The Heights Food Guide 2015

DREW HOO / PHOTO EDITOR | BRECK WILLS / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

THE HEIGHTS

C2

Thursday, November 5, 2015

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oston is famous for its sports teams and colonial history, but one lesser known ingredient of the city’s character is its food. For most Boston College students, a knowledge of Beantown’s cuisine doesn’t extend much farther than Cleveland Circle or the Chestnut Hill Mall. Last year, The Heights took on the Boston’s best bites by neighborhood to inspire a trip into the city. This year, we are stirring the pot. For our second-annual Boston Food Guide, we navigated the city by cuisine—from family-style kitchens to local craft breweries. Check out our coverage of the variety of dining experiences Boston has to offer.

family style

In the North End, a family affair

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ARCHER PARQUETTE HEIGHTS EDITOR

aulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico), Artie Bucco (John Ventimiglia), Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero (Vincent Pastore), and other members of The Sopranos cast walked the streets of Boston’s North End on May 29, 2003, gathering around a brick building on a crowded Hanover St. Nick Varano, the son of Italian immigrants, had just taken a leap of faith. After operating a small used-car dealership, he decided to buy an Italian restaurant in the North End. Strega, his first restaurant, was a 50-person establishment in the heart of the historic Italian neighborhood. Entering a difficult business in an increasingly uncertain market, no one knew quite what to expect. But after Nick successfully managed to contact cast members from the most exciting hit show of the early millennium and bring them to his opening, it became clear that Strega was going to be something big. The next day, The Boston Herald ran a front-page story about the star-studded grand opening, and an essential North End Restaurant was born.

Five years after the opening of Strega, Varano opened another restaurant, “Nico,” named after his son (CSOM ’16). Originally conceived as a disco-themed restaurant where a customer could step in, grab some food, and hang around for a while, Nico faced slow-moving tables. Customers would order one item and remain at their tables all night, leading to low turnover and a need for change. In response, Nico was reinvented as an intimate, high-end restaurant open for private parties. With a new focus on romantic as well as friendly dining, Nico grew to reach the same exceptional levels of success that have come to be expected from Nick Varano’s restaurants.

Running a restaurant is a daunting business, especially with little prior experience. But Varano was confident in his methods. He entered into the business with the idea that in order to run a successful restaurant, you have to provide excellent service and hospitality to each client.

“You treat people a certain way,” he said. “You treat people the way you want to be treated. Then you’ll be successful ... You treat everybody like they’re really coming into your own home.”

This method certainly proved to be successful, with Strega, and in turn Nico, growing to be prominent high-end restaurants in Boston. Varano attributes much of this growth to a “Snowball Effect,” as he calls it: excellent customer service leading to increased interest; satisfied, returning diners; and a devoted customer base. In the years since the opening of Strega, Nick Varano has opened five more restaurants under the title “The Varano Group,” including a pizzeria and cafe.

Nico and Strega, both just a block apart on Hanover St., are in the heart of the constantly-bustling North End. “The best inner-city neighborhood, I think, in the country,” Varano said. In this dynamic, iconic neighborhood it can prove difficult for a restaurant to distinguish itself, but Varano has managed to do this by applying his customer-first policy and providing high-quality food.

The two restaurants offer different atmospheres for a night out. Strega is more lively and lined with TV’s broadcasting classic Italian films and shows such as The Sopranos, or sports on game nights. Nico is quieter and more relaxing, with an understated but vibrant decor, a place to take a date or bring some friends for some dinner and conversation. Both restaurants exude a welcoming warmth, an Italian love

DREW HOO / HEIGHTS EDITOR

and hospitality.

Both Nico and Strega have similar, classic Italian specialties. The most popular appetizer is a large meatball, covered in sauce and sprinkled with cheese. They also offer, scallops, salads, Italian dishes of many kinds, and of course a variety of delicious pastas in large portions. Each dish is perfectly presented and has obviously been cared for to become a luxurious, savory meal.

After your meal, Nico and Strega both offer decadent desserts, including tiramisu, pumpkin cheesecake, and a deservedly-praised chocolate mousse. Whether you normally order dessert or not, you should definitely sample something from this menu—it will be one of the best desserts you’ve ever had.

Alongside the food, these restaurants provide excellent service. Varano explained that one of the ways to stand out in a neighborhood saturated with high-quality restaurants is to provide excellent service and create the ideal atmosphere. Both Nico and Strega succeed in this mission, truly making the customer feel like the center of attention for their time there. The wait staff is knowledgeable and friendly and makes the customer feel very important.

Due to the delicious food and welcoming, dutiful staff, both restaurants have also frequently been home to various celebrities, including athletes and movie stars such as Robert de Niro, that have garnered the restaurant even more attention. One of the draws of these popular restaurants is the knowledge that you never know who you might see when you stop by for dinner. Past guests have included David Ortiz and Kevin Miller, both Red Sox stars who dined at these restaurants frequently, increasing the buzz that surrounds them.

Nico, Nick’s son, who has worked at the Varano Group restaurants in various roles including bus boy and valet, attributes both restaurants’ ongoing success to his father’s dynamic personality.

“My dad really built the restaurant based off his own personality,” Nico Varano said. “If he didn’t care so much about the business there’s multiple points where the business could have gone off the tracks, but thanks to his guidance and how he’s led his staff, I think it really worked out well.”

Nico considered how much his father cares about the customer and ensuring that every diner has a good time to be the “secret ingredient for the restaurant’s success.”

Varano, on the other hand, deflected the credit onto those around him, saying, “I give all the credit, honestly all the credit, to my amazing, amazing staff.”

Despite his modesty, it is clear that Varano has achieved great things in the restaurant business, making his first leap of faith a resounding success.

