Taking a Bite Out of Boston Pride

Boston Pride kicked off this past weekend and the festivities continue through June 15. Whether you're hitting one event or the entire week, one thing is sure, the city has plenty to offer locals and tourists alike.

It's a city famous for sports, education, history (including a storied LGBT past) and tea - but restaurants? One must assume the nickname "Beantown" suggests a conspicuously bland culinary culture. But Boston has proven in recent years that its gastronomic delights can heartily compete with fellow fine-dining capitals like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Boston has been a prime destination for gay men and women to get hitched since Massachusetts broke the legal same-sex-marriage barrier in 2004. This friendly, photogenic city is home to dedicated gay-wedding-planning services like 14 Stories and romantic gay-owned venues like Jamaica Plain's charming Taylor House Bed & Breakfast. For those seeking a more spiritual venue, the "open-hearted" and rainbow-proud First Church Boston welcomes gay nuptials. .

Boston Essentials

Eat:
With new and inventive restaurants cropping up across Boston, head across the Charles River to Cambridge for a bite of something terrific at Puritan & Company. Its menu is heavy on locally sourced ingredients, with creative variations like swordfish pastrami and chicken-fried quail.

Also on the Cambridge side of town is Harvest, home to an outstanding seafood menu as well as Executive Pastry Chef Brian Mercury, who will help make your honeymoon even sweeter. Inside downtown Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel, settle into the beautifully outfitted OAK Long Bar + Kitchen, which serves top-notch New England classics like clam chowder and Yankee pot roast alongside uncommon treats like wild-boar sausage and roasted octopus.

Do:
The term "Boston marriage" - a historic term for two financially independent women living together -- is one indicator of the city's longtime progressive ways.

Thanks to Boston's History Project and its remarkably comprehensive book Improper Bostonians, gays can learn about well-to-do ladies who embodied Boston marriages, and about "Gay Times Square," the origins of GLAAD and the Gay Community News, as well as other fascinating tales of the city's LGBT history. Visit the History Project's office in the Back Bay to learn more, and look out for a new LGBT walking tour to potentially launch in 2014 by the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Most Romantic Move:
May 17, 2014, will mark the 10th anniversary of the first marriage license issued to a same-sex couple in the United States. So for romance sprinkled with a little sentimental politics, a mid-May wedding in Boston can make a grand statement.

Pairs Well With:
Provincetown, of course. Take a three-hour drive around the arm of Cape Cod (or, in summer months, cruise from Boston to P-town aboard the 90-minute fast ferry) to one of the world's most queer and romantic destinations.

Click and Go

Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau
www.bostonusa.com

The History Project
www.historyproject.org

14 Stories
www.14stories.com

First Church Boston
www.firstchurchboston.org

Taylor House Bed & Breakfast
www.taylorhouse.com

Bella Luna Restaurant & Milky Way Lounge
www.milkywayjp.com

Puritan & Company
www.puristancambridge.com

Harvest
www.harvestcambridge.com

OAK Long Bar + Kitchen
www.oaklongbarkitchen.com