Stuff Boston

The Last Suppers

It’s one of the most common questions asked of chefs: what would you choose to eat for your final meal? We wanted to know too, so we took the idea a few steps further and rounded up seven of Boston’s most acclaimed chefs to actually cook — and eat — their hypothetical last meals.

The long wooden table is set with simple white dishes and empty wine glasses. The ambience is warm, inviting, almost regal, with wall shelves stocked with bottles of reds, whites, and Champagne. The disciples have been replaced by a veritable who’s who of Boston chefs: Todd English (Olives, Bonfire, Kingfish Hall, and others); Jamie Bissonnette (Toro); Michael Schlow (Radius, Via Matta, Great Bay); Jeremy Sewall (Lineage); Chris Douglass (Icarus, Ashmont Grill, Tavolo); Tony Susi (Sage); and Andy Husbands (Tremont 647). The table is not at Mount Zion, but instead the private dining room of Bonfire, where chef/owner English has opened up his kitchen to let some of the city’s most creative epicures prepare and share what they would create as their last meals on Earth. The food coming from the kitchen is as eclectic as the men preparing it, ranging from classic Italian (spaghetti, bruschetta, and arugula salad from Schlow; potato gnocchi with rabbit and mushroom braise from Susi) to a decadence-and-comfort combination (Southern-style fried chicken and waffles, plus caviar on petite egg sandwiches with Dom Perignon to wash it all down, courtesy of English).

Sibling non-rivalries: Family food without the family feud

Family food doesn’t necessarily lead to family feuds

Out of the Box Evening

Good News for those with social ADD: Boston’s nightlife isn’t restricted to barstools, banquettes, and club corners anymore. Lately, we’ve been seeing an onslaught of events happening in unexpected places: bookstores, museums, liquor stores, theater lobbies. Read on for some refreshing alternatives to your regular dine-drink-dance nights out.

Ain't No Party Like a Hotel Party

Boston's hotel bars are heating things up and packing 'em in 

On a recent Friday night, the crowd waiting to get into the Liberty Hotel (215 Charles Street, Boston, 617.224.4000) was about 30 well-dressed people deep. Inside, diners, drinkers, revelers, and presumably some actual hotel guests swarmed the lobby. It was a typical weekend night at the Liberty, the holding-cell-turned-hotspot that emerged on the local nightlife map just over a year ago. And the momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

The idea of hotel bars used to conjure up two starkly different — yet similarly unsexy — images. Images, on the one hand, of dark rooms awash in mahogany and filled with a sea of suits and power politicians drinking $20 martinis; images synonymous with private men’s clubs, low on fun and high on pretense. And on the other, images of sparsely filled barstools where traveling businessmen sat killing time between meetings.

But for Boston, that stereotype has been steadily shifting as hotel bars shape themselves as destinations — places where locals go after work and on weekends to take in the scene and a few well-mixed cocktails.