Twelve years have passed since the opening of Strega, and the business continues to expand without losing its customer-focused hospitality.

In a neighborhood that creates an experience like no other, Nick Varano has managed to bring a new experience to dining, and has proven how far one can go with an understanding of how people should be treated.

“Be entertaining,” he said. “Give them an experience when they come to get dinner … that means making everyone feel special.”

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, November 5, 2015

C3

coffee shops

Coffee,

straight up Barrington Coffee Roasting Company stirs up Newbury St. CAROLYN FREEMAN HEIGHTS EDITOR

how to ace

coffee shops ARIELLE CEDENO HEIGHTS EDITOR The independent coffee shop is contested terrain, and can only be navigated successfully with a delicate combination of street smarts, courage, wit, and a little pretension, for good measure. Those embarking on this caffeinated journey unprepared will surely fall by the wayside, dooming themselves with the first utterance of “venti macchiato” at the barista’s counter. Here’s a how-to for properly navigating this hipster mainstay, as told by the inhabitants of your local Norah Jones/John Mellencamp-playing, Stumptown-serving coffee shop.

The Hopeful Screenwriter: Settle into a comfortable spot in the corner, next to an outlet, so your stream-of-conscious genius is not stunted by a low computer battery. Try not to laugh at the hilarity and wit of your own script.

The Undergraduate English Major: Order two shots of espresso and add your own milk, because your latte is never quite strong enough and that poetry paper you haven’t started is due tomorrow.

The Distraught Doctoral Candidate: Even though that third shot of espresso may seem like a good idea, opt instead for a calming hot tea—try chamomile. Too much caffeine will only add to your stress.

The Next Great American Novelist: Sit by the window so that you can look wistfully at nothing in particular. Be sure to get your own table—the typewriter takes up a lot of space. Espresso and cigarettes only.

The Loud Phone-Talker: If you cannot use your inside voice, take your call outside. And, whatever you do, do not try to order your drink while also on the phone.

The Basic: Tall, Grande, and Venti are not actual measurements for drinks here, so be sure to consult the menu before ordering your flavored latte. (No, they do not carry pumpkin spice.) Act cool when the barista hands you a drink with some cool latte art. Be discreet when taking that Instagram. Snapchat at your own risk.

The Finance Interviewee: Order a cold-brew iced coffee, so that you look like you know what you’re doing, even though you’ve never heard of this coffee shop and are the only one wearing a suit within a 5-mile radius. Don’t sit by the Next Great American Novelist, because he hates capitalism and keeps shooting you a glare.

The Casual Coffee Daters: Try and sit in a secluded area in the back of the coffee shop because your awkward small talk is not only distracting the Distraught Doctoral Candidate from writing his thesis but is also making everyone else uncomfortable.

The Milk Snob: No, this establishment does not carry hemp milk. This is Boston—not Williamsburg. Make sure to have your own backup supply of almond milk in case of emergency, should soymilk be the only non-dairy option.

The First-Timer: Exude false confidence.

Ask the barista what her favorite drink on the menu is, and order it. Settle into a comfortable bar stool by the counter, people watch, and be conversational—you can learn a thing or two from the frequents.

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ehind the counter at Barrington Coffee Roasting Company, four clear glass tubes are filled with bubbling water and steam. The steam inside the tubes creates a vacuum seal that shoots water into coffee grounds. The combination filters through the piston to create the most consistent cup of coffee possible.

I have been to Barrington several times since it opened last December, but I’ve never ordered a cup of coffee made this way, called a Steampunk machine. It looks intimidating. The machine, the manager of the shop tells me, is likely the only one in Boston.

Any barista using it to make a cup of coffee turns into a mad scientist. The manager, Teegan Jansen, poked at a tablet screen as steam billowed in the tubes in front of her. I stand back.

“It’s a thing to watch,” she said.

The machine is controlled by a tablet programmed with recipes.

To make any cup of coffee, the barista simply presses a button that sets the machine to a specified temperature. The machine can also control for grind, amount of coffee, and agitation. Jansen and I tried Kemgin, her favorite. She presses a button on the screen, and sets the machine to 190 degrees.

The coffee came out more transparent than any brew I’ve seen before, and tasted different, too—more fruity, less acidic. As the coffee cooled, the fruity notes become more pronounced, and the flavor more delicate.

At Barrington, coffee is described like wine, with distinct notes and flavors. The location I frequent, on Newbury St. is one of two, though both are in Boston. The other is at Fort Point near South Station, and has been there since December 2011.

Barrington, however, is primarily a roasting company. It started in 1993 in Great Barrington, Mass. Until the two cafe locations opened in Boston, the company only sold product primarily wholesale to coffee shops and restaurants. It focuses on single-origin coffee sourced directly from sustainable farms.

The company works hard to find f l av o r s t h at stand out, Jans en said.

They do not prov ide different flavor shots for coffee so as not to obscure the distinct tastes of the different kinds of beans . The menu is barebones, and reads more like an ingredient list than a typical coffee shop menu. There’s no mention of mocha frappuccinos, or iced caramel macchiatos.

“It’s just no-fuss coffee,” Jansen said. “You’ll see coffee, you’ll see espresso, espresso with milk, really no other frills.”

The Steampunk method of brewing coffee takes the simple product and advances it to a level not present at other shops. Barrington uses the Alpha Dominche Steampunk coffee brewer, and its industrial feel plays off the modern elements of the coffee shop.

The machine can also brew tea, though some of the available coffees are light enough to pass for tea, like the Kochere from Ethiopia. This method is such an interesting way to drink coffee, Jansen said, because the taste is so delicate, and the flavors are so clean.

