The Publick House — Restaurant in Brookline

June 2025 review: Public House has been DOGEd This wonderful staple restaurant has had someone cut costs to the point where the food that we typically get is just bad/ inedible. DOGE: they no longer offer 1/2 size mussels. The price is 30-40% higher than last year. The amount of mussels is cut in 1/2 at least. The "POT" is no longer a pot - it's a small bowl. The bowl to put the empty mussel shells is gone - DOGEd. We used to fight over the sauce - but it's been DOGEd - no fat, no butter, no flavor EXCEPT bitter rosemary. We didn't finish it. The wonderful slices of side bread are 1/4 as thick -DOGEd! The fries basket is now a little cup with tiny nubs of fries that you have to delicately pick out - DOGEd.

The fish and chips was also DOGEd - 1/2 the size of fish and at least 30% more expensive. The breading recipe changed-less flavor/less goodness. The extra tartar sauce found itself as an extra $1.00 - DOGEd.

Attached to this review is last year's mussel pot and this year's. DOGEd in full display.

Service is still great - however Public House used to be full most of the time - it was 1/3 empty on a Friday night. We all sense the DOGEness. We won't come back - maybe next summer - Public House will have found its sanity again.

2 years ago Review: 5 star all around I love public house. Great burgers and awesome mussels in amazing broth. PLUS amazing selection of beers. I love how covid safe they are being- we ate outside under a heat lamp. Thank you for being an institution for this...

I love this place. I haven’t been for a couple of years, but motivated by my memory of the fish and chips, I recently went back to see if that memory held up.

For my money, this is one of the best fish and chips anywhere in the Boston area. This is as close to what I’d get from the chippy as I have found. I appreciated that the bartender set salt, pepper, and malt vinegar down in front of me without me asking.

The batter is light, crisp, and craggy, while the chips are thickly cut but in no way soggy or overly greasy. The fish itself was very flaky, moist, and very tender. The one letdown was the coleslaw. Maybe it was an off day, but it tasted like nothing. By that I don’t mean bland; I mean that to me it tasted like nothing. This was a bit weird as the ingredients themselves seemed to be fresh and crisp.

I should also mention that the beer selection here is very well curated. While talking to the bartender about the Trillium/Evil Twin collar that I’d ordered, he mentioned other collabs coming out that he thought I might be interested in. Really great service here and very knowledgeable.

Definitely check this place out, though if comfort food, great beer, dark wood, and low lighting aren’t your thing, then this might not be what you’re...

I was a regular patron of this once-terrific establishment from '04-'10 and made my first return visit since last week. When places become popular, they have to make a decision: stay true to the identity that made them popular, or just try to stay popular. One look at the beer menu told me that The Publick House has chosen the latter.

The draught menu was dominated by two 'tap takeovers' from domestic breweries, a far cry from the Belgian-style dominance of a decade ago. Far worse though was the bottle menu, which had a fraction of the options it once did. When I commented to the bartender, his response was "everybody wants IPAs in cans; we can't turnover the other stock". How depressing.

The frites were still as good as I remember, and my short rib sandwich was quite good, but my wife had the Arctic Char and remarked it was flavorless (which was a complaint I had about some dishes back in the day also).

So while The Publick House will always be the place I discovered good beer, it won't be one I go to now...