Out in the Great Wide Open
Used to be, the organized chaos of a restaurant kitchen was a tucked-away affair, hidden from the view of a paying public who preferred to dine far away from hot burners and splattering grease, thankyouverymuch. If you wanted to see your food being cooked, you’d have to go to a sushi bar or a shrimp-flinging Japanese steakhouse.
These days, many of the city’s top restaurants prepare their food in full view of the folks who’ll be eating it. Chefs and their knife skills practices are on full display at upscale eateries like Craigie on Main, B&G Oysters, Sportello, Scampo, and Ten Tables in JP (which is expanding to include a bar in December). The seats closest to the action are often the most coveted.
Used to be, the organized chaos of a restaurant kitchen was a tucked-away affair, hidden from the view of a paying public who preferred to dine far away from hot burners and splattering grease, thankyouverymuch. If you wanted to see your food being cooked, you’d have to go to a sushi bar or a shrimp-flinging Japanese steakhouse.
These days, many of the city’s top restaurants prepare their food in full view of the folks who’ll be eating it. Chefs and their knife skills practices are on full display at upscale eateries like Craigie on Main, B&G Oysters, Sportello, Scampo, and Ten Tables in JP (which is expanding to include a bar in December). The seats closest to the action are often the most coveted.

The theater district has a new show in town:
The best things in life are free—especially when they come with cocktails. Lucky for us, lots of local boites are are serving complimentary bar snacks for imbibers to nibble while they drink. Never again will our budget force us to choose between another glass of Pinot and a bite to eat. Here are some of our current—and free!—faves.

The truth is,
This fall, many restaurants have put together sumptuous, multi-course fixed-price dinners at relatively minuscule price points. Feast your eyes (and stomach) on these.
For a chef coming on board at an existing restaurant, injecting one’s personal style into a restaurant while still keeping the heart of the operation can be a tricky business. But by maintaining the South American-French fusion concept while adding a few twists (like a raw bar) to J.P. favorite Bon Savor, it seems that Marco Suarez, formerly executive chef at Eastern Standard, might have done the near impossible.
Kids have it easy. Do they worry about the recession? Global warming? Baseball players running for office? Nope. It’s no wonder, then, that the foods we used to see in our school lunch boxes are popping up on area menus—a throwback to the days when dodgeball and recess were our two biggest concerns. 