Though Barrington employees tend to describe the coffees like wine—the Kochere description reads, “exquisite floral bouquet, bergamot”—Jansen acknowledges that it can be hard to access all those flavors with traditional brewing methods.

At Barrington, the company has a particular theory. If you can do it at home, why come to the cafe?

“We want to offer you something a little different than you can get at home,” she said. “If you’re going to come to us, you want an experience.”

Barrington is a place that’s easy to miss, until you know it’s there. Next to a shop boasting “eco-minded wool activewear,” it is a

few steps down from the street level. It can be hard to stand out on a street with nearly 10 other popular coffee shops, but Barrington seems to reject the coffee status quo—iced, with milk and sugar—to cater to those who want a more authentic cup.

On Newbury, it gets a lot of tourists, and a lot of Berklee students , Jansen said, while the Fort Point location tends to attract more business people. Those w h o w o r k at the shop locations tend to be young, with the majority of the employees between 18 and 35, Jansen said.

The Steampunk machine makes reli ably con sistent cups of coffee, but it takes practice to make other drinks as well.

When new baristas are training, for example, they get amped up on caffeine from having to sample every cup of espresso they make. Espresso is so finicky, Jansen said, that it’s important for new baristas to try it when they make it.

“Espresso should be a happy punch in the face,” she said. “Bad espresso, you’re gonna taste either something bitter, something astringent, something a little sour, and each one of those things will point to something that went wrong in the actual espresso process.”

When a barista makes espresso, he or she is putting 200 pounds of force through a small pack of coffee, via water. Jansen has been working with Barrington coffee for six years, and at her peak, she drank about six cups each day. When factors are controlled, like they are with the Steampunk machine, the flavors of each of those cups really shine through.

“Water is lazy, as we like to say, and coffee is changeable,” she said. “So it’s a lot to look for.”

DREW HOO / HEIGHTS EDITOR

THE HEIGHTS

C4

ask the experts

on campus “WHAT’S THE BEST BITE IN BOSTON?”

fast casual

BBQ with soul BENNET JOHNSON METRO EDITOR

Thomas Kaplan-Maxfield English Department Mistral Bistro 223 Columbus Ave, Boston “It’s a high end French restaurant downtown that’s amazingly beautiful with an elegant interior and excellent food. If you can afford the Dover Sole, by all means get it.

You won’t eat food that delicious in many places on earth.”

Celeste Wells

Communication Department The Publick House 1648 Beacon St., Brookline “The Publick House makes their mac and cheese in an iron skillet with a perfect cheese to-pasta ratio.

They have a whole host of things you can add to it if you want to move beyond the traditional but I always go with the fresh jalapenos.

The peppers definitely make it hot, but in an amazing, I-might-burnmy-mouth-off-but-I-love-it kind of way. The atmosphere is relaxing and their beer list is just plain beautiful.”

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alk into SoulFire on Harvard Ave., and you’ll feel like you are being transported to Memphis in the 1960s. The smell of authentic, slow-smoked barbecue wafts from the kitchen as classic soul music plays from the restaurant’s speakers. Red walls are filled with black-and-white photographs of iconic soul musicians. Wooden tables are decorated with red-checkered tablecloths, large rolls of napkins, and five homemade sauces. A 12-seat bar is decked out with soul album covers embedded on its surface. And you can’t miss the massive hand-painted mural of the “Tower of Power” soul band right behind the register.

The music is as much an intricate part of SoulFire as its southern-style barbecue.

The local barbecue joint has been a staple in Allston, Mass. for nearly 10 years, and has amassed a playlist containing over 3,400 songs of soul music that continually plays through the restaurant’s speakers. SoulFire provides customers with savory barbecue flavors from the Carolinas to Texas, and is serious when it comes to smoked meat—the kitchen boasts a 1,000-pound capacity smoker. The restaurant has also been featured on Food Network’s Meat and Potatoes, and opened a second location on Huntington Ave. in Boston three years ago.

“We offer everything you can get down South, and we want to keep it as authentic as we can,” Jason Tremblay, SoulFire’s pitmaster, said.

O

ver 10 years ago, SoulFire was merely an idea to Wyeth Lynch.

The Williams College graduate had been working in the technol-

John Gallaugher

Information Systems Department

Thursday, November 5, 2015

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS STAFF

ogy market research field before realizing he didn’t like his typical 9 to 5-office job. His real passion was for barbecue—and he spontaneously decided to open his own restaurant. With a love of cooking and a lifelong passion for soul music, SoulFire was born. But Lynch quickly realized that he needed a right-hand man, and was introduced to Tremblay nine years ago.

“I do the food and he does the soul,” Tremblay said jokingly.

Tremblay is responsible for many of the daily operations of the barbecue joint. But his main task as pitmaster is to smoke the meat—an intricate process that takes anywhere from 12 to 14 hours to complete. He keeps the smoker fired up with hickory wood and filled with meats smoked in a variety of styles.

On a typical day, Tremblay will receive a shipment of 36 racks of baby back ribs and 36 racks of spare ribs. Each afternoon, he puts his own homemade salt and pepper dry rub on the ribs before letting them sit out overnight. The next morning, he will put them in the smoker to cook for three-and-a-half to four hours at exactly 240 degrees, taking the ribs out to cool just before the first wave of customers rolls into the restaurant around lunchtime.

Texas-style beef brisket and North Carolina-style pulled-pork—the two remaining meats of the barbecue trifecta—are SoulFire’s most popular options and require a slightly different slow-cooking process each day.

Tremblay puts the pulled-pork in the smoker at 3 p.m. each day, and cooks the meat overnight until 8 a.m. the next morning. The brisket follows a similar path, but is put in at 8 p.m. at a lower temperature, and is smoked together with the brisket until Tremblay arrives the next morning.

