy, and the concessions are better than average (they sell beer and wine, too). The theater offers more than a dozen regular programs including movies for moms and babies, kids’ Saturday morning shows, benefit screenings, film festivals, and ballet and opera in cinema.
10. Puppet Showplace Theater
City: Brookline, MA
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (617) 731-6400
Address: 32 Station St.
Description: This puppet theater has been entertaining Boston-area children for more than 30 years. Both traditional fairy tales like Aesop’s Fables and The Gingerbread Man, along with more contemporary stories like The Day It Snowed Tortillas, are presented. The performances are always delightfully staged by master puppeteers who use hand puppets, rod puppets, and marionettes to tell the story. Different shows are presented each week, with an extended schedule during Massachusetts’s school vacation weeks. Most performances are suitable for children ages 3–6 (and over) and are timed for 45 minutes or so—just right for short attention spans.