Cambridge Restaurants

The Pilgrims got their best recipes from Native Americans. Without their help, future chefs in Cambridge wouldn’t know beans about Boston baked beans. Chinese, Italian, and certainly Irish immigrants later added their two cents. In fact, the local cuisine is something of a hodgepodge. Peking ravioli is more common than you might think. Bostonian Ruth Wakefield invented the world’s first chocolate chip cookie. Never mind that the Toll House Inn was never a tollhouse or that it was established 108 years after the date on the sign. All is forgiven. Cambridge staples -- chowder, fish and chips, steamed clams, and maple syrup -- are as fresh and pleasing as ever. TV’s lovable barfly, Norm Peterson, perfectly embodied the spirit of a traditional Boston bar: “Women. You can’t live with them, pass the beer nuts.”