Tufts University Guide: Best Restaurants, Bars & Hotels (2026)
Find the best restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, and campus landmarks near Tufts University in Medford and Somerville, with a saveable map for students, parents, and visitors.
Whether you're a Tufts student working out where to take your parents, a family driving up for September move-in, an alum back for Homecoming, or a prospective student walking the hill for the first time, this guide covers the restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, and campus landmarks worth knowing around Tufts University.
One thing has changed here more than at any other school in this library, and most visitor advice hasn't caught up. In December 2022 the Green Line Extension opened Medford/Tufts station at 460 Boston Avenue, directly across the road from Dowling Hall. The T now stops on campus. For decades the answer was the Red Line to Davis Square and a fifteen-minute uphill walk, and plenty of families still do it that way without knowing there's a train that goes to the door.
The second thing to know is that the campus sits on Walnut Hill straddling the Medford and Somerville city line, which means the good eating is spread across four squares in two cities rather than clustered in one downtown. Davis Square is the famous one and it earns its reputation, but Teele, Powder House and Ball Square are all closer to the dorms, and Medford Square on the other side has quietly become worth the trip.
Best Restaurants Near Tufts University
Tufts eating happens in five places and it helps to know which is which before you set out. Boston Avenue runs along the bottom of campus and holds the closest sit-down food. Davis Square is fifteen minutes downhill on College Avenue and has the density. Teele and Powder House Squares are actually closer to the dorms than Davis, cheaper, and where a lot of upperclassmen live. Medford Square is a different city on the other side of the hill and holds the two best tables in this guide.
The list below runs roughly from special occasion down to everyday, and the recurring trap is opening hours: several of the best rooms here are dinner-only, closed Mondays, or shut on the exact Sunday you were planning to use them.
Featured restaurants
Semolina Kitchen & Bar
572 Boston Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
The closest real sit-down meal to campus, a few minutes' walk down Boston Avenue, doing wood-fired pizza and fresh pasta since 2016. There's a nice piece of local circularity to it: the pasta is delivered daily from Dave's Fresh Pasta over in Davis, which is also in this guide. The one thing to plan around is that it's closed Sunday and Monday, and Sunday is when a lot of visiting parents discover that.
Dakzen
195 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Bangkok street food at the eastern edge of Davis Square, strongest on boat noodles, khao soi and the Sai Ua sausage. Prices are low enough that students eat here properly regularly rather than as a treat, which is the best endorsement a college-town restaurant can have. It shuts between three and five, so it's a lunch plan or a dinner plan, not an afternoon one.
Martsa On Elm
243 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Tibetan and Himalayan cooking that has been in Davis Square since 2004, built around momos, sha-bhakleb and butter tea, with a long vegetarian run through the menu. It's the most distinctive meal on this list and the one students take visiting family to when they want to show them something that isn't a burger. Dinner only from 5pm, closed Mondays. Note that several booking sites still list the old 233 Elm Street address; the restaurant moved a few doors down.
Foundry On Elm
255 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
A new American brasserie in the middle of Davis Square that does two things nowhere else nearby does. Oysters are two dollars on Mondays, and the kitchen runs to midnight, which makes it one of very few places around here still serving after a show at the Somerville Theatre. The catch is the front half of the week: there's no weekday lunch at all, the kitchen opens at four, and brunch is weekends only.
Dave's Fresh Pasta
81 Holland St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
A pasta counter, cheese case and wine shop sitting between Davis and Teele, and it's the sandwiches that grad students keep recommending rather than the pasta they're named for. It's also closer to campus than the Davis Square framing suggests. Two constraints worth internalising: it closes at 6:30 and it's shut on Sundays, so this is lunch, takeaway and stocking a dorm fridge, never dinner.
Tenoch Mexican
24 Riverside Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Medford Square's torta counter, and the tortas are what to order rather than the tacos, whatever the queue in front of you is doing. Quick, cheap and popular with students who have discovered that the Medford side of the hill is under-explored. It closes at 8:30, so aim for lunch or an early dinner.