“I’m not a chef of pretty foods,” he said. “I

smoke big amounts of meat.”

Although the process of smoking the meat has relatively stayed the same, barbecue can pose some unforeseeable challenges. Tremblay must constantly monitor the temperatures inside and outside of the restaurant, as exterior temperatures can alter the cooking time of the meat. Tremblay is consistently slow-cooking meat every day, and after nine years of experience, he has the process nailed down to a science. SoulFire rarely runs out of meat, and if it does, customers are out of luck. The meticulous 12-14 hour smoking process can’t be replicated.

All of the meats are accompanied by SoulFire’s five signature sauces on the side, each representing traditional sauces from various regions across the country. “Pitboss” is sweet upfront, with a peppery finish, and goes well with most menu options. “SoulFire” is designed to go on brisket with a Kansas City-style tomato base and a hint of vinegar and pepper. SoulFire’s “Fiery” sauce is based on a traditional South Carolina mustard sauce, and “N.C. Sauce” is a North Carolina cider vinegar and pepper sauce. Tremblay said that he smokes meat that has great flavor and doesn’t need sauce, but the variety of sauces are what make barbecue, barbecue.

One of SoulFire’s most popular menu items is a concoction known as the “Spaghetti Western,” which was created accidentally. The Spaghetti Western includes one scoop of SoulFire’s signature mac ’n cheese, one scoop of chili, and another scoop of mac ’n cheese with barbecue potato chips sprinkled on the top.

“People would come in here hungover and start throwing stuff in a bowl,” Tremblay said.

“We thought it made sense and decided to start selling it, and people have loved it. It’s like a full

A cut above

SARAH MOORE ASST. METRO EDITOR Economics Department

Legal Seafood, 270 Northern Avenue Liberty Warf Boston “The clam chowder at Legal Seafood comes to mind. Also, any type of roll or bread from Iggy’s in Watertown.”

Rev. Paul McNellis, S.J. Philosophy Department Thai North, 433 Faneuil St, Brighton “Boston and the suburbs has many Thai Restaurants, but this is the only one I know of that specializes in food from northern Thailand—for those who’ve been there, Chiang Mai and north. Service is good, but if you’re eating in rather than out, it’s small. That’s not a problem unless you happen by at the busy time for dinner. The pictures on the wall inside are from Wat Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai.”

I

t’s Monday afternoon at SoulFire, and customers are starting to line up for the lunchtime rush. Harvard Ave. is a bustling with commotion this time of day, and more patrons are filing through the restaurant’s doors for take-out and large catering orders. A group of Boston University students starts to devour a large rack of baby back ribs at the bar. Another pair of businessmen decked out in suits is sitting in near the window, deciding which barbecue sauce to slab on top of their pulled-pork sandwiches.

But a man in flip-flops is standing near the kitchen, staring at the large Tower of Power mural behind the register. He remains there for a few moments, admiring the mural as a song by The Temptations starts to play softly in the background. All of a sudden the man snaps back into reality as a fresh platter of smoked brisket is brought out from the kitchen.

Moments like this are what Tremblay describes as quintessential to the SoulFire experience. Some barbecue aficionados walk into the Allston restaurant craving a taste of Kansas City or North Carolina. But others that know music—real soul music—are captivated by the restaurant’s ambiance.

“At the end of the day, we’re all about the soul.”

sandwiches

Roy Moore Lobster Company, 39 Bearskin Neck, Rockport “They’ll steam a lobster for you at a bargain price, and they’ve got other snacks, too like shrimp, stuffed clams, smoked salmon bites. Take it out back and eat it sitting on a crate overlooking the harbor, or if the weather is really warm, take it to the beach or the end of the pier.

Rockport is a serious Instagram destination.”

Richard Tresch

meal. If you eat it in the winter, it’s warm, spicy, and awesome.”

As a southern-style barbecue joint, SoulFire sticks with what it knows best. The Carolina pulled-pork is its most popular option, Tremblay said, but SoulFire also sells hundreds of pounds of fried chicken each week. Other sides such as coleslaw, baked beans, and collard greens accompany the massive plates of meat.

R

achel Kelsey shifted in her bright orange chair. She re-crossed her legs and re-adjusted her patterned headband as she searched for an answer. The sounds of clinking dishes being washed and the opening and closing cabinets provided a hectic ambiance for an interview, but that wasn’t what seemed to faze her.

“When we took off? It was all a blur,” Kelsey said, laughing. “Sorry, I can only think of everything based off of when I had my children—but I know I was definitely pregnant then!”

Now almost six years—and two sons—later, it is impossible to tell that Kelsey and her husband opened their restaurant, Cutty’s, just months into new-parenthood. A framed cover of Boston Magazine hangs to the left of the 16-seat sandwich shop’s glass front door.

Just above it radiates a neon, spray-painted silhouette of Food Network personality, Guy Fieri—adjacent to his autograph. A chalkboard wall extends the length of the restaurant’s right side which is home to a handwritten list of ingredients titled “where we get our stuff,” making ingredients like Taza chocolate and dutch-aged gouda more approachable. Paper menus with curling corners hang on the wall, just a glance above the open kitchen where sandwiches like the Ham Dijon, Greens Bacon, and Pork Fennel are assembled.

It’s a small space, but it’s lived-in and welcoming. The restaurant is customer-friendly and no-nonsense—just seats and sandwiches.

It’s a space that celebrates the simplicity of a good meal in a comfortable setting, which is what prompted co-owners Rachel and Charles to open Cutty’s in 2010—for the love of food and through the frame of family.

“We are actually crazy and had a baby in July, but opened that February—so it was hard

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS STAFF

but great,” Kelsey said, smiling. “Our families are nearby so they helped out a lot.”

