A much loved, quintessential South End restaurant with a huge gay following and some of the tastiest contemporary American fare (with some Asian influences) in town, the Franklin Cafe (278 Shawmut Ave., 617-350-0010) is an intimate bar and grill along increasingly trendy Shawmut Avenue. It's one of the few full-service restaurants in Boston where you can dine afternoon midnight (the full menu is served til 1:30 a.m., nightly!), and the sophisticated little bar here is a terrific spot to mingle with cute guys and gals from the neighborhood.
The menu changes seasonally, but typically soul-warming Franklin Cafe fare includes roasted butternut-squash soup, soy-marinated chicken livers with bacon-horseradish-fennel salad, prune-glazed pork tenderloin, and roasted turkey meatloaf with spiced-fig gravy and chive-mashed potatoes. The restaurant is a short walk from such popular gay bars as the Eagle and Fritz, and it's not far from other excellent restaurants in the South End. There's also a branch of the Franklin Cafe on the North Shore's Cape Ann, in the seaside community of Gloucester, at 118 Main Street (978-283-7888), and another in South Boston at 152 Dorchester Avenue.
The menu changes seasonally, but typically soul-warming Franklin Cafe fare includes roasted butternut-squash soup, soy-marinated chicken livers with bacon-horseradish-fennel salad, prune-glazed pork tenderloin, and roasted turkey meatloaf with spiced-fig gravy and chive-mashed potatoes. The restaurant is a short walk from such popular gay bars as the Eagle and Fritz, and it's not far from other excellent restaurants in the South End. There's also a branch of the Franklin Cafe on the North Shore's Cape Ann, in the seaside community of Gloucester, at 118 Main Street (978-283-7888), and another in South Boston at 152 Dorchester Avenue.
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