Mike's Food & Spirits
9 Davis Square, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Old-school Italian-American in the middle of Davis Square, doing pizza, pasta and subs at prices the rest of the neighbourhood left behind some years ago. Trivia runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. It has a bar, but the kitchen closes at ten most nights, so treat it as a cheap early dinner rather than the start of a long evening.
Bistro 5
5 Playstead Rd, Medford, MA 02155, USA
The special-occasion table, and the booking to make first for graduation weekend. Chef-owner Vittorio Ettore cooks northern Italian with French and Spanish edges in a small West Medford dining room that seats far fewer people than want to be in it. It's dinner only and closed Sunday and Monday, so it will not solve a spontaneous Sunday lunch, but it is the room to have in mind the moment a date gets fixed.
Pikaichi
123 Boston Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Eight ramen varieties plus vegetarian bowls on the same street as campus, close enough to the engineering buildings to be a walk rather than an outing. Tufts' own graduate student food guide sends people here, which is roughly the level of recommendation ramen needs. In February this is the most useful address in this guide.
Angelina's Pizzeria
230 Holland St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Greek-style pizza shop that has run in Teele Square for more than fifty years, which counts for a great deal in a square that has churned through restaurants recently. Teele is a shorter walk from campus than Davis and this is the cheapest slice in it. If you want to understand where students actually live rather than where they're photographed, walk to Teele.
Mint Indian Eatery
868 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Kati rolls and weekday lunch specials right on Powder House Square, which sits on the campus edge and otherwise has almost nothing at all. Cheap enough for an ordinary Tuesday and good enough to take a parent to, which is a narrow and useful category. It's the closest thing to campus on this list after Semolina and Pikaichi.
Fioritaly Trattoria
417 Salem St, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Chef Gabriele Ascione cooks Ischia-inspired Italian on the Medford Square side of the hill, and by rating it's the strongest table in Medford by a clear margin. It books out most nights, which is the useful thing to know rather than a compliment. If Bistro 5 has gone and you still want a proper dinner without driving into Boston, this is the answer.
Mr. Crêpe
51 Davis Square, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Sweet and savoury crêpes with an espresso bar and, more to the point, enough seating that students settle in with laptops for hours. It's open 7am to 10pm daily, a far wider window than almost anything else in this guide, which makes it the reliable answer to an awkward arrival time.
Where to Grab a Drink Near Campus
Almost all of this is Davis Square, and the rooms there divide more cleanly than they first appear. The Burren is for live music and has deliberately no televisions. Elm Street Taproom is the one that puts the game on with the sound up. Saloon is where you go when you want a proper cocktail and a quiet room. Five Horses is the beer list. Sacco's is bowling. The Painted Burro is the one that works as a family dinner and a margarita night in the same room.
Beyond Davis, Aeronaut in Union Square and Deep Cuts in Medford Square are both worth a deliberate trip and neither is a walk from campus. One thing that catches families out: Aeronaut's taproom is 21 and over, with under-21s admitted only alongside their own parent or guardian.
Featured bars
The Burren
247 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Opened in 1996 by the Irish musicians Tommy McCarthy and Louise Costello, who still run it, and it has live music seven nights a week plus a separate ticketed back room. Thrillist has named it one of the best Irish pubs in America and it deserves the billing. The thing to know before you plan an evening around it is that there are deliberately no televisions anywhere in the building, so come for a trad session, not for the Sox.
Saloon
255 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
A basement bar under Foundry on Elm with an entrance that is genuinely easy to walk straight past, which is half the appeal. Pre-Prohibition concept, around 120 whiskeys, dollar oysters from five to seven, and the most grown-up room in Davis Square by some distance. It opens at five and it's the right call for a drink with parents after dinner.
Five Horses Tavern
400 Highland Ave #2, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Thirty-six rotating drafts and eighty bottles a couple of minutes off Davis Square, with an unusually deep vegetarian menu for a place that leads with beer. Weekend brunch starts at 9:30 and the kitchen runs to midnight, so it covers more of the day than the beer list suggests. This is the easiest booking for a group with mixed appetites.
