The 5 Best Corned Beef And Cabbage Pubs And Restaurants In Boston For St. Patrick’s Day

It's St. Patrick Day weekend and it's time to get your "Irish on" at a great restaurant that serves Guinness and delicious corned beef and cabbage. We have found the 5 Best Corned Beef and Cabbage Pubs and restaurants in Boston for St. Patrick Day.

Why do we love our traditional corned beef and cabbage dinners so much around this time of year?  According to Shane McCarrick a food scientist from Dublin, Ireland the tradition is much more of an American one than Irish. He says...

Irish Americans’ eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day- as a memory of their forebears who left Ireland all those years ago. However, it’s a false memory. When the Irish immigrated to the States, particularly in the 19th century, more often than not the Irish and the Jewish communities congregated together in the poorer boroughs of New York (and other cities). The respective communities tended to work in particular disciplines - the Irish were unskilled laborers, whereas their Jewish neighbors were skilled butchers and had experience in other disciplines. So when the ‘new’ immigrants went looking for foods to remind them of home for St. Patrick’s Day, particular foods were commonly available in the local butchers - who tended to be kosher and Jewish-run - and other foods not. 

So, if you're planning a trip to Ireland someday, don't look for corned beef and cabbage on the menu unless they have learned to cater to American diners of course.

According to an article in the Smithsonian Magazine writer Shaylyn Esposito notes the following...

Only the wealthy few were able to eat the meat during a celebration or festival. In these early times, the beef was “salted” to be preserved. The first salted beef in Ireland was actually not made with salt but with sea ash, the product of burning seaweed. The 12th-century poem “Aislinge Meic Con Glinne” shows that salted beef was eaten by the kings.

The Bebop looks like a fun Irish pub. It features all the classic dinners and some you wouldn't expect as well. The Bebop prides itself on it's very lively music scene as well.

The Black Rose has an amazing menu year round and offers a great looking breakfast as well. The traditional corned beef and cabbage is always on the menu for sure.

Mr. Dooley's is a traditional Irish pub with all the fixin's you would expect all year, but on St. Patrick's Day they go all in on the corned beef and cabbage. The whole menu looks fantastic, so you can't go wrong with anything you order.

The menu at Emmet's looks terrific year round with all the traditional Irish food you would expect at very reasonable prices, but for St. Patrick's Day it's all about the corned beef and cabbage. We also love the Guinness Beef Stew for an alternative.

J.J. Foley's is probably the most popular Irish bar and pub in Boston for very good reasons. It's got some age to it, so it feels like an old time place with dark wood and bartenders that know what they're doing. On St. Patrick's Day they serve up heaping helpings of delicious corned beef and cabbage, but good luck getting because they're going to be wall to wall and a wait outside. It will be worth the wait for sure.