Franklin Cafe, in the South End

A much loved, quintessential South End restaurant with a huge gay following and some of the tastiest contemporary American fare (with some Asian influences) in town, the Franklin Cafe(278 Shawmut Ave., 617-350-0010) is an intimate bar and grill along increasingly trendy Shawmut Avenue. It's one of the few full-service restaurants in Boston where you can dine afternoon midnight (the full menu is served til 1:30 a.m., nightly!), and the sophisticated little bar here is a terrific spot to mingle with cute guys and gals from the neighborhood. The menu changes seasonally, but typically soul-warming Franklin Cafe fare includes roasted butternut-squash soup, soy-marinated chicken livers with bacon-horseradish-fennel salad, prune-glazed pork tenderloin, and roasted turkey meatloaf with spiced-fig gravy and chive-mashed potatoes. The restaurant is a short walk from such popular gay bars as the Eagle and Fritz, and it's not far from other excellent restaurants in the South End, such as Delux, South End Buttery, and Joe V's. There's also a branch of the Franklin Cafe on the North Shore's Cape Ann, in the seaside community of Gloucester, at 118 Main Street (978-283-7888).