Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
earthy tea-smoked portabella mushroom
is paired with zingy caper potato salad. Not
surprisingly, it's a menu full of global
accents, especially from countries like
India and Japan where the traditional cui-
sines use meat and dairy only sparingly, if
at all.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the
menu is the desserts, which are full of ice
creams (how do they do that without
dairy?) and chocolate cake (how do they
do that without wheat?). To fulfill the sec-
ond half of the restaurant's name, there's
a full list of biodynamic wines offered,
from top organic vineyards all over the
world, although the wine list gets serious
competition from the glorious menu of
juices and smoothies.
There's a sort of Japanese look to the
spare, sleek dining room, with red wall
panels and upholstered chairs comple-
menting the warm lacquered wood of
walls, tables, and bare floor. The glamour
quotient among the clientele is fairly
high—oh, if only raw food could make us
all look this thin and beautiful! Located
along a trendy strip of restaurants just
south of Gramercy Park, it's definitely a
hot spot. It just doesn't get any hotter than
118°F.
54 Irving Plaza (
&
212/477-1010;
www.purefoodandwine.com).
(
John F. Kennedy International (15
miles/24km); Newark Liberty International
(16 miles/27km); LaGuardia (8 miles/
13km).
L
$$$
Carlton Hotel on Madison
Avenue,
88 Madison Ave. (
&
212/532-
4100;
www.carltonhotelny.com). $$
Washington Square Hotel,
103 Waverly
Place (
&
800/222-0418
or 212/777-9515;
www.washingtonsquarehotel.com).
American Regional Stars
153
No. 9 Park Street
Boston Uncommon
Boston, Massachusetts
It's not all baked beans, lobster, and chow-
der in Boston anymore, and Barbara Lynch
is one of the big reasons why. When she
first opened this simple, chic restaurant in
1998 in a neoclassical 1803 Beacon Hill
townhouse overlooking Boston Common,
it promptly filled an important niche in
Boston's dining scene. On the one end,
there were upscale French restaurants like
Jasper's (Jasper White) and L'Espalier
(Frank McClelland); at the other were
hearty casual bistros like Hamersley's Bis-
tro (Gordon Hamersley) in the South End,
and Olives (Todd English) out in Charles-
town. Lynch's classy mix of Italian and
French cuisine, featuring fresh local ingre-
dients and regional boutique wines, slot-
ted right in the middle and scored an
immediate smash hit.
Although Lynch apprenticed with many
of Boston's top cooks, including a stint
under Todd English at Olives, a period of
living in Italy was what really transformed
her cooking. There she learned pasta-
making firsthand from Italian farmhouse
cooks, and developed a love of artisanal
products. Luckily when she returned to
New England the region's artisanal food
producers were beginning to hit their
stride, and Lynch herself has been a huge
booster of her local suppliers.
Lynch's menus feature strong, distinct
flavors, as in one of her signature dishes,
the beet salad appetizer—an upended
cylinder of shredded vegetables atop blue
cheese, surrounded by mesclun greens. A
vivid starter of heirloom tomatoes keeps
the focus on the tomatoes themselves,
