Feed

5 Courses with Joe Brenner of South End Buttery

Louisa Kasdon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Joe Brenner is the chef’s chef. Literally. Brenner made Todd English look good — in Boston, New York, Las Vegas, D.C., Miami, and Nantucket. For more than 14 years, chef Brenner was chef English’s right-hand man: the guy keeping the home fires burning in Charlestown, the guy dispatched to hire and train, and the guy who opened each new entry in the English empire. Last we heard, he was in Nantucket. That was so last summer. Since early October, Brenner has been at the South End Buttery,...

Star Power

Louisa Kasdon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT

We’ve just watched our second class of Rising Star Chefs, well, rise. Yes, StarChefs.com has once again selected Boston to be one of the cities featured in its annual awards honoring culinary up-and-comers, and what a fantastic set of 14 stars it selected. Toro’s Jamie Bissonnette, Garden at the Cellar’s Will Gilson, Uni’s Chris Chung, Catch’s Chris Parsons, Via Matta’s Mike Pagliarini, Clio’s Andres Grundy, L’Espalier’s Jiho Kim, Aura’s Rachel Klein, Myers + Chang’s Joanne Chang, Oleana’s...

Raviolo di Uovo at Prezza

MC Slim JB — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT

The stereotypical North End restaurant routine has its charms. Once in a while, I don't mind standing in line on the sidewalk, sitting at a cramped table in a kitschily decorated room, ordering up some cheap and plentiful red-sauce Italian-American, and being hustled out the door in under 50 minutes to stand in line again at a nearby bakery for cannoli. It's an indulgent-host thing to do with out-of-town friends, a charming, hokey slice of Boston bologna. Without visitors in tow,...

Café 57 & Grille

Scott Kearnan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Don't let our fabulous foodie ways fool you: just because we're all grown up doesn't mean we don't still crave home cooking the way Mom used to make it (sniffle). Sure, our tastes have matured to include plenty of plates we would never have considered as a kid (can you imagine opening up your brown paper lunch bag to find that Mom had packed away tuna tartare with a can of Tab?), but our soft spot for home-cooked comfort food has us tugging at the apron strings of Phyllis Vorvis...

Silver Pin Noodles at Ginger Park

MC Slim JB — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Falling for a new restaurant is a bit like finding romance after you've had your heart broken: harsh experience makes you tread carefully. That first date with someone gorgeous and attentive is fun, but you still go home wondering - where's the fatal flaw? Banq Restaurant in Boston's South End initially looked like a dreamboat: it boasted a stunning and highly original interior design (called 2008's best new restaurant in the world by Wallpaper magazine), a menu fusing mostly...

5 Courses with Dante de Magistris of Il Casale

Louisa Kasdon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Among his buddies in the business, Dante de Magistris has a reputation as a party-hearty type, but in person he's the shy chef - sparing with his words, though not with his food. It's as if when words fail him, he cooks. The chef/owner of Restaurant Dante has had a lot of media attention recently, especially since he opened his second spot, Il Casale in the center of Belmont. The old firehouse space in a sleepy suburban town was supposed to be home to a neighborhood place with a...

Stuff It: The Fireplace

Scott Kearnan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:00:00 GMT

In dining, nightlife, fashion, and all the other industries we cover here in the glorious pages of STUFF, humility is a virtue rarely encountered. In most cases, it probably takes at least a little grandiose self-promotion to be a mover and shaker in our city - after all, it's the "Players" issue we publish every spring, not the "Annual Guide to Modest Mice." So it was with some skepticism that we regarded the new "Humble Offerings" menu launched at The...

Burgers Bite Back

Louisa Kasdon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Veggies and vegans, please wipe the knowing smiles off your smug little kissers for a moment. This is addressed to the rest of us carnivores, so you can click away or turn the page. It's officially open season on burgers. "E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection" read the headline on the front page of the Sunday New York Times on October 4. For two weeks, the "burger" piece was the Times' number one e-mailed story. And every word in it was true. If you've...

5 Courses with Dan Estridge

Louisa Kasdon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Who doesn't crave a good pastrami sandwich? It's a deli staple, maybe the reigning monarch of high deli, but it can be hard to find one that's perfect - juicy, tender, and warm (and not full of weird chemicals that you worry will take up permanent residence in your body fat). The quest for the best is something we foodies can understand, but for the quest to become the basis of a full-blown mid-life crisis, for that you'd have to be crazy. Or be Dan Estridge, of Westford, MA,...

Post Excelsior

Louisa Kasdon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

"Everyone's a critic when they walk in the door," says chef Eric Brennan, two days into his regime as executive chef of Post 390, the newest, largest hot spot to open in Boston in over a year. "In a restaurant like ours, a huge urban tavern, we serve food that people know well, food they eat on a regular basis - ribs, meatloaf, roast chicken, mac and cheese - and as a result, they feel free to share their opinions of whether your meatloaf or their mom's meatloaf is the...

Grilled Smoked Pork Chop at Les Zygomates

MC Slim JB — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Boston's love affair with French food is still torrid. Diners continue to queue up for the locavore inventiveness of Craigie on Main, the regional sublimity of La Voile, and the modern-brasserie conviviality of Gaslight. Even in a down economy, bistros like Petit Robert, Sel de la Terre, and Aquitaine are expanding to the suburbs. With all these sexy newcomers, it's easy to forget an old standby like Les Zygomates (129 South Street, Boston, 617.542.5108), a French bistro and wine bar...

Mantra

Scott Kearnan — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

If you're single or ever have been (which logically encompasses every last one of us), then at some point you've likely hit the nightlife scene looking for someone special. Selecting a mate is like selecting an unfamiliar meal: the menu is dauntingly large, presentation can be deceiving, promising potential winds up undercooked, and sometimes the quality of the goods just isn't worth the price. But you keep coming back because every so often stars align, heavenly choirs sing, and...

“Bistro” Bouillabaisse at Hamersley’s Bistro

MC Slim JB — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

At Hamersley’s Bistro (553 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.423.2700), chef/owner Gordon Hamersley has worked the French-bistro tradition with a locavore American slant for 22 years. He started small, and though he moved to bigger digs across the street after a few years, he hasn’t budged from that original concept. While his contemporaries built expansive, diversified restaurant empires, he kept to the South End: there’s no Hamersley’s Las Vegas or Foxwoods or even Wellesley. He doesn’t hawk a line...

5 Courses with The Meater Maids: Jericha Strickland and Victoria Ke of The Butcher Shop

Louisa Kasdon — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

I like to call them the “Fabulous Butcher Girls.” When Barbara Lynch put Victoria Kelly and Jericha Strickland on the chopping block at her South End butcher shop and restaurant, she was definitely casting against type. The classic artisanal butcher wears a button-down shirt, a bow tie, and a straw boater — not these babes. But don’t underestimate their skills with a cleaver or a boning knife just because they are adorable. I watched as the duo neatly reduced a robust duck to a neat little...

Stuff It: Gaslight

Scott Kearnan — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Head outside, and you’ll notice that the Boston air is crisper and cooler — what we New Englanders affectionately call “sweater weather” is swooping in. And while we’re not exactly squirreling away foraged foodstuffs and preparing to hibernate (“Are those acorns in your cheeks, or are you just happy to see me?”), we urban creatures do find ourselves craving comfort in the autumn, both in our food and in our surroundings. So we’re grateful that Gaslight has added to its menu some fall...