Aeronaut Brewing Company
14 Tyler St, Somerville, MA 02143, USA
A Union Square brewery with a food hall inside it, running Venezuelan arepas, a Japanese-Chinese diner and a chocolate maker alongside the beer, plus free live music and trivia through the week. It's a Green Line ride or a rideshare rather than a walk from campus, roughly two miles. The taproom is 21 and over, and under-21s are only admitted with their own parent or guardian, which is worth checking before you make it the family plan.
Elm Street Taproom
256 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
The sports bar of Davis Square, opened in 2019, and the one place around here that reliably puts the game on with the sound up rather than muted behind a band. There's a Mug Club, a late kitchen Thursday through Saturday and weekend brunch from eleven. If someone in your party has a team, this is where they should be.
Sacco's Bowl Haven
45 Day St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Ten lanes of vintage candlepin bowling with a full bar and a wood-fired flatbread oven in the same room, which is a combination that shouldn't work and does. Candlepin is a New England thing and visitors from elsewhere will not have played it. It's the default Davis Square group outing and comfortably the easiest evening to organise if there's a younger sibling in the party.
The Painted Burro
219 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
A Mexican kitchen and tequila bar that manages to be both a proper dinner with parents and a margarita-led night out, which almost nothing else in Davis pulls off. That flexibility is the argument for it, particularly with a group that can't agree on what kind of evening it's having. Busy at weekends, so book if there are more than four of you.
Deep Cuts
21 Main St, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Brewery, deli and live music room in one building, and the main reason to head into Medford Square for an evening rather than defaulting downhill to Davis. It fills a real gap on the Medford side, where there is otherwise very little going on after dark. Worth it if you're staying at the Hyatt Place or anywhere else on that side of the hill.
Coffee and Breakfast Near Tufts University
Seven, and they do genuinely different jobs. Two are on Boston Avenue and in Teele Square within easy reach of the dorms, three are in Davis, and two are in Ball Square, which has its own Green Line stop one south of Medford/Tufts.
The scheduling trap here is worse than usual: Ball Square Cafe is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Nine Bar shuts at three, and Ball Square Cafe doesn't do dinner at all. If a leisurely late breakfast is the plan, check the day of the week first.
Featured cafés
Ball Square Cafe
708 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
The other half of that rivalry, open since 2007, and the things to order are the coconut macaroon French toast and the house corned beef hash. Ball Square has its own Green Line stop one south of Medford/Tufts, so getting here is easier than the walk suggests. The critical detail: it's breakfast and lunch only and it's closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which catches out more visitors than anything else in this guide.
Sound Bites Cafe
704 Broadway Ball Square, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Ball Square's breakfast institution since 1996, turning out big American and Middle Eastern plates with a full bar for brunch drinks. It sits directly next door to Ball Square Cafe and the rivalry between the two is genuinely part of local lore, right down to a brawl between the owners in 2010. This is the parents-weekend breakfast if there are more than four of you and everyone is hungry.
Diesel Cafe
257 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Davis Square's default study café since 1999, with long communal tables and enough outlets to make a whole afternoon of it, which is exactly what students do. The same owners run Bloc and Forge Baking Company nearby, and Boston.com was still calling it a neighbourhood institution as recently as May 2026. Open seven to seven daily, so it's the safest coffee plan in this guide.
Nine Bar Espresso
11 Holland St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
The Tufts Daily's own coffee writer rated this the best coffee near campus, and the matcha latte is what people come back for. Set expectations correctly, though: it's a walk-up window with barely any seating, so it's a grab-and-go stop on the way somewhere rather than a place to sit and talk. It closes at three.
J.P. Licks
4 College Ave A, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Ice cream and house-roasted coffee at the Davis Square end of College Avenue, which is the street that runs up to the campus gate. It's open until 11pm, midnight at weekends, which makes it the natural last stop on the walk back up the hill after dinner in Davis. A Boston chain rather than a Somerville original, but the location is doing real work here.
