1634 Beacon St
Brookline, MA 02445-2101
www.fireplacerest.com/home/
Drive a few miles north to Brookline, where you can thaw out by a stone hearth at the Fireplace, known for coziness and New England comfort food. The sweet-spiced squash bisque with Great Hill blue cheese and pumpkin seeds was a standout on my visit, but the tuna melt with Vermont Cheddar and the turkey club rolled in a Rhode Island johnnycake.
Check schedules for weekly live music and winter fireside chats!
Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
100 Northern Avenue, 617-478-3101
www.icaboston.org
ICA is a visionary glass box designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that cantilevers over the waterfront, the neighborhood is finally emerging as a vibrant arts district, with destination restaurants, green parks and condos.
As Boston’s first new art museum in decades, the I.C.A. is already a cultural cornerstone, with rotating exhibitions and a permanent collection with works by Nan Goldin, Cornelia Parker and Julian Opie.
Visitors can dine at its Water Cafe (run by Wolfgang Puck Catering), and the adjacent plaza merges with the newly expanded Boston HarborWalk, designed to reconnect the harbor to the rest of the city (though immediately surrounding the museum itself are a number of vast parking lots).
Uni
Eliot Hotel, 370 Commonwealth Avenue, 617-536-7200
The city is thick with restaurants that say they serve flopping-fresh seafood, but few are brave enough to dispense with the plastic bibs and drawn butter.
In its low-slung confines, the chef Ken Oringer serves sublime fish with inventive accompaniments that actually work. Peppery onion seeds and Amarillo vinaigrette cut the richness of sea urchin and hamachi ($16); the Chinese black beans on wild king salmon come off like caviar ($14). No reservations, and no humdrum soy sauce either.
Canestaro’s Restaurant and Pizzeria, 16 Peterborough Street, (617) 266-8997, www.canestaros.com, just a few blocks from Fenway Park, has a nice outdoor patio, good pizza, and big pasta dishes.
Entrees range from fettuccine Alfredo ($11.95) to grilled sirloin ($18.95), or dig into a chicken Parmesan or a meatball Parmesan sandwich ($6.95), a large plain pizza for $11.50, or pasta entrees for $11.95 to $13.95.
Sibling Rivalry
525 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116
617.338.5338
www.siblingrivalryboston.com
Sibling Rivalry, an upscale restaurant run by two brothers who create “dueling” menus with one set of main ingredients each season. The fall menu featured scallops, mushrooms, artichokes, bacon and beets — one brother concocted a salad of roasted beets with goat cheese fondue, walnuts and bibb lettuce, for example, while the other offered boneless short ribs of beef with roasted beets, ragout of salsify, pearl onions and carrots.
Chef David Kinkead:
Growing up in a family of 10 children it is not a surprise that David Kinkead was inspired by his older brother at an early age. David, brother to renowned chef Bob Kinkead, was struck by his brother’s talent and passion for creating remarkable cuisine. It was Bob who first introduced David to the restaurant scene and ever since then David has been living his dream.
David is a native of Massachusetts, growing up outside of Boston in Wellesley. David attended Providence College and landed his first culinary job as a prep cook in Nantucket at 21 Federal Restaurant. David soon found is way back to Boston and worked with distinguished chefs and James Beard Award winner, Lydia Shire. While working with Shire, David honed his skill, and continued to advance. He has worked in such upscale restaurants as Park Avenue Cafe in New York, and Chicago Park Avenue in Chicago with chef David Burke. Kinkead has also had the honor of working for Jean Joho at Everest in Chicago.
In 2000 Kinkead opened Todd English’s second seafood restaurant Kingfish Hall. Subsequently, Kinkead helped English open his seafood restaurants across the country.
Kinkead’s most recent venture, Sibling Rivalry, will be run in conjunction with his brother, Bob Kinkead. David is excited about Sibling Rivalry because after working for so many high profile chefs, he likes the idea of being able to execute food exactly as he wants. Integrating the diverse styles of all the chefs he has worked with and incorporating them into his own style also appeals to David.
