A peripatetic gourmet EAT SMART The college town of Harvard and MIT is flourishing with destination restaurants and innovative chefs. Welcome to the new culinary scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts. BY SARA JAMES MNOOKIN Hungry Mother’s cornmeal-crusted wild catfish SOUTHERN COOKING Hungry mother It took guts to open up a Southern kitchen in Yankee country, but Hungry Mother (hungrymothercambridge. com) chef Barry Maiden has won over locals with his French translations of below-the-Mason Dixon staples. “Grits are always on the menu,” says Maiden, who gets his from Columbia, South Carolina. While the Kendall Square chef cooks his grits simply – “with only water, butter and salt” – he pairs them with fancy accompaniments, from shrimp to sorrel purée to chanterelles, even escargot. After dinner, grab a nightcap at State Park (stateparkcambridge.com), a new bar from the restaurant’s team. TRADITIONAL NEW ENGLAND Puritan & company Chef Will Gilson, a 13th-generation New Englander who descends from Mayflower stock, grew up on a herb farm in Groton, an hour northeast of Boston. At 23, he brought the gastro pub craze to Cambridge with the Garden at the Cellar. About a year ago, after turning 30, he opened his first solo venture, Puritan & Company, in the former home of the Puritan Cake Company, in Inman Square. (The Puritan cake delivered to diners’ tables after their meal is adapted from the former tenant’s recipe.) Gilson is known for his modern takes on old regional recipes, such as his smoked-bluefish pâté. “In a traditional New England cookbook, it would have been smoked fish, herbs, lemon juice, Old Bay and cream cheese,” he says. Instead, Gilson uses yogurt, crème fraîche, lemon juice and zest and tons of fresh herbs from his family’s farm: chervil, tarragon, chives, parsley and anything with citrus or liquorice notes, such as lemon basil, fennel and anise hyssop. He serves the dish with hardtack crackers, known as ship’s biscuits, which more than a century ago packed the whaling vessels sailing from Gloucester and Nantucket and filled up the bellies of Civil War Union soldiers. Gilson’s version is more buttery and crisp. “Actually edible,” he says. puritancambridge.com Puritan & Company’s dining room (above); Area Four offers unique pizzas and craft ale ALL-DAY CAFETERIA Area four MITers hit up Kendall Square’s Area Four (areafour.com) for coffee and pastries by day and sophisticated (but not finicky) pizza by night. The pie crust is based on a sourdough starter instead of commercial yeast, and “we hand-make our wholemilk mozzarella every day,” says chef Michael Leviton, a six-time James Beard award nominee. “So even our basic margherita isn’t so basic.” One of Leviton’s most creative pizzas is the clam and Niman Ranch bacon, which is also available at his new Somerville outpost, A4 (445 Somerville Avenue; +1 617 764 4190). He suggests pairing it with his favourite brew, an ESB ale, but says“I would drink it with pretty much anything.” FROM TOP: ADAM GESUERO OF IMAGE CONSCIOUS STUDIOS; ANTHONY TIEULI, MICHAEL PIAZZA 40 departures-international.com CONTACT PLATINUM CARD SERVICE FOR BOOKINGS
HEAVEN ON A BUN Craigie on main HYPER-LOCAVORE Bondir Dining at the 28-seat Bondir (bondircambridge. com) is an event. First a small hors d’oeuvre arrives. “Maybe a warm panna cotta and a vegetable leather,” says chef Jason Bond. Next up: soup and bread. The first course is mostly cold vegetables, while the second is something warm, often shellfish. The main course could range from fish (“Fishermen text us in the morning to tell us what they’ve got,” says Bond) to short ribs. An intermezzo – perhaps a herb sorbet – comes before a seasonal dessert. Bond recently opened an outpost in Concord (bondirconcord.com). Bondir’s braised Con cord chicken and pullet egg; the Craigie on Main burger (right) Chef Tony Maws sends only 18 burgers out of his Kendall Square kitchen at Craigie on Main each night to a lucky few sidled up to the bar. For the patties, three cuts of beef are ground with suet and bone marrow and mixed with a dehydrated miso powder, then cooked in a temperature- and moisturecontrolled CVap oven and on a 900-degree plancha. When tomatoes are ripe, they’re on top, along with Shelburne Farm cheddar, lettuce and onions. Further accessories include house-made ketchup, red-winevinegar pickles, a celery-root slaw and crispy steak fries. craigieonmain.com CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: SAM KAPLAN; JAMES LEIGHTON; KRISTIN TEIG; MICHAEL PIAZZA. MAP: QUICKHONEY CAMBRIDGE GUIDE 1 A4 Pizza Bar 2 Puritan & Company 3 Bondir 4 Hungry Mother 5 West Bridge 6 Toscanini’s 7 Craigie on Main 8 Area Four Beacon St Broadway The bar at West Bridge 1 Mass. Ave 3 2 8 5 6 7 4 Cambridge St Memorial Dr McGrath Hwy A STUDY IN CAPE COD CUISINE West bridge Chef Matthew Gaudet grew up in local farm country, but his French-inspired New England cooking at West Bridge is more reflective of his stints at New York spots such as Eleven Madison Park. His seafood potage – with clams and grilled toast – is a key dish on the menu. “It has briny Atlantic flavours that get creamy, Frenchified and finished with uni butter,” Gaudet says. The duck egg in a jar is another must-order. westbridgerestaurant.com SWEET STOP Toscanini’s At the iconic Toscanini’s, which opened in Central Square in 1981, owner Gus Rancatore, a local legend who once worked for Boston’s godfather of modern ice cream, Steve Herrell, approaches ice cream as if he’s wearing a lab coat, experimenting with unique concoctions such as Earl Grey, Salty Saffron or 3 Drunk Musketeers (a boozy, creamy blend featuring Baileys, bourbon and embedded chunks of 3 Musketeers). The shop has about 60 core flavours of ice cream, sorbet and yogurt, with 40 flavours in rotation at any given time. tosci.com Toscanini’s Best of Boston Strawberry and Burnt Caramel ice creams For more brainy food in and around Yale’s New Haven Campus, go online DEPARTURES-INTERNATIONAL.COM departures-international.com 41