Yego Coffee
1212 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Teele Square's coffee shop, and it matters because Teele is where a lot of upperclassmen live and it's a shorter walk from campus than Davis. Good matcha, fair prices, and considerably quieter than anything on Elm Street. If you want the version of Somerville students actually inhabit rather than the version on the postcards, this is it.
Danish Pastry House
330 Boston Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
A Danish bakery on the uphill Boston Avenue strip, minutes from the engineering side of campus, with a pastry case that does most of the persuading before you've decided anything. There's indoor and outdoor seating, which makes it a reasonable place to sit and work as well as a place to grab something on the way in. Tufts' own graduate student guide lists it as a study spot.
Where to Stay When Visiting Campus
This is the hardest part of planning a Tufts visit. There is essentially one place you can walk to campus from, a seven-room guesthouse, and after that you are choosing between the Station Landing cluster in Medford, the Porter Square area in Cambridge, Union Square, or Assembly Row. There is no hotel in Medford Square or West Medford at all.
Tufts' own commencement office says space is at a premium in May and tells families to book as early as possible, and it's right. The weekends that concentrate demand are move-in on September 2, Homecoming on September 19, Parents & Family Weekend on October 9 to 10, Commencement on May 22 to 23, 2027, and Reunion on June 11 to 13, 2027. Tufts also publishes negotiated rates through its Campus Travel portal, which is worth checking before you book direct. The list runs from closest to furthest.
Featured hotels
AC Hotel Boston North
95 Station Landing, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Sits at Station Landing with an overhead walkway leading straight into Wellington on the Orange Line, which makes it the only hotel here attached to rapid transit. Rooms are modern and pared back and there's a European-lean lobby bar. It's roughly ten minutes from campus by road, and about 2.9 miles by Tufts' own reckoning, so you'll want either the car or the T.
The Row Hotel at Assembly Row, Autograph Collection
360 Foley St, Somerville, MA 02145, USA
Built into the old Ford assembly plant and ringed by Assembly Row's restaurants, outlet shopping and cinema, with an Orange Line stop at the door. It's the nicest room on this list and the furthest from campus at about 3.4 miles, and there's no clean one-seat transit ride between the two, so budget fifteen minutes each way by car. Good choice if the trip has a spare afternoon in it.
Hyatt Place Boston/Medford
116 Riverside Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
The closest hotel to campus at about a mile, and the practical default for most campus visits. The thing that makes it the pick rather than just the nearest is that it runs a complimentary shuttle within a three-mile radius that explicitly includes Tufts, so you can leave the car at the hotel. Breakfast is included, there's a Tufts negotiated rate, and it's on the Medford Square side, which puts Deep Cuts and Fioritaly within reach in the evening.
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville
515 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA 02143, USA
Set between Union and Porter Squares, about 2.1 miles from campus and roughly a ten-minute drive, so treat it as a base rather than a walk. The argument for it is the evening rather than the morning: you're a few minutes from Union Square's restaurants and Aeronaut, which is a better night out than anything within walking distance of the Medford hotels.
The Davis Square Inn
204 Morrison Ave, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
Seven rooms about three minutes from Davis station, and the only lodging in this guide you can genuinely walk to campus from, at roughly eight-tenths of a mile up College Avenue. Being small is the whole story here in both directions: it's a nicer place to stay than a chain and it sells out early for graduation and move-in. Book it the day the date is fixed or don't count on it.
Porter Square Hotel
1924 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140, USA
A small independent-feeling hotel a few doors from Porter station, which is one Red Line stop from Davis and then the fifteen-minute walk up College Avenue. It's better value than Harvard Square and closer to campus, and Porter itself has more going on in the evening than the Medford options. This is the choice if you'd rather be in Cambridge than in a parking lot off Route 16.
TownePlace Suites by Marriott Boston Medford
85 Station Landing, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Next door to the AC in a dual-brand building, with full kitchens and on-site laundry. That's exactly the right shape for a four-night move-in trip with a car full of boxes, rather than a two-night campus visit. Its real value on the big weekends is simply that it adds rooms in the one cluster around here that reliably has them.