Although Rachel, a Needham, Mass. native, and Charles settled on their current Brookline Village location of Cutty’s after the permit for a food truck in Cambridge fell through, the pair isn’t unfamiliar with the local neighborhood.

Rachel grew up in a family with strong ties to Boston College as her father, two uncles, and multiple cousins were all Superfans.

Although Rachel headed to New York rather than Chestnut Hill for school at the Culinary Institute of America, she met Charles while the two worked at Cook’s Illustrated magazine published by America’s Test Kitchen just a few blocks away from Cutty’s, in Brookline, Mass.

Kelsey noted that she has spent a lot of time in the food scene between restaurants and catering companies, but ultimately credits the pair’s career shift to the slowing publishing industry at the time. With both of their culinary experiences, the possibilities for their own restaurant were essentially endless, but they happily settled on sandwiches.

“Well, we do love sandwiches,” said Kelsey, laughing. “But there’s a whole thing that we’re able to do with a sandwich—like the meats we have on our menu are in some of the fanciest, most expensive restaurants in Boston where you might pay, what, over $20 for a charcuterie plate. Here we can put it on a really good sandwich and charge less than half that.”

From their in-house roasted beef to the variety of breads that are delivered daily from across the river in Cambridge, Rachel and Charles use the sandwich as more than just a vehicle for high-quality ingredients but celebrate the possibilities of one of the seemingly simplest types of cuisine.

Over the past few years Cutty’s has developed specials, like the Spicy Pork Tortas they feature on Tuesdays, but for the most part their standard menu has remained a constant.

Although some of the specialty sandwiches they offer daily are overwhelmingly popular such as the Roast Beef 1000, made with crispy shallots, homemade dressing, and sharp cheddar on brioche, all of Cutty’s menu items share a similar backstory.

“Our menu just had a way of working out,” Kelsey said. “Like one day at a family lunch we had leftover beef and caramelized onions, and decided to make thousand island and that’s now the most popular sandwich. It all worked out like that—the house salad dressing is actually a recipe that my mom got from my aunt in the ’70s.”

The menu reflects not just what Rachel and Charles would want to eat, but what their friends and family eat and enjoy. Each sandwich is a story, a small anecdote or evidence of a shared meal. Each item an invitation to their combined culinary experience.

“Everything just happened like that, like that cookie,” Kelsey said, acknowledging the brown sugar treat that sat on a sliver of wax paper on the table in front of her, begging to be tasted. “It’s an old recipe of my husband’s, and so is the chocolate chip.”

Be it with Charles’ desserts or the new breakfast sandwiches that have recently made it to the menu, Cutty’s keeps people coming.

A major lunch rush typically fills the quaint, corner location, and it is not uncommon for people to have to take their Spuckies and house-made potato chips to go. In the wake of their shop’s success, Rachel and Charles signed the lease on the property next door to their Washington St. location. This expan-

sion plan was fueled by the couple’s savings and a kickstarter campaign that ran through October. The two intend to begin demolition this week and hopefully open the second half of the sandwich shop in January.

Although they plan on expanding their space by an additional 600 sq. ft., the Kelseys intend on maintaining the comfortable atmosphere that has characterized Cutty’s ambiance thus far. Much of the expansion will include more eating space and bright orange chairs, giving the pair even more opportunity to welcome the hungry clusters that come with success.

The noise of the sink silences, and an apron-clad employee walks past Kelsey to lock the front door. The last remnants of a chaotic lunch rush slip away as crumbs are swept off the floor. A slow silence begins to take over the small restaurant as things are put back into place, as the shop prepares for tomorrow’s crowd. Despite the sudden serenity, Rachel Kelsey still searches for an answer, for a timeline to explain her sandwich shop’s success.

“So my younger son is three, and I guess it was around right after we had him,” she said.

Although Kelsey can’t offer an answer as to why Cutty’s became so popular, her inability to think of her restaurant apart from her home life says it all. Cutty’s is completely intertwined with her family—from its menu developed out of shared meals and passed down recipes, to its timeline initiated by a marriage and characterized by birthdays. It’s comfortable and warm. That’s what makes Cutty’s so popular, what keeps people coming back—from menu to management, Cutty’s is a family affair.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, November 5, 2015

C5

bars

Hops take flight Aeronaut Brewery mixes craft beer with local flavor.

GUS MERRELL HEIGHTS EDITOR

how to ace

sports bars RYAN DOWD HEIGHTS EDITOR Are you 21 & over? If so, please continue reading. If not, it’s probably safe for you to read anyway. You’re hungry or thirsty for some hot sports takes and a frosty Bud Light. You have four options.

Option 1: Stay where you are. Grab an ice-cold, aluminum bottle of Bud Light Lime from the fridge. Surf those channels until you find the game or match of your choice. Open Twitter on your phone. Dig into imagined company and beer.

Option 2: Re-play Option 1, then invite a friend or two or seven over for some real company if the Twitter scrawl starts to hurt your eyeballs.

Option 3: Skip over to your local sports bar. Cityside is just a bus ride away.

And sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes that’ll do.

Option 4: Crawl. Well, like you can walk and jog as well. Or take an Uber. Or public transit. Whatever, you can “bar crawl.” Sometimes, your couch just won’t do. Sometimes, Cityside just won’t do.

The crawl is for all.

To truly sports bar, you have to get close to the sport, smell the grass, popcorn.

You want everything the ballpark offers, with everything a bar does. You want the combined hum of the bar and the ballpark. You head to Fenway.

You start at Boston Beer Works, where you can see the “large metal cylinders” brewing your beer. You scan its industrial aesthetic and look up at the chalkboard of beers. Don’t worry about the acl content or the color of its label. Don’t ask the waiter. There’s no time for that on the crawl. Just sound ‘em out in your head.

