Restaurants in Canton

Native North Enders Vinnie Amato and Steve Costa opened Cafe Porto Bello to revisit the Italian cuisine of their childhoods and re-create the atmosphere of dinners with family. For more than a decade, the café's chefs have prioritized freshness by preparing every dish to order with spices blended in-house and by garnishing gourmet, hand-tossed pizzas with their own roasted red peppers. The dining room is warm and softly lit, with sturdy wooden tables and seating for up to 100. In the adjacent lounge, bartenders pour Italian and American varietals in syncopation or ragtime with live jazz sets.

The McMahon clan doesn't just advocate family time; they live and breathe it every day at McMahon's Countryside Grille. Owned by Mom and Dad, the kids also chip in at the eatery, a fact applauded by Wicked Local. The menu's house-made comfort food, steak, and seafood dishes welcome clans coming together to break bread or draft the new family crest. The homemade meatloaf hails directly from the McMahon's own dinner table, and is a perfect precursor to the Bliss ice cream served at an outdoor window near picnic tables.

Indoors, weekly entertainment sets the restaurant abuzz, from live local musicians and comedians on the weekends to open-mic Thursdays, when amateur funnymen test their chops and skill for fending off flying tomatoes. Each Tuesday, contestants crowd into cozy maroon booths around wooden tables and answer quick-fire trivia questions.

The Renaissance Hotel's five luxurious floors sprout above Twenty8 Food & Spirits, where executive chef Jason Ward shares his creative take on breakfast dishes, sandwiches, steaks, seafood, and flatbreads. He's developed his style over the past 20 years, earning certification from the American Culinary Federation and drawing on inspiration from regional farms and fisheries. Likewise, he and his kitchen staff reach for local ingredients as they make egg dishes and buttermilk pancakes for breakfast; sandwiches and salads for lunch; and meaty dishes such as roast PT farms pork chop and hand-cut sirloin steak for dinner. They knead flatbread dough from scratch and load it with toppings before tossing it into a flaming stone-hearth oven. Feasts unfold inside a modern space with flickering flat-screen TVs, a 60-foot bar with signature cocktails, and a lounge area splashed with zebra-print upholstery. Outside, a knee-high brick wall surrounds the outdoor terrace, where a fireplace casts a warm glow on nearby Gillette Stadium. When guests have events, they can also decamp to the family or private dining rooms for larger events.

After more than 25 years as a lobsterman, Peter Dawson experienced what many others never see in a lifetime—fishing off the New England coast, he reeled in a blue lobster. Nicknaming it Baby Blue, Dawson couldn't bear to let it see the pot; today, the arthropod lives out its days at the New England Aquarium, turning red only when it blushes from too much attention.

Transferring his love of the ocean to his own enterprise—and energized by a life's worth of bragging rights—Dawson opened The Lobster Stop right along the docks. That proximity to the sea ensures a bounty of fresh, native seafood, from fish, clams, and scallops to live lobsters—a specialty, of course. Comprised of Dawson and his family, the shop's staff also prepares cuisine for takeout, serving up platters and sandwiches behind a large display case, and a large mural behind the counter depicts two whales just waiting for the day when the menu includes bowls of plankton soup.

Clad in a red cap and a white uniform, Siam First’s Chef Derm traces the surface of ginger root, lemongrass, and a chili pepper, expounding upon their health benefits on TV Diner. Ginger root is good for heartburn, and chili pepper helps digestion, he remarks, before showing his Thai twist on a New England favorite—Maine lobster.

Beneath Siam First’s gabled roof, Chef Derm and his team crank out Thai specialties that mingle local ingredients such as Maine lobster with spices and herbs imported directly from the land of smiles. Below small, hanging lights and glowing wall sconces, tables populate with duck and snapper in thai basil, mango curry, and garlic-ginger sauces. While noshing on dumplings or crab rangoon, guests can peek into Siam's giant aquarium, rife with fish, green plants, and Jacques Cousteau’s long-lost car keys.

Since 1939, McMenamy’s Seafood has plumbed the depths of the ocean to assemble its full restaurant menu and stock its carryout fish market with the day’s freshest catches. The comfy, family-owned eatery sports nautical accoutrements along its walls, including a taxidermied fish, an ocean mural, and an imposing pirate flag hung up to signal that gold doubloons are buried deep within your basket of shrimp. A drive-thru window caters to pescetarians on the go, whereas TVs broadcast sports indoors as patrons dig into baked, broiled, or fried seafood.