Food & Drink in Tyngsboro

Caffé Il Cipresso's chefs construct traditional, Old World Italian cuisine with a modern twist, tapping into an arsenal of top-quality ingredients such as fresh haddock, tender veal, and gorgonzola cheese. A smattering of sauces such as pesto and alfredo flood freshly made linguine, penne, and fettuccine noodles. Chicken and fresh seafood, including salmon and shrimp, sizzle in 100% olive oil and artfully complement the eatery's wine list, which flaunts crisp whites, full-bodied reds, and dessert varietals that sparkle like holographic diamonds. The dining room spotlights crimson booths and full-wall murals depicting idyllic countrysides, and the downstairs lounge fuels merrymaking with a full bar. Caffé Il Cipresso also furnishes large events with catering options, including pans of homemade pasta and entrees that serve up to 24 people.

Feng Shui embraces the culinary traditions of both China and Japan while updating its menu seasonally, garnering praise from the Boston Business Journal and New England Cable News for its extensive selection. Stir-fried orders of chicken, beef, and seafood arrive laden with ginger or signature sauces, and sushi chefs roll maki with traditional tuna and salmon or such innovative combinations as strawberry and wasabi aioli. At some locations, the dining rooms include tabletop hibachi-style grills where chefs, like Shakespeare as a toddler, put on food-based shows, flipping, dicing, and sizzling Angus-certified beef in cholesterol-free rice-bran oils that are rich in vitamin E.

It would be wrong to assume that Left Bank Restaurant at Stonehedge Inn & Spa is nothing more than a hotel eatery—since its inception, the upscale restaurant has proved its mettle time and again with dozens of awards. It maintains a four-diamond rating from the American Automobile Association, and its robust wine cellar has won Wine Spectator magazine's Grand Award—its highest award available—for 17 years running. The encyclopedic array of fine vintages seems daunting at first, but proprietor Levent Bozkurt helpfully divides the list by both region and varietal, making it easy to track down a favorite flavor, producer, or grape pen pal that stopped writing.

Levent relies on the talents of executive chef Florent Boutet to prepare a culinary menu to match his legendary wine list. The chef steps up to the challenge with slow-roasted New England lobster and Beef Tenderloin au Poivre.

After ten hours of slow-cooking, the barbecue ribs at Joe’s American Bar & Grill land on tables tender and ready to fall of the bone. Served with fresh-made coleslaw, these ribs are the centerpiece of a menu overflowing with upscale comfort food. Chefs cut potatoes by hand to accompany bacon cheeseburgers topped with aged cheddar and bread-and-butter pickles made in-house rather than flown in by a talking stork. Grilled pizzas are made fresh to order and never frozen, and hefty sandwiches and hand-cut steaks stack plates with sustenance. On the weekends, brunch dishes come out of hibernation to sate guests with made-to-order omelets and specialties such as eggs benedict and prime-rib hash. Diners enjoy the fresh air on the outdoor patio or cluster around the bar to keep track of sports scores or find out who really got married on Days of Our Lives.

Cooks at Gourmet India sling health-conscious, regional Indian recipes that have garnered praise from the Boston Globe. The casual eatery packs its menu with North Indian fare and serves South Indian specials on weekends, representing the subcontinent better than one grain of rice from each state. Each combo meal rounds up two to three servings from a rotating list of entrees, flanking the savory morsels with basmati rice or naan. Combo meals always include at least one vegetarian entree so diners can pick between vegetable-based gobhi aloo, a dish of cauliflower cooked with ginger; the palak paneer, a blend of spinach and homemade cheese; or a platter of cumin seeds arranged into a pleasing, vegetable shape. Meatier fare includes chicken tikka masala, tender poultry cooked in a tomato-cream sauce, and lamb korma with cashews and raisins. Dishes emerge steaming from the kitchen with fresh-cooked flavor, unlike entrees at other eateries that import their fare from India so it typically arrives cold. Combo meal 2 includes one appetizer, which could include either potato-filled samosas or aromatic onion bhaju.

The dough wizards at Papa John's hand toss circular masterpieces with original and thin crusts made from high-protein flour to support warm bouquets of toppings. Hand-cut produce crowns all of Papa John's pizzas, mingling with the sun-soaked sweetness of sauce made from fresh, California-grown tomatoes. By adhering to its brand promise of "better ingredients, better pizza," Papa John's grew from a back-tavern pizzeria into more than 3,500 restaurants within three decades' time, or the amount of time it takes to grow a single pizzeria from a small seed.