Area Four

"Area Four has been at the heart of the growing food scene in Kendall Square since 2011. They’re best known for serving wood-fired pizzas in an industrial chic dining room, but they’ve also got a cafe with excellent coffee and breakfast pastries. During the week, you’ll find scientists escaping windowless labs to take meetings over briny clam and oregano pizzas, but making a trip to Kendall Square for weekend brunch is really the move. Order the perfect breakfast pizza topped with housemade sausage and pickled peppers, and add a skillet of supreme garlic knots for the table. Salads are another highlight here, particularly the garlicky caesar, piled high with shaved pecorino. Wrap things up by sharing the fruit and frangipane-topped almond butter french toast with a friend, because what is brunch without breakfast-dessert?" - Catherine Smart

"Perfectly embracing Boston’s wood-fired pizza renaissance, Area Four serves up beautiful pies with a heavily blistered crust that benefits from a 30-plus-hour ferment and a sourdough starter. Try the carnivore pizza, topped with big, spicy pieces of soppressata as well as sausage and bacon." - Nathan Tavares, Tommy Ranucci, Eater Staff

"The dough at Area Four is made with a sourdough starter and ferments for 30 or more hours. The result: one of the best pizzas in Boston. The wood-fired pizzas have a beautifully blistered crust. Keep things simple and get the “not pepperoni” (it’s soppressata)." - Celina Colby, Eater Staff

"The pizzas from Area Four are like warm pieces of sourdough topped with cheese, which is exactly the comfort we all need right now. Almost all of the pizzas are great (the anchovy pizza is a little too anchovy-heavy for us, but it might not be for you), and delivery orders can be placed here." - joel ang

"For a long time in your life, “group dinner” was probably synonymous with pizza. First there were all the pizza parties you went to when you were a kid, and then came the free pizza at literally every student activity in college. Even now, there are the sad conference room pizzas that make your quarterly corporate trust exercises barely tolerable. This is still the ideal food for sharing, but you deserve something better. Like the pizza at Area Four in Kendall Square. Grab a beer flight in this big, airy sit-down space and share a clam and bacon pie. Or three." - dan secatore