CiTy BReAk | CAMBRiDge MA
One to watch: Somerville If Cambridge is where the IT crowd and boffins reside, nextdoor neighbour Somerville is home of the fine artist, the documentary filmmaker, the festival curator. In fact, according to its mayor Joseph A Curtatone, only New York has more artists per capita than the city of Somerville. With a cosmopolitan population of 75,754 – the 17th most densely populated city in the US, behind Cambridge at No 13 – it is fast emerging as an up-and-coming area for creative and hipster types. And this is where they go: the Farmer’s Market every Wednesday on Davis Square; vintage shopping in secondhand/upcycled shops Found (255 Elm Street; foundsomerville.com) and Magpie (416 Highland Avenue; magpie-store.com); Backbar for an
vaudevillian. Diners are more diversely attired, some in vintage finery, others in jeans and sweaters – an accurate cross-section of Massachusetts’s multifarious and easy-going dress code. I reapply my starlet-red lipstick, clink my Satan’s Whiskers with my pal’s Corpse Reviver and get stuck into lubricious garlic shrimps, fiery Mexican deepfried tomato, and plump mushroom pancakes lavished with sour cream
aperitif before indulging in a five- or seven-course tasting menu at its eatery Journeyman (both 9 Sanborn Court, Union Square, backbarunion. com); Dali, the Surrealist, tapas bar brother of Cambridge’s Cuchi Cuchi (415 Washington Street), and Spoke Wine Bar (89 Holland Avenue) for cheese and charcuterie. Tourists may be spotted trying to find “the Good Will Hunting table” in Irish pub The Burren (247 Elm Street; burren.com), while a tour of the Taza Chocolate Factory is lipsmackingly good (561 Windsor Street; tazachocolate. com/tours). Also, Etsy fans take note: every Saturday from 11am to 4pm until September 21 there is an arts and craft fair on Assembly Row along the lovely river Mystic (assemblyrow.com/events).
Clockwise from above, cocktails at Backbar; art plein air; Boston Brew Tours’ Chad Brodsky at Meadhall; dinner time at Journeyman; glamourpuss staff at Cuchi Cuchi.
and caviar. Other cocktails of note on my visit include colossal Dirty Martinis at The Ritz-Carlton Boston Common (10 Avery Street, Boston; ritzcarlton.com), the ginbased Ruby Rose at whiskey bar Saloon (255 Elm Street, Somerville; saloondavis.com) and concoctions so bespoke at Drink (348 Congress Street, Boston; drinkfortpoint. com), there’s no menu – just tell the bartender your gustatory needs et voilá. If craft beer is more your thing, look no further than the Boston Brew Tours (+1 617 453 8687, bostonbrewtours.com. $86, including transport, lunch and approximately 18 beers). Owner Chad Brodsky collects us in his people carrier, aka The Beer Bus, and explains why artisan hooch is having a moment. “Prior to Prohibition, Boston was
the epicentre of beer in America, with 31 breweries,” he says. “In the mid-1980s, Sam Adams and Harpoon Brewery re-emerged, and today there is a beer renaissance – nanobreweries, brew pubs, craft beer bars happening in the Greater Boston and Cambridge area. “This revival, combined with an increasing number of visitors to the city – and a Bostonian’s affinity to drink – provided us the perfect conditions for Boston Brew Tours.” And so we head towards the steam-towered, blue-collar topography of Jamaica Plain, to join a group tour at Samuel Adams brewery to learn about the manufacturing process before sampling different varieties in a fun, informative tasting session for beer fanciers. Then on to Cambridge’s Meadhall for lunch (4 Cambridge
uctor SCREEN IDOL Fans of John Williams – a cond hony Symp n laureate of the Boston Pops – listen up: Bosto Orchestra’s Spring Pops season is dedicating Film Nights to his outstanding cinematic oeuvre on rg. June 7, 8, 11 and 12 at the Symphony Hall; bso.o
80 |
June 2013