Ula Café

Here's the thing about El Jefe's on Boylston: it stays open until 2am, which means it exists in two registers.

Theo's Cozy Corner earns its name honestly: a galley-kitchen sliver on Salem Street seating about twenty, where you climb through the kitchen and lift a trap door for stairs down to the bathroom.

Angela Atenco Lopez learned to cook at eight, beside her mother in Puebla, and that lineage is the whole point at this East Boston room on Lexington Street.

What Mary and Nada Lattouf have built at 246 W.

Veggie Galaxy pulls off the trick most all-vegan diners can't: it doesn't taste like a compromise.