Boston’s best restaurants are in Cambridge

“It’s a totally different world,’’ says Charlie Perkins, owner of the Boston Restaurant Group, a real estate company that brokers restaurant deals. “I’ve worked with a lot of chefs. The Boston chef doesn’t want to go into Cambridge. People in Cambridge are very comfortable in Cambridge. The Charles River is a line of demarcation.’’

That line isn’t just geographic. It’s cultural. Boston is all business; Cambridge is intellectual. Boston is suits and ties; Cambridge is T-shirts and jeans. Boston has style; Cambridge has substance. These are generalizations, to be sure, but ones that inform dining in both cities.

How does a city with a population of 105,162 trump one that’s home to 617,594?

There are the small advantages: Cambridge, home to both Toscanini’s and Christina’s, has the best ice cream. Despite Boston’s proximity to the water, Cambridge also has the area’s finest seafood shop, New Deal Fish Market in East Cambridge. That neighborhood offers a taste of Portugal, serving bacalhau, linguica, and other mouthwatering specialties. Coffee culture in both cities is improving, with new outposts such as Voltage Coffee & Art (Cambridge) and Thinking Cup (Boston). But Cambridge squeaks out ahead here, too, with the pending arrival of new coffee spots from chef Michael Leviton (part of restaurant and cafe Area Four) and the people behind Arlington small-batch roaster Barismo.

But what really makes Cambridge great is its spirit of innovation and experimentation. Boston is high-profile. It draws the bigger names (Todd English), the more-established chefs (Barbara Lynch), the chains looking to establish flashy flagships (Legal Sea Foods). But Cambridge has a cadre of young up-and-comers trying new things, upending tradition, still working to make their bones. These are the people shaping the Boston area’s culinary direction.

“There are talented chefs in Boston and Cambridge,’’ says William Kovel, who was chef de cuisine at Aujourd’hui at the Four Seasons Boston and is now opening his own restaurant, Catalyst, in Cambridge. “The young, vibrant chef-owners defining the movement in both cities are in Cambridge. Boston has the Michael Schlows and Ken Oringers. It’s tough to get into that market because you’re competing against those guys.’’