The Campus Stops Worth Making
Tufts is 150 acres on Walnut Hill, split by everyone who goes there into Uphill and Downhill, and the parts worth seeing are almost all Uphill and within ten minutes of each other. The route that works: start on The Green in front of Ballou Hall, find the cannon, walk over to Jumbo outside Barnum, look into Goddard Chapel, then drop down Talbot Avenue to the art galleries. That's an hour. Powder House Square is on the walk down to Davis and takes five minutes. The Royall House is the one that needs planning, because it opens weekends only from June to November.
Practical note before you arrive: all campus parking requires a permit, and visitors pay hourly at the Dowling Hall garage or Cousens lot at $2.50 an hour with a $20 daily maximum. Medford and Somerville street parking is resident-permit and is not an option.
Featured campus landmarks
Ballou Hall
Ballou Hall, 1 The Grn, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Ballou and the green in front of it are the centre of Tufts, in the literal and ceremonial sense. Commencement happens here in the third week of May, and this is where first-years light candles at the Illumination Ceremony during orientation, with many relighting the same candle the night before they graduate four years later. The painted cannon sits just off the green: a non-functioning replica 24-pounder from the USS Constitution, given to Tufts by the City of Medford in 1956. Students have painted it since 1977, always after dark, and then stand guard over it until dawn so nobody paints over their work. The university repaints it weekly. Whatever it says when you visit, it will say something else by the following weekend.
Barnum Hall
Dana Laboratory, Packard Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Jumbo stands outside Barnum Hall, eleven feet and five thousand pounds of bronze installed in 2014 for the 125th anniversary of the original elephant's arrival, modelled on an 1882 photograph taken at London Zoo. P.T. Barnum was a founding Tufts trustee and left the university the taxidermied elephant after Jumbo's death in 1885. The Barnum museum burned in 1975, the tail survived, and the ashes recovered from the fire were collected in a peanut butter jar that still sits in the athletic director's office. Students leave pennies on the trunk before exams. This is the best story on any campus in this library and it happens to be true.
Goddard Chapel
3 The Grn, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Built in 1883 in a Lombardic Romanesque style with a hundred-foot bell tower, by the architect J. Philip Rinn, who also designed the Barnum museum that later burned. It's a multifaith space now, used for Catholic mass, Buddhist meditation, Hindu pujas, weddings, concerts and vigils. The detail worth carrying into commencement weekend: its bells ring at 8:45 on the Sunday morning as the last call for graduates to line up.
Tufts University Art Galleries / Medford
40 Talbot Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Free university galleries in the Aidekman Arts Center, running up to four exhibitions a semester, including the SMFA at Tufts thesis show each spring, which lands alongside commencement and is the best time to visit. Open Tuesday to Sunday 11 to 5 and until 8 on Thursdays, with free visitor parking on Lower Campus Road. Programming rotates, so check what's on before you build an afternoon around it.
Nathan Tufts Park
850 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
The stone tower in this park began life as a windmill around 1704 and became the colony's principal gunpowder magazine. On 1 September 1774 roughly 260 British regulars seized the powder stored here, an incident known as the Powder Alarm and frequently described as the dress rehearsal for the Revolution. The park sits on Powder House Square right at the campus edge, on the natural walking line down to Davis, and it's open 10am to 8pm. The powder house itself isn't enterable; you look at it from the grass. Five minutes well spent on a walk you were making anyway.
Royall House and Slave Quarters
15 George St, Medford, MA 02155, USA
About a mile from campus, this preserves one of very few surviving slave quarters buildings anywhere in the northern United States, with an archaeological exhibit on the site. It is the most serious hour available to a visitor here and it is worth planning around, because the season is narrow: open weekends only from early June to mid-November, one to four in the afternoon, with mansion tours on the hour. Adults $15, seniors and students $10, under-12s free. The slave quarters building itself is free to visit.
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