Boston has definitely proven to be a culinary force to be reckoned with! This week Esquire Magazine released its list of the Best New Restaurants of 2011.... and Boston snagged three spots in the top 20, plus a noteworthy honoree.
Legal Harborside, Town Stove and Spirits, and Tico were all in the top 20. Bondir in Cambridge was a noteworthy honoree listed as a “New Restaurant Not to Miss.”
It is a foodie’s dream to have all this deliciousness at our fingertips. The only question now is which to try first?
Have travel plans coming up? Well then try some of the best in other states. Check out the Best New Restaurants of 2011 list below:
THE BEST NEW RESTAURANTS OF 2011 (alphabetically by city):
Austin, TX
Congress – A city as youthful, modern, and powerful as Austin has long needed the kind of fine-dining restaurant Rick Perry can brag about. Chef David Bull is no fanatical locavore, but he draws on the huge Texas cornucopia to create dishes like grilled sweetbreads with smoked poppy seeds in buttermilk crema, and beef tartare with fried oysters and truffles.
Boston, MA
Legal Harborside – The rescue of the Boston waterfront from decrepitude now has an anchor: the three-story Legal Harborside at Liberty Wharf. The first level is simply a swankier version of the other 31 Legal Sea Foods houses – fish and chips, that kind of thing – but the elegant second floor is something way up the food chain.
Tico – In a big room of mismatched tables and a bar stocked with 124 different tequilas, chef Michael Schlow offers plates meant to be shared, which you will have a tough time doing when the sweet corn with bacon, chiles and basil arrives.
Towne Stove and Spirits – Two of the most important ingredients in any great restaurant are a passion for the project and attention to detail. Lifelong Bostonian Lydia Shire, chef at Towne, has plenty of both. Here are a few things she loves about her new place: the grand staircase, the bars (all three of them), the plates, and the lobster popover.
Chicago, IL
Chicago Cut Steakhouse – At Chicago Cut, two veterans of the steakhouse wars, David Flom and Matthew Moore, are doing something different. They buy great USDA Prime, they hired their own butcher, and they built their own dry-aging meat locker. Then, for the nonsteak dishes – usually an afterthought at most steakhouses – they brought in Chicago chef Jackie Shen to add items no other steakhouse in town is attempting, like Great Lakes whitefish with a clam vin blanc sauce and her signature dessert, the “Chocolate Bag,” filled with white-chocolate mousse and berries.
Glenwood Springs, CO
The Pullman – A casual restaurant that sums up everything good about American omnivorism right now. Chef-owner Mark Fischer has come up with a menu on which there’s nothing you won’t want to try, including bacon beignets with a maple crema; pierogi with caramelized onions, truffled potato, and scallion crème fraiche; and Colorado lamb shoulder with lemon risotto and mint-almond gremolata. And the whoopie pie with cola ice cream.
Los Angeles, CA
Ray’s & Stark Bar – Part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ray’s Stark & Bar (designed by Renzo Piano) is a slick production itself: Three glass sides face the museum across the plaza, and everywhere you look are lipstick-red seats. Chef Kris Morningstar puts a bright so-Cal spin on his food with more flair than anyone this decade. It’s food with a frisky panache, clean tastes in splashes of color, as sensuously sunny as a David Hockney pool painting.
Sotto – Sotto is a pretension-free room of rough wood, old caged light bulbs, and an open kitchen. Back there work Steve Samson and Zach Pollack. Neither chef is full-blooded Italian-American, and for that they are doubly admirable for getting so close to the heart of southern Italian cooking. Their repertoire is culled from Puglia, Abruzzi, Campania, and Calabria, which becomes obvious upon your first bite of the roast friarelli peppers.
Miami Beach, FL
1500° – The management of the restored Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel wanted a first-rate steakhouse, but by hiring Brazilian-born chef Paula DaSilva they also gave the city its best new restaurant of any kind in years. DaSilva embraces the bounty of Florida farms and waters, so start off with a ceviche of local wahoo with peppers and onions. For a steak, go with the Brazilian cut of prime sirloin called picanha, which has a fat cap that melts over the muscle as it cooks, suffusing it with flavor.
New Orleans, LA
Dominique’s on Magazine – Only this year can you feel that the rollicking spirit of New Orleans has been restored after Hurricane Katrina, and nowhere is it more evident than in the restaurants like Dominique’s on Magazine that have opened and thrown light into dark neighborhoods. Chef Dominique Macquet is cooking at a personal-best level attempted too rarely in tradition-bound New Orleans. Flavors from memories of his childhood in Mauritius and his French training coalesce on a menu built almost entirely on Louisiana ingredients.
New York, NY
Ai Fiori – Chef Michael White is one of the finest interpreters of Italian food in America – this from a kid born in Wisconsin – and at the posh new Ai Fiori, he sums up everything he learned on long stints in Italy and the South of France, and adds a little bit of Wisconsin.
Boulud Sud – Any chef can have ideas, but Chef Daniel Boulud’s inspirations are deeply personal and thus recognizably his, and that makes them exciting. He proves this at all of his restaurants from the ultradeluxe Daniel, to DBGB, where he elevates sausage to new heights. What’s left to prove? That he is also one of the canniest interpreters of Provençal and Mediterranean food outside of Marseilles and Marrakesh, and he does just that at Boulud Sud.
Lincoln Ristorante – Part of Lincoln Center’s grand restoration, Lincoln is a glittering wedge of glass suspended above the clamor of Manhattan street life, where chef Jonathan Benno creates vivid interpretations of la cucina italiana moderna. The menu changes every night, but recently, his terrine of octopus and pork belly, played off the tanginess of pickled vegetables, dazzled.
Millesime – Not since the opening of Balthazar in 1997 has New York seen a true brasserie like the enchanting Millesime, which exalts classic French seafood, but with an added American flair from chef Laurent Manrique.
Salinas – A casual place with a patio out back and a tapas bar up front, Salinas offers a menu that begins with slices of salty-sweet jamón Iberico, moves on to rosejat rápida – crispy noodles, chicken breast, chorizo, and cockles with saffron aioli – and culminates with porcella, a meltingly soft suckling pig with grilled peaches and a PX sherry reduction.
San Francisco, CA
Cotogna – Chef Michael Tusk’s Cotogna is both rustic and downright chummy. Every bottle on the wine list is just $40, and the three-course fixed-price menu runs $24. The pastas are all radiant, from the most delicate fagotelli with ricotta and flowering blossoms to the triangoli with corn and chives.
Washington, D.C
Fiola – “I want to leave a part of Italian cuisine untouched and the other part a personal interpretation,” said chef Fabio Trabocchi of his ambitions in the kitchen. At Fiola, he has gone retro, infusing classic Italian dishes with his own sense of the sublime.
ANOTHER EIGHT NEW RESTAURANTS NOT TO MISS:
Bondir – Cambridge, MA
Citizen Public House – Scottsdale, AZ
El Rey – Houston, TX
Husk – Charleston, SC
Lucia – Dallas, TX
Lyon – New York, NY
Manzo – New York, NY
Virtue Feed & Grain – Alexandria, VA
$20 off the royal peek