In his spare time David enjoys exercising, watching sports, traveling, dining out and collecting antique egg cups.
Chef Bob Kinkead
Named in 1983 to Food and Wine Magazine’s Honor Roll of sixty of the nation’s most promising culinary talents, Bob Kinkead is a self-trained chef who began his career as a teenager, working summers in restaurants in Cape Cod. He continued his career in the food service industry, gaining first hand experience in several of New England’s finer restaurants and hotels, including Chillingsworth in Brewster on Cape Cod and the Harvest Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In April of 1985, Bob signed on as a consulting chef of 21 Federal in Nantucket, Massachusetts, later becoming the executive chef and partner. In 1987 Bob moved to Washington, DC to supervise the planning, design, and construction of Twenty-One Federal. As chef and partner, Bob was responsible for the start up operation and the ongoing management of all aspects of the business.
In October of 1993, Mr. Kinkead opened Kinkead’s, an American brasserie-style restaurant featuring fresh seafood. The 240-seat restaurant features daily changing menus, a 40 seat bar and lounge area, and nightly piano entertainment. In April of 1997, Kinkead’s added a seafood and raw bar serving a selection of made-to-order soups, stews, salads, and a large selection of daily changing clams, oysters, and other shellfish.
Bob has received numerous local and national awards including four James Beard Award nominations for “Best American Chef, Mid-Atlantic Region”. He was the 1995 winner of the James Beard Award as “Best American Chef, Mid-Atlantic Region”. Since January of 1995, Bob and his restaurant Kinkead’s, have received the Restaurants and Institutions Ivy Award, Food Art’s Silver Spoon and Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame Award.
Bob Kinkead opened his second restaurant Colvin Run Tavern at Fairfax Square in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia in October of 2002. The 168-seat Colvin Run Tavern features four dining rooms, each with a unique decor and a modern American menu featuring Meat, Game, Seafood, and regional foods.Chef Bob Kinkead Named in 1983 to Food and Wine Magazine’s Honor Roll of sixty of the nation’s most promising culinary talents, Bob Kinkead is a self-trained chef who began his career as a teenager, working summers in restaurants in Cape Cod. He continued his career in the food service industry, gaining first hand experience in several of New England’s finer restaurants and hotels, including Chillingsworth in Brewster on Cape Cod and the Harvest Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In April of 1985, Bob signed on as a consulting chef of 21 Federal in Nantucket, Massachusetts, later becoming the executive chef and partner. In 1987 Bob moved to Washington, DC to supervise the planning, design, and construction of Twenty-One Federal. As chef and partner, Bob was responsible for the start up operation and the ongoing management of all aspects of the business.
In October of 1993, Mr. Kinkead opened Kinkead’s, an American brasserie-style restaurant featuring fresh seafood. The 240-seat restaurant features daily changing menus, a 40 seat bar and lounge area, and nightly piano entertainment. In April of 1997, Kinkead’s added a seafood and raw bar serving a selection of made-to-order soups, stews, salads, and a large selection of daily changing clams, oysters, and other shellfish.
Bob has received numerous local and national awards including four James Beard Award nominations for “Best American Chef, Mid-Atlantic Region”. He was the 1995 winner of the James Beard Award as “Best American Chef, Mid-Atlantic Region”. Since January of 1995, Bob and his restaurant Kinkead’s, have received the Restaurants and Institutions Ivy Award, Food Art’s Silver Spoon and Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame Award.
Bob Kinkead opened his second restaurant Colvin Run Tavern at Fairfax Square in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia in October of 2002. The 168-seat Colvin Run Tavern features four dining rooms, each with a unique decor and a modern American menu featuring Meat, Game, Seafood, and regional foods.
