Brookline has always had good restaurants. What's changing right now is that the town's walkable squares — Coolidge Corner, Washington Square, St. Mary's, Cleveland Circle, Brookline Village — are no longer interchangeable. Each one is developing a distinct identity, and the cluster of openings from late 2025 into 2026 makes that split more legible than it has ever been. If you live here and still treat the whole town as one undifferentiated dining neighborhood, you're leaving a lot on the table.
| Square | Recent Arrival | Direction of Travel |
|---|---|---|
| St. Mary's | 5 new Asian restaurants + H Mart anchor | Emerging Asian food corridor |
| Washington Square | Capricho Colombian Steakhouse | Global fine dining replacing French |
| Coolidge Corner | Bar Lunette, Wonder food hall (pending) | Drinks-forward, fast-casual layering |
| Cleveland Circle / Comm Ave | Norinori Test Kitchen, Jumbo Seafood | Neighborhood convenience going upscale |
St. Mary's Is Becoming Something New
The most dramatic repositioning is happening at the corner of Beacon and St. Mary's streets, and it didn't start with a single restaurant — it started with a supermarket.
H Mart opened at 1028 Beacon St. and, according to Brookline.News, the property owner behind the adjacent strip hypothesized that H Mart's presence is part of why the people interested in those storefronts "were all Asian restaurants." Five new Asian-influenced restaurants are expected to open in the block of empty storefronts at that corner, featuring outdoor dining in a covered pavilion along Beacon Street. They're replacing O'Leary's Irish Pub, the Economy True Value hardware store, a Dunkin' Donuts, and Sichuan Gourmet — businesses that weathered COVID closures but ultimately didn't survive the lease cycle.
The pavilion concept is worth paying attention to. The developer's stated goal is public congregation, not just foot traffic. That's a different kind of investment than opening another restaurant on a side street.
This clustering effect is how food neighborhoods actually form. One anchor draws operators who calculate that the customer base is already coming; each new arrival makes the next one lower-risk. The St. Mary's corridor, which for years read as a transitional stretch between Coolidge Corner and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, now has a plausible claim to its own identity.
Washington Square Is Going Upscale and Global
Washington Square had a gravitational center for a decade: La Voile, the French restaurant at 1627 Beacon St. that closed after its 10-year lease ended in spring 2025. The space didn't sit empty. Capricho Colombian Steakhouse opened there in October 2025, led by Chef Andrés Gómez and his wife, offering wood-fired steak and fresh seafood in a fine-dining format with occasional live music, according to Brookline.News.
The substitution is meaningful: one European white-tablecloth restaurant replaced by another elevated concept, this one from a different hemisphere. Washington Square isn't softening toward casual. Bar Vlaha, which draws on Vlach cuisine from northern Greece with charcoal-grilled meats and open-fire cooking, has also established itself here. The square is consolidating a reputation for destination dining rather than neighborhood convenience.
For residents who made La Voile their occasion restaurant, Capricho is a direct replacement in terms of price point and formality — and a significant expansion in flavor profile. If you haven't been in yet, their reservation page on OpenTable is worth checking before a Friday night.
Coolidge Corner Is Adding Layers
Coolidge Corner was already Brookline's most visited square. What's changed is the addition of a proper drinks layer on top of the existing dining infrastructure.
Bar Lunette opened at 278A Harvard St. in spring 2025 as a French-inspired cocktail bar and sibling to Paris Creperie, noted by Boston Magazine as a homage to the late local bar figure Brother Cleve. That's a specific kind of place: not a sports bar, not a wine list attached to a kitchen, but a cocktail bar with a concept. Coolidge Corner didn't have one.
Prairie Fire, the wood-fired spot on Harvard St., has run a seasonal beer garden in the adjacent parking lot during summer months, per Boston Chefs, converting the lot into a shaded urban patio with a full food and drink menu. Combined with the Coolidge Corner Theatre anchoring weekend foot traffic, the square now has a credible answer to "where do we go after the movie?"
The bigger question for 2026 is Wonder. The celebrity-chef-driven food hall concept filed a health permit application with the town for the vacant storefront at 392 Harvard St., next door to Congregation Kehillath Israel, according to What Now Boston. Wonder operates as a brick-and-mortar space — not delivery-only — where diners can order from multiple chef-driven menus in a single meal. The company has over 90 locations nationally and was planning up to 16 Greater Boston openings across 2026. An official opening date for Brookline hasn't been announced. When it opens, it will add a fast-casual volume option to a square that has been skewed toward sit-down dining.
Cleveland Circle and Commonwealth Ave Are Getting Back In
Cleveland Circle has historically been the square that Brookline residents from other neighborhoods forget about. Two recent openings suggest that's worth revisiting.
Norinori Test Kitchen opened in January 2026 at a Chestnut Hill Avenue location in the Cleveland Circle area, near the Brighton line. The original Norinori built a following as a creative Japanese concept; the Brookline location extends that footprint into a part of town that has leaned heavily on delivery and chain options.
On Commonwealth Avenue, Jumbo Seafood opened at 1032 Commonwealth Ave. in January 2026, confirmed open by a source cited by Boston Restaurant Talk. Jumbo Seafood is a well-established Chinese seafood institution in Boston's Chinatown. A Brookline location on Commonwealth Ave puts it squarely in the corridor that runs from Kenmore Square through to Newton — useful for residents on the western end of town who have been making the trip downtown for the same kitchen.
What the Pattern Actually Tells You
Taken one at a time, each of these openings is a restaurant story. Taken together, they describe a town in the middle of a geographic sorting process.
St. Mary's is building density around a food-specific anchor in H Mart. Washington Square is holding its position as the square for a proper dinner out. Coolidge Corner is filling in its gaps — a cocktail bar, a food hall, a Korean arrival (Iru opened at 238 Washington St. in spring 2025 with Michelin Bib Gourmand lineage in Japan, per Boston Magazine). Cleveland Circle is getting relevant again after years of drift.
If you live closer to Washington Square, your weeknight routine probably doesn't require driving to Coolidge Corner anymore. If you're near St. Mary's, you're watching a food neighborhood get built around you in real time. The squares are getting more different from each other, not more similar, and the next 12 months of openings will likely sharpen that further.
Brookline's housing market moves fast, and so does its commercial strip. If you're thinking about what part of town fits how you actually live, Jerome Bibuld at Red Tree Real Estate knows the nuances between these squares at the block level. Schedule a free consultation to talk through what matters to you.