No points for simple alliteration. You’re looking for evocation. “Perfect Pils?”

Boo. “Bunker Hill Blueberry?” Close.

“Redeemer?” Yes, that’s a crawl beer.

You work through that Redeemer. Really chew it down. But despite Boston Beer Works’ homebrewing charm, we need to get closer. The crawl moves on.

We head down Lansdowne Street. The Cask’n Flagon looks fun, all decked out in Red Sox-red and pretty flags. But there’s no time to dilly-dally. The end of the line beckons. Every crawl must end at Bleachers.

Bleacher Bar is a bar built into Fenway. It opens into right field. It’s as close as you can get to the game without paying for a ticket. When you go to the urinal, you can look down at the bar and it’s oddly comforting. There’s beer here too. You enter, put your back to the far wall, watch baseball in a bar, listen to both crowds.

That’s sports in a bar, in a nutshell.

J

ust over a year ago, food, science, and beer collided at the old Ames Safety Envelope Co. factory in Somerville, Mass. The result was that Aeronaut brewery and the Foods Hub was born.

Founded with homebrew recipes and expanded due to the growing inability to house the brewing equipment that grew larger with each purchase, Ben Holmes, Ronn Friedlander, and Dan Rassi have quickly grown Aeronaut into an essential local taproom with live music and theater company performances.

“We sort of built this place from home brew recipes and sweat and what not,” said Holmes, one of the founders of Aeronaut. “And starting in December 2012, a few months in, we were purchasing large pieces of equipment on the Internet.”

Holmes and his fellow co-founders Friedlander and Rassi have technical backgrounds—Holmes and Friedlander have Ph.D.s from MIT and Rassi studied computer science at Cornell. But Holmes said he had been homebrewing ever since he had been in college.

Aeronaut’s brewing operation is just a step above homebrewing levels. Production is miniscule, even by craft brewery standards, producing anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 barrels in a year. By comparison, a craft brewery produces less than six million barrels in a year.

For reference, Anheuser Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, ships out over 300 million barrels a year.

But Aeronaut has turned its small size into an advantage, constantly experimenting with one-barrel brews and specializing in small yeast cultures. While the brewery orders yeast samples from liquid yeast culture producers, such as White Labs, that are popular with other breweries, Holmes said Friedlander will also collect his own yeast samples and grow them to brewable sizes (think trillions of cells) in a small lab he has set up in the warehouse.

“We can do tiny little prototype brews in the science lab and then do single barrel brews using whatever yeast we’re using at that level in the brewery in big one-barrel fermenters that mimic our big system but at one-eighth scale,” Holmes said. “Then we can brew at the 8 1/2 barrel scale with the same level by controlling the cell levels in this laboratory.”

These unique yeast samples and the desire to source hops from as many different places as possible—many hops originate in the Pacific Northwest, but hops from as far away as New Zealand and Australia have been used in Aeronaut’s brews—allow for limitless brewing combinations.

The brewing process involves a lot of “what if we…?” questions, the director of brewing Justin Pino said. After each brew is analyzed, the brewing team collaborates and bounces ideas off of each other in an effort to find out the next step to take with the batch.

Sometimes there isn’t a next step,” Pino said in an email. “Sometimes the next step is something you never would have thought of in your wildest dreams. And that’s where we really find ourselves the most satisfied.”

When the Aeronaut team eventually decided to formally start a brewery, however, the co-founders decided that they wanted to make it about more than just the beer.

It’s kind of a university, it’s kind of a startup school, it’s kind of a place where you can do a project and we’ll say yes to it and help you build it,” Holmes said. “We were brought up in academic labs and we were kind of inspired by the amount of freedom you get when you’re given some room and some space. So it kind of began that way as a sort of extension of that collaborative environment of school but taken to the kind of business end of things.”

The startup school Holmes is referencing comprises the other two-thirds of the 12,000 sq. ft. warehouse that Aeronaut calls home. Referred to as the Foods Hub, Aeronaut uses the space as an incubator for local food service and food product startups that are bringing their goods to the Somerville community.

GUS MERRELL / HEIGHTS EDITOR

The current tenants are Something Gud, Barismo, and Somerville Chocolate. Something Gud is a food delivery service that delivers locally sourced and mostly organic food to homes within I-95. Something Gud is currently restructuring after a former employee’s lawsuit, and is hoping to reestablish its operations base at Aeronaut.

Barismo and Somerville Chocolate are both beanto-product operations, taking coffee and cacao beans, respectively, and turning them into coffee and chocolate products that are sold at select locations in the city.

But since the brewery is only open after 5 p.m., there is little overlap between the Foods Hub tenants and customers looking to grab a drink, said Ernest Paulin, the production assistant at Barismo. Furthermore, there is little interaction between the tenants and Aeronaut beyond the rare hint of coffee or chocolate in the occasional batch of beer.

“Everybody is pretty self-sufficient,” Paulin said.

“There isn’t much interaction amongst the companies actually, except kind of informally. There’s Somerville Chocolate. He’ll give us samples because he’s a good guy.

I wish we had some reciprocity program in place where we gave [Aeronaut] coffee and we got beer, for example, but there’s nothing of that nature, unfortunately.”

The Tasting Counter, while not officially part of the Foods Hub incubator, occupies a small portion of Aeronaut’s warehouse. It is Chef Peter Ungar’s latest project, where 20 patrons are able to watch their ninecourse tasting meal prepared in front of them. Each course is paired with a different wine or beer—beer courtesy of Aeronaut, of course.

