Peking Chicken and Pot Pie at Towne Stove and Spirits

Jasper White and Lydia Shire are among the most influential celebrity chefs to have made their names in Boston. They worked together long before they began opening their own restaurants, and Towne Stove and Spirits (900 Boylston Street, Boston, 617.247.0400) represents a long-planned renewal of their collaboration - an ambitious, large-scale showcase of a restaurant in the Hynes Convention Center. The space is imposing, with a flashy street-facing first-floor bar, a cozier one tucked behind it, and an enormous, high-ceilinged second-floor dining room with its own bar and sleek modern finishes: leather, mirrors, and monumental windows overlooking an 80-seat patio.

The huge, gleaming open kitchen can serve a thousand customers a night, turning out a menu that looks about two-thirds Lydia (with her signature multi-cultural flatbreads and bold-flavored, wood-fired steaks and chops) and one-third Jasper (with his famed profusion of New England shore foods, notably Maine lobster, oysters, and clams). An army of veteran servers delivers these - plus an impressive roster of craft cocktails, globetrotting wines, American beers, and extraordinary, cliché-free desserts - with charm and aplomb. Elaborate care in preparation shows up in small details, starting with typically extraordinary Shire flatbreads, croissant-like Cipriani rolls, and fine dips of roasted eggplant and cod-roe taramosalata. A garden tomato salad ($15) features tomatoes at their seasonal peak of ripeness and flavor and phenomenal burrata dusted with crushed pistachios arrayed around perfect microgreens, all good enough to make one overlook the plate's under-ripe peaches.

More painstaking preparation goes into an entrée of Peking chicken and pot pie ($31), for which a half chicken is soaked, hung to dry for a day, and given a coat of sugary lacquer. Roasting over a wood fire turns its skin a gorgeous, burnished mahogany. The diner eats the ultra-crisp, crackly skin and dips the tender, succulent breast and thigh meat in a bowl of five-spice-seasoned salt. Accompaniments include sautéed Asian greens and a disk of pastry crust filled with a vinegary/sweet bok choy slaw, making this a rare entrée here that needs no added side dishes. It's a clever, original take on Beijing duck, lean and sprightly, showing the chefs' penchant for working stellar local ingredients into preparations inspired by China, India, Russia, Italy, France, and Spain. It may have taken almost 30 years to get back together, but Shire's and White's grand new venture manages to feel both celebratory and relaxed, hitting diners high and low with both refinement and crowd-pleasing comfort. It sure looks to have been worth the wait.