(FROM TOP) ©HUGE GALDONES PHOTOGRAPHY; ©DAVID MA
Different for the sake of different is no reason to be different of squid ink batard served with smoked seaweed butter. It’s been a decade since Tim and Nancy Cushman opened o ya (9 East St., 617.654.9900), a Zen-like Japanese restaurant in an old firehouse, a few blocks away from South Station, but the influence of their picture perfect, ingredient-centric small plates is ongoing. Cushman’s carefully constructed dishes—black sea bass tartare, torched local swordfish belly, avocado tempura, roasted beet sashimi, kushiyaki of strip loin with maple soy—are like a gallery of miniature paintings, each lovelier than the next. Tim plays at chef, while Nancy is the city’s first sake sommelier; both understand that we eat with our eyes as much as our palates. Where does tradition fit into the modern kitchen? Chef/partners Michael Lombardi and Kevin O’Donnell refuse to cut culinary corners at their Venetian bacaro SRV (Serene Republic of Venice) (569 Columbus Ave., 617.536.9500). They mill the flour to make their own pastas. Risotto is cooked to order. Polenta is slow simmered, the old fashioned way. More importantly, Lombardi and O’Donnell enthusiastically embrace the Italian gastronomic ethos that less is more. From whipped baccala mantecato and tender pork and beef polpette meatballs to snailshaped lumache pasta tossed with snails, shrimp, mussels, and vermouth, and a stew of striped bass in savory broth, these guys leave their egos in the kitchen and let the ingredients take center stage. Perhaps reincarnation can explain chefs who master a foreign cuisine so thoroughly that they make it their own. Ana Sortun (Oleana) acolyte Cassie Piuma follows in her mentor’s footsteps at Sarma (249 Pearl St., Somerville, 617.764.4464), Somerville’s Winter Hill neighborhood hotspot, which dishes up Eastern Mediterranean meze small plates designed to be shared. With ingenuity and intuition, precision and passion, Piuma uses New England foodstuffs to create riffs on Near Eastern
classics—crab and red lentil kibbe, scallop grape leaves, kohlrabi fritters, lamb kofta sliders, brisket shawarma, shrimp tagine. It’s what a Turkish usta sef (master chef) might make if she (or he) lived in Boston. And then there’s something exhilaratingly liberating when chefs have both the cheekiness and the checkbook to do whatever the hell they want, naysayers be damned. Enter James Beard awardwinning chefs Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette and what they do at Central Square’s Little Donkey (505 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617.945.1008) with a menu that’s defiantly global gaga featuring small plates that travel from New Jersey to New Delhi and other parts unknown: matzo ball ramen, halibut biryani, lamb bacon BLT lettuce wraps, Istanbul meat ravioli, and snapper nachos. It’s an everchanging gustatory adventure that boasts more hits than misses. But for many restaurateurs, adventurousness doesn’t come easy. In the highly competitive Boston food world, steamed mussels, steak frites, Margherita pizza, and a burger on the menu can pay the rent. “Different for the sake of different is no reason to be different,“ cautions consultant Doyle. “You need to be confident in the fact that you can get people to reach a little bit, that you can do something different, and that you can take people a little outside their safety zone—but you’ve got to do that within a business environment.”
INSPIRED
(Left) Half-shell reinvented at o ya. (From top) Perfectly crafted pizza at Waypoint; cutting-edge small plates from Little Donkey.
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