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Feeding Frenzy: Restaurant L, Il Casale, & Ten Tables Cambridge

There are at least three good reasons to be out and about in the winter snow: 1) Marc Orfaly has re-imagined and re-opened Restaurant L at Louis Boston. In its latest incarnation, it’s a daytime and after-work spot, with food and drink flowing from lunch until store closing time; 2) chef Dante deMagistris and his two brothers are opening Il Casale in Belmont Center. The 130-seat restaurant will have a rustic Italian countryside menu; its name means “The Farmhouse”; 3) and Ten Tables in Jamaica Plain is launching its sibling, Ten Tables Cambridge, this month. “Maybe we should call ourselves ‘supersized Ten Tables,’ ” jokes chef-owner Dave Punch. The eternally packed neighborhood bistro “maxed out about two years ago,” Punch says. “My partner Krista Kranyak and I were fed up with answering the phone and having to say ‘no’ to so many people every night.” The two went over to look at the former Craigie Street Bistrot space (an only-slightly-larger postage stamp than the JP venue) and proclaimed it “perfect.” Punch will be at the new restaurant six nights a week through the opening shakedown and then will be running back and forth between the two. “I live in Brighton, eight minutes in either direction, and can blast between the two, working with my amazing, great staff,” he notes. Punch calls his staff a dream team: they’ve worked at many of the best restaurants in the area, including L’Espalier, Craigie Street, and Straight Wharf on Nantucket. “We ran our JP place for two years without a sous-chef, and we couldn’t meet the demand,” he says. “Here’s what I’ve learned since then: push your ego to the side, get great people to help you, and don’t stand in their way.” Punch says the food at the new Ten Tables will be the same as at the JP location: “Fancy-schmancy American bistro food at affordable neighborhood prices.” But with a slightly larger kitchen, the menu will expand a tad. “Maybe we’ll have six appetizers and six entrées. Maybe not. My goal is to have the best steak frites in the city and top out all our entrées under $30.”

Feeding Frenzy, October 7, 2008

Good news for public market fans. The Massachusetts Legislature has approved $10 million for a Boston Public Market that will be a hub for locally produced foods from across the region. Governor Deval Patrick, a major foodie himself, signed the bill, which allocates money to plan and build the market. In a simultaneous and supporting development, the Boston Redevelopment Authority funded a companion initiative to locate the market in Boston. My personal thanks to all those private citizens, members of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau, and legislators who worked long and hard so Boston will have a year-round indoor farmers’ market.

Third Time's a Charm

After years of searching for just the right space, Chuck Draghi returns with Erbaluce

Sea Change: Indian cuisine goes Coastal in Brookline

Indian cuisine goes Coastal in Brookline

When I finally sat down with a map, I didn’t know why I’d been surprised when restaurant entrepreneur Vik Kapoor of Harvard Square’s Tamarind Bay first floated the notion of a new venture specializing in Indian seafood. But it had seemed so odd to me at first. My mind was so firmly attached to a meat-and veggie-based Indian cuisine of goshts and murghs, and my idea of seafood so focused on things from Maine grilled with lemon and butter, that it didn’t compute. What would Kapoor serve, other than really good shrimp curry?

Spanish lessons

Up in smoke

Fashion plates