Come Halloween, restaurants act just like teenagers: some get all tricked up for the occasion, others wear the same funky costumes they wear year-round. Some throw wild parties and serve freaky treats; others merely continue their daily celebration of the weird and wonderful. But they all offer plenty of foodie-friendly ways to observe the holiday. Here’s a select guide to Halloween cuisine for the gourmet trick-or-treater.

If restaurants were colleges (to switch metaphors), Tremont 647 (647 Tremont Street, Boston, 617-266-4600), including its satellite campus Sister Sorel, would be the number-one party school. Those educated in the local upscale dining scene are bound to gather here for a refresher course in Fright Night culinary fun, provided by a crew that generally knows how fun is done. As it happens, seasonal city permits for patio seating expire October 31, so T647’s sidewalk set-up goes out with a boo! amid arrangements of ornamental gourds, corn husks, and pumpkins. Pumpkins crop up on the menu du jour as well: chef Jason Santos plans an orange-and-black feast of roasted-pumpkin bisque with pumpkin oil and toasted pumpkin seeds, followed by house-made squid-ink fettuccine served with grilled shrimp, pumpkin coulis, and grilled garlic bread topped with pumpkin butter. There’ll be plenty of candy on hand for the kids, too. As for costumes, no need to feel shy about wearing them here — just think of the get-ups that servers who work the Sunday-brunch shift in their PJs are sure to flaunt.

Meanwhile, more-downscale joints like the Margaritavillean Rattlesnake Bar & Grill (384 Boylston Street, Boston, 617-859-8555) are gearing up for all-out bashes, the kinds with names and themes and cover charges. In the ’Snake’s case, it’s "A Naughty Nightmare," which, complete with black lights, smoke machines, living-art displays, and all the trappings of erotica, sounds more like a Gothic wet dream. And I do mean wet — the party’s sponsors include Bacardi, Bass, and Guinness. While the admission fee ($10 in advance or at the door) is mandatory, costumes are optional. But since TBA celebrity judges will be on hand to award contest prizes, including concert tickets and cold cash, to the winners of best overall costume, most provocative costume, and more, you might want to give your garb some thought. The DJ is TBA as well, but you can bet on an alt-rock enthusiast toting vintage Bowie and that other chameleon with two-tone eyes, Marilyn Manson. The menu, too, is still in the planning stages, but limited items will be available for those who haven’t already filled up on the free chocolate-covered strawberries.

And then there’s Cuchi Cuchi (795 Main Street, Cambridge, 617-864-2929). As the name suggests, frivolity is a nightly affair at this Cantabrigian spin on a Spanish tapas bar, and Halloween will be no exception. Or, rather, it’ll be a time for exceptional frivolity. Staff and clientele alike will don costumes here, but be forewarned: given the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds Cuchi2 attracts, it would behoove you, comfort-wise, to keep your duds lightweight and your silhouette lean; gorilla suits are definitely out. As for the ladies in gypsy gear, they’re for real: Madame Zamora will be on hand to conduct tarot readings, as will psychic Madame Evéluna (satisfied customers are asked to slip a fiver in the tip jar). When it comes to food, though, things here will be business-as-usual, with the full menu available.

Of course, as suggestive names go, no place has got anything on the Good Life (720 Mass Ave, Cambridge, 617-868-8800). On Halloween, the retro cocktail lounge plans to live up to that name, boosted booth-side by live music and bar-side by Frisky Witches — concoctions of vodka, white sambuca, and Tia Maria garnished with licorice sticks. Near the bewitching hour, the band will do double duty as judges of a costume contest; the winners get to go home with undisclosed (but surely fabulous) prizes.

At some restaurants, of course, every day looks like Halloween; if décor is a room’s costume, these dining rooms are qualified to enter contests of their own. Take Anam Cara (1648 Beacon Street, Brookline, 617-277-2880), which in all its charmingly ghoulish glory gets the gold. Poe himself would feel right at home amid the American Gothic paraphernalia, mostly culled from old New England churches — blood-red curtains and arched doorways, stained glass and massive wooden furniture (including pews), and even crosses hung on the walls here and there. You’d be forgiven for practically expecting to find pig’s blood, bile, and holy water on tap — but Anam Cara is in fact a neo-Irish pub, awash in beer and more beer. Another Best Costume nod goes to Pho République (1415 Washington Street, Boston, 617-262-0005), whose interior is a haven for all things zany and funky: flying wooden dragons and mounted dead bats, paper chains and bamboo lanterns, glitter on the tabletops and a Buddha head on tap (on top of the tap, that is). Drink enough mango-laced scorpion bowls, and you’ll forget you’re not actually whiling away the eve in some thatched beach shack on the Gulf of Siam.

Still other places deserve honorable mentions for Best Treats — those tricky tidbits that are always on the menu but are never so apropos as on Halloween. Remember the thrill of eating, blindfolded, "brains" made of cold spaghetti and peeled-grape "eyeballs" while playing haunted house with the neighborhood kids? Well, since one man’s delicacies are another man’s creepy-crawlies, you can relive that experience and broaden your palate at the same time with a variety of specialties that would horrify the average American (which you, after all, are not).

Hit the sushi bar at Kaya (1366 Beacon Street, Brookline, 617-738-2244) for some shiawase donburi — featuring sea urchin and salmon roe, either of which could star as baddies on The X-Files — or "eel guts" (actually broiled eel liver). Speaking of eels, you could also head to Tapéo (266 Newbury Street, Boston, 617-267-4799) on Newbury Street to brave the angulas, or baby eels, a whole platterful bathed in olive oil with lots of garlic. The tiny things are scrumptious with your eyes closed, but if you peek you can almost see them writhing.

Finally, you could act out your own Fear Factor episode by spending Halloween on a Chinatown crawl. Start at Penang (685 Washington Street, Boston, 617-451-6373), with an eye toward any dish that comes with a warning ("Please ask server for advice before you order!!!"): sweet-and-spicy chicken feet, fish-head casserole, or sautéed frog, for instance. Move on to Grand Chau Chow (41-45 Beach Street, Boston, 617-292-5166) for soup of shark fin or fish maw, followed by fried tripe. And wind things up at East Ocean City (25 Beach Street, Boston, 617-542-2504) with a duck-foot hot pot.

On the other hand, if as far as you’re concerned Halloween just isn’t Halloween without sweets galore, Bomboa (35 Stanhope Street, Boston, 617-236-6363) has just the thing: a caramel-apple martini (house-infused green-apple vodka, artisan apple cider, and caramel syrup in a caramel-rimmed glass). And the B-Side Lounge (92 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, 617-354-0766) has the thing itself: actual caramel apples await, as does an onslaught of "spooky music," according to bartender Dylan Black, who notes "there may even be a little Michael Jackson, circa ‘Thriller.’ " Now that is scary.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthiet@bu.edu.