Sibling Rivalry, Bob’s third restaurant is in partnership with his younger brother David. The restaurant opened on October 25, 2004 and features a menu showcasing the cusine of both chefs. Sibling Rivalry is located at 525 Tremont Street in Boston’s South End. It is a 147-seat facility with outdoor seating for 50, a 12-seat bar and 16 seat lounge. The open kitchen features an 8 seat dining bar that will begin chef tastings in the months ahead. Dinner is served seven nights a week.
Bob has written his first cookbook, Kinkead’s Cookbook to be published by Ten Speed Press. The seafood cookbook is available at most fine book stores and now at Sibling Rivalry and Kinkead’s.
Sibling Rivalry, Bob’s third restaurant is in partnership with his younger brother David. The restaurant opened on October 25, 2004 and features a menu showcasing the cusine of both chefs. Sibling Rivalry is located at 525 Tremont Street in Boston’s South End. It is a 147-seat facility with outdoor seating for 50, a 12-seat bar and 16 seat lounge. The open kitchen features an 8 seat dining bar that will begin chef tastings in the months ahead. Dinner is served seven nights a week.
Bob has written his first cookbook, Kinkead’s Cookbook to be published by Ten Speed Press. The seafood cookbook is available at most fine book stores and now at Sibling Rivalry and Kinkead’s.
Figs
67 Main Street, 617-242-2229
The site of the star chef Todd English’s original restaurant
Though Mr. English has opened outposts of his more upscale restaurant, Olives, across the country, Figs remains low key. It has pasta specials, root beer and glam rock on the sound system, and Boston foodies still line up for pastas and brick-oven pizzas; one topped with prosciutto and fig and balsamic jam is $16.95; a pizza topped with fried calamari is $16.
Oleana
134 Hampshire Street, Cambridge; (617) 661-0505.
In the Inman Square neighborhood of Cambridge, clapboard multifamily houses are interspersed with small businesses, many of them high-tech offspring of nearby M.I.T. The area’s most delectable surprise, Oleana, snuggles midblock on workaday Hampshire Street northeast of Central Square, its entrance tucked on the side.
The understated exterior belies the bold flavors on the menu. Ana Sortun, chef, part-owner and the guiding palate behind Oleana, is passionate about sultry Mediterranean food, melding Greek with Turk, Armenian with Moroccan. Her warm olives fragrant with oregano and sesame seeds quickly put us in mind of wind-ruffled blue-green waters in spite of the arctic chill outside. Tangy-toasty Armenian bean and walnut pâté with homemade string cheese provided the perfect prelude to subtle cinnamon-poached halibut with almond-spiked spinach and garlicky celeriac mash. Each flavor and texture was individually discernible, yet the cumulative effect was dynamic in the most delicious way. My husband’s grilled spiced lamb steak with fava bean moussaka was no less good and satisfying — rendered better still by a half bottle of Adelsheim pinot noir 2000 from the Willamette Valley in Oregon ($24), chosen from the reasonably priced short wine card organized by color and flavor from light to full.
Ms. Sortun’s food, served in a gently lighted earth-toned room bustling with diners, is at once rustic-traditional and deeply inventive, invested with techniques mastered at La Varenne in Paris and an abiding respect for field-fresh ingredients, whose producers are credited on the menu alongside the kitchen staff’s names.
Persuaded by the evident pleasure that others were taking in the desserts concocted by the pastry chef, Maura Kilpatrick, we sampled the baked Alaska with coconut ice cream and passion fruit caramel under gilded meringue and the warm chocolate soufflé cake with salted almond ice cream. We never intended to finish both, yet we found ourselves reaching for just one more morsel.
Plagued by major service problems when it opened in 2001, Oleana today employs some of the most engaged and often witty help in the Boston area. They juggle an overflowing reservation book and 67 dining-room places. In warm weather there are also 50 sought-after seats in a back garden burgeoning with vines.
INMAN SQUARE, CAMBRIDGE: Oleana, 134 Hampshire Street, Cambridge; (617) 661-0505. Dinner only. Open daily. T-stop: Central Square (Red Line). $60 a person.