Clio, Mantra & Troquet Restaurants

by Chris Lyons

Ten year old CLIO restaurant, located within The Eliot Hotel in Boston's elegant Back Bay, is consistently voted among this city's most romantic dining spots, and James Beard Award-winning chef Ken Oringer's food spells romance as well. Light portions, big flavors, cutting edge tastes not available anywhere else in this city.

Once you're ensconced in a corner booth in this cossetting setting, have had an imaginative cocktail, and are thoroughly "in the mood," it gets better!

An overnight package at the hotel, which adds on a luxury suite upstairs suite and full American breakfast buffet to your dinner bill, you've splurged on romance for around $375. Marriage proposal anyone?

I'd also recommend MANTRA @ 48 Temple Place downtown, for high style and French-Indian cuisine is an unforgettable setting that was once one of the city's largest banks. Marble walls and floors, teller's cages as bar, avant garde touches wherever the eye lands.

Couples may reserve the "hookah den," a tall, wooden, teepee like structure in the center of the dining room, for dinner a deux by candleight with your own dedicated staff. Lively nitelife extends the evening til wee hours, so check ut the two-way mirrors in the bathrooms, the safe door entry into the lower lounge, the tandoori Bread Bar, and some of the city's most sophisticated revelers.

Finally, for oenophiles, TROQUET is renowned for food with fine vintage wines from its Best of Boston Award winning cellar, extensive imported chese cart, and killer dessert list. Connoisseurs from the west coast fly in their private planes to Boston for wine dinners here (all the time). Romantic setting in the theatre district overlooking Boston's famed Public Garden. An expensive treat, but you're worth it.