Best splurge

For those of us who didn't get here yesterday, No. 9 Park and Radius -- who tied in the Boston category -- need no introduction. But for the record, Barbara Lynch's Beacon Hill bistro is still the last word in white-cloth-and-candle refinement -- think venison and pheasant, small sauces and demiglazes (and then think 30 bucks a plate). And Michael Schlow's downtown spot has yet to stop being white-hot, boasting a menu that continues to tweak, goose, and otherwise boldly reinvent classic French fare (while charging audacious prices to match).

Is it risky to be ritzy in decidedly downscale Davis Square? Not in the case of Gargoyles on the Square, an unabashedly pretty bistro awash in shades of cocoa, russet, and olive. The food has the playful, freely associative quality of much New American cuisine. For instance, recent fall specials included an appetizer of silky buttermilk-fried chicken livers sharply contrasted with a salad of frisée and green apple, as well as an entrée of caramelized sea scallops and truffled mushrooms over spinach pasta further enriched by a carbonara-like bacon-and-egg sauce. Yes, Gargoyle's is costlier than the pubs and coffeehouses surrounding it -- but higher prices are, in their way, a small price to pay for the occasional divergence from the norm.

No. 9 Park, 9 Park Street, Boston, (617) 742-9991. Radius, 8 High Street, Boston, (617) 426-1234. Gargoyles on the Square, 219 Elm Street, Somerville, (617) 776-5300.