Aeronaut has carefully selected tenants at the Foods Hub so that it consists of small, local companies that are dedicated to producing high-quality goods from local materials. It’s all part of the culture Aeronaut is establishing at the brewery.

“I guess all that really ties it together is the shared sense of mission that we are—and this word has been greatly abused lately—but we are all basically small craft artisanal producers of some good,” Paulin said.

As far as craft breweries go, Aeronaut is pretty small. But the vibe? The vibe is bold and it more than makes up for the small brewhouse doubling as a taproom.

String globe lights arc across the L-shaped bar, providing ambient mood lighting. The original artwork from Aeronaut’s first attempt at canning its IPA called “A Year With Dr. Nandu” is up on the wall. Small potted plants are racked on the wall behind one of the many picnic benches for patrons. And if you look up, you will see lawn chairs suspended from the ceiling.

There’s live music most nights—Thursday’s are funk rock—and occasionally the Artist’s Theatre of Boston rehearses in the taproom. Over Halloweekend, there was a pumpkin carving contest and face painting.

Only a chain separates the bustling taproom from the other half of the brewery that houses the coldbox, kegs, and brewing equipment. It’s an environment that truly connects the customer to the product, and while Aeronaut is certainly not the first to create this culture, it is a popular production method within the craft beer community.

The craft beer industry is one of the quickest growing industries in the United States, and right now, Aeronaut is sustaining itself through the atmosphere it has created in its taproom. But Holmes said that while the brewery has a great gig going on right now, the goal is to ultimately expand to the Greater Boston area and beyond.

“I think time has to tell, but I think it’s pretty clear, just hanging out here, you know people are staying and drinking the beer,” Holmes said. “It’s clear that there’s an appetite for something much, much larger, and I think we’re pretty stoked about that.”

ask the experts

off campus “WHAT’S THE BEST BITE IN BOSTON?”

Nick Mallia The Paris Creperie House Favorites: Apple & Brie Crepe, Bear Claw Crepe “I really enjoy El Pelon Taqueria, and El Guapo is my absolute jam.”

Best Bets: Caramelos Tacos, Calabacitas Burrito

Alyson Show Alden & Harlow House Favorites: Secret Burger, Crispy Baby Bok Choy “I love Picco by Fenway.”

Best Bets: Brussel Sprouts & Butternut Squash Pizza, Crispy Kale & Hummus Bruschetta

Adrienne Grigoriess The Beehive House Favorites: Beef Cheek Taco, Spicy Seared Octopus “Definitely check out the Beat Brasserie in Cambridge.”

Best Bets: Hippie Salad, Buffalo Cauliflower

Tom Brush Flat Patties

House Favorites: Chimichurri Burger, Cheese Fries “I really enjoy Puritan & Company in Cambridge.”

Best Bets: Corn & Cheddar Quiche, Swordfish Pastrami

smalll plates

Casa B

hits home

Chef Alberto Cabre creates a savory tapas experience.

MAGGIE POWERS MANAGING EDITOR

how to ace

small plates MAGGIE POWERS MANAGING EDITOR A few years ago, the conundrum of small plates was only something faced by Spanish dining aficionados. But the likelihood that any hip place with reclaimed wood, Edison bulbs, and/or fusion food does not serve small plates is pretty slim. Done well, it’s a great way to eat. It allows you to try the maximum amount of food possible.

Done poorly … well, let’s just say I once had a date at an Asian fusion place in which everything we ordered was in the “sweet-and-sour” vein, from our Brussels sprouts to our three meat-dishes.

That ended with me sulking and us leaving an upsetting amount of food on the table. Here are a few tips to help you avoid that: Go with a group of two to six people. Four is ideal. Two limits the amount of food you can get, more than six and you risk not getting a bite of everything. This group of two to six people should be interested in small plates, or at least flexible. Don’t even bother with the type of people who are going to order their own plates. This is the worst kind of person.

The easiest way to successfully navigate a small-plates menu is a series questions. You can make this seem like a fun game, or you can be accused of being a snobby foodie b—h. Pick your tone, or don’t ask the questions (but proceed with at your own risk).

Ask your server questions, they should be more open to this than your fellow diners. They won’t think you’re high maintenance, they understand you’re on a quest. The two most important questions: 1) Is there any dish on the menu we shouldn’t miss? and 2) About how many dishes per person?

Make everyone take a few minutes with the menu and decide what are the two or three things they really want. Silence is best for this.

Try to be the first one done, that way you can lead the questions. “Sooo ... what is everyone thinking?” normally goes well. Compare, and hopefully there is a lot overlap, which makes the choice easy. If not, make everyone choose the one dish they can’t give up, and negotiate that.

You should probably do all this rulemaking subtly or you’ll be the obnoxious person who makes dinner stressful.

Once you have everyone’s must-haves, then you can work to create a balanced meal.

Small-plate menus are normally divided into sections—try to order at least one from each. Other balances to keep in mind: meat-to-vegetable ratios, flavor profiles, hot vs. cold, and price. If you have reluctant vegetable eaters with you, don’t force it. You’ll wind up being the one guilted into finishing a full plate of broccoli, and missing out on the good stuff with melted cheese.

Oh, and always keep a menu in case you want to order more. It’s a small plate, it probably isn’t that many calories, right?

T

he first time I went to Casa B, I felt like I had discovered something cool and underground. The tucked away entrance opened to a narrow dining room with a single row of tables flanked by two bars in an L-shape. The lights were dim, the lit candles bouncing off the matte white tables felt sleek and modern. Led down the stairs, the decor unfolded in front. The backlit wall covered in live foliage felt subterranean and effortlessly cool, demanding attention while not asking for any.

But in the daylight, with owner Alberto Cabre as your guide, Casa B softened, and I suddenly noticed how much it feels like an evolved home. Empty at 11 a.m., the Union Square Spanish-Caribbean tapas restaurant gives off less of a chic-and-maybe-intimidating vibe and more of an eclectically welcoming one. Small details like the antique mirrors popped. It was hard not to notice how the staircase, paneled in mismatched antique doors and painted white by Cabre and his wife, stretch to the ceiling.

But Cabre’s finger in front of my nose interrupted these observations, showing me the most important part. Layered on top of the doors are framed sepiatoned photos of Cabre’s family, from his grandfather to his children.

At the foot of the stairs, Cabre fluffed a pillow on an antique blue velvet couch. He looked out over the chef ’s bar and larger seating areas, examining the faux-living room that interrupts the sleek dining room with a nod.

“My house looks a lot like this,” he said.

This isn’t a performance of a home. It’s a recreation of one.

Cabre and his wife Angelina Jockovich opened Casa B four years ago. Their story is one that is often told with awe and a bit of fear by those in the restaurant buisness. In the economic downturn, they made the transition from architects to the equally-unstable career of restaurant ownership.

Watching him buzz around Casa B, the creative shift from architect to chef makes perfect sense. “As an architect, you develop this creative process that takes a long time to get some rewards,” he said. “As a cook, that creative process is very short. You just work for a couple of hours and you have people enjoying what you have made.” After one year in culinary school, he did not want to wait to begin cooking his food. Cabre and his wife (also his business partner) began a catering business in 2002. But he had this idea: “We can just bring people into the house and feed them.”

When his wife agreed to the unconventional plan, the underground restaurant Casa Bobonis, named after his grandfather, was born. The restaurant grew via word of mouth—what started as a 45-person email list quickly grew to 500.

The idea of an underground restaurant sounds chic and insidery. It conjures visions of exclusivity, dim candles, and sophisticated people engaging in sophisticated things. But Cabre’s club was more Arcade Fire than Gertrude Stein.

Not that it wasn’t transgressive or cool. The 24 seats filled his home with energy that bounced off the walls painted in multi-saturated colors. The five courses, prix fixe, were experimental and different. But with two little kids running around, Casa Bobonis was, first and foremost, a home.

T

he food at Casa B is advertised as Spanish-Caribbean influenced tapas, but even that wide-ranging definition does not begin to cover Cabre’s eclectic taste. Two signature Casa B dishes are Atun salteado con ajonjoli (black sesame seared tuna, served over a sweet plantain with a wasabi aioli) and Carne Mechada with Gnocchi de Yuca (a Puerto Rican pot roast Cabre’s mother used to make, and yuca gnocchi sauteed in a brown butter and sage sauce).

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALBERTO CABRE

Once you know his background, the dishes are put in a unique context—his menu references all the cultures he has touched without strictly adhering to them.

His roots are Puerto Rican, but the tapas style comes from his grandfather, who brought Cabre to Spain when he was a young boy. His wife is Colombian, so her South American influence infiltrates every aspect of the menu. The food goes beyond the Spanish and Latin tradition, too. Cabre’s culinary school training gave him a French and Italian background, and many of his friends from MIT, where he got his masters in architecture, are Asian and have travelled with Cabre through the region.

But Casa B is more than fusion or a mosaic of cultures—the food is witty and smart. Even if you know the cultural reference point, Cabre twists it enough to disarm even the most cultured diner. The Carne Mechada is the perfect example. The translation of “Puerto Rican pot roast” is unusual, and conjures images of something deeply American. But listen to Cabre explain it and the dish becomes impressive and layered.

A traditional carne mechada has the meat stuffed with the onions and chorizo. But Cabre turned this inside out, cooking the meat on top of those ingredients and making sure all the flavors from the stuffing were in the sauce.

He then places it atop a playful gnocchi. “We don’t have gnocchi in Puerto Rico, that come Italian,” he said. “But I changed it. Instead of potato, I do it with yucca.

But that is what is the flavors of the restaurant.”

More than just the food is disorienting. It is the entire dining experience. “I believe that you have to use your hands when you are eating,” Cabre said. “It is really hard to get people to do that.”

He picked up a distressingly miniature fork and knife to demonstrate his next point.

“You can pinch, or you can spread something.” But that is all his tiny silverware is supposed to be used for. He mimed someone laboring over their food, the mini-cutlery pinched between thick thumbs and forefingers. “It’s just a fried little cheese ball, you should just get it and …” he stopped speaking abruptly and plopped the imaginary cheese ball in his mouth, satisfied with his explanation.

“But people don’t want to do that.”

This is the real draw of Casa B. Despite the comforts of a home, there is something disarming about the restaurant. Surrounding the artifacts that are supposed to be found in a living room, there is a slickness of a modern restaurant. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I was never sure.

The menu is bilingual, listing everything in first Spanish and then English, bound in a little book, neat, with words that are familiar, but also words that aren’t. Just asking for a meal can be challenging, with all the hunting and possible pronunciation barriers. It made me insecure. Am I ordering the right thing? Will my poor Spanish accent embarrass me more or less than ordering the English description of Cabre’s beautiful food? Is the tiny silverware a joke, a passive aggressive reminder to get me to use my hands? Or am I rude if I pick everything up?

The homey atmosphere, the ambiguous menu items, the unconventional cutlery—all these things that put make the food Cabre’s own—are his way of singling to the diner, saying, “trust me.” It might not make sense, it didn’t to me when I first ate here. I can’t answer these questions for myself, much less anyone else. You just need to go down the stairs, past the fake living room, and slide into a bench at the chef ’s bar. Be irreverent, pick up a gooey cheese ball with your hands. Trust me, nobody will look too hard. You’re suppose to feel at home here.

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF