Photo by Marni Elyse Katz/StyleCarrot
Yarrow and pink yarrow, perhaps?
Floral arrangement on the counter at Juliet in Somerville, Mass.
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Tag: Boston restaurants
Foodie Friday: Trina’s Starlite Lounge
Earlier this winner, Boston publicist, the ever sweet Nicole Kanner, invited me to her boyfriend Josh Childs ‘s restaurant, Trina’s Starlite Lounge. (In 2009, I blogged about his South End townhouse here.) It’s a divey kind of place (from the outside) in Somerville. Inside it was warm and inviting, with fantastic food and service.
Josh is a spirits guy, so he mixed some sort of bourbon martinis to start (not quite my thing, buy my friend Deb loved hers). Southern Wedding Soup (with alligator meatballs!) was followed by Blistered Beet Salad (delicious) and a main course of roasted duck that included a side of sublime gnocchi. But more importantly, they served THE ABSOLUTE BEST MOST AMAZING CORN BREAD I’ve ever had or ever will have ever. Period. Heaped with so much rich butter that everyone asked, “Is that butter?” OMG. Worth going late night, if just for that.
F O L L O W STYLE CARROT on I N S T A G R A M
Foodie Friday: Menton by Barbara Lynch
Photo: Justin Ide
Boston chef and restaurateur Barbara Lynch‘s new Fort Point restaurant Menton (rhymes with Vuitton), opened on Saturday. Yesterday her publicist sent along some official interior photos. (You can see the artsier shots on photographer Justin Ide‘s blog.)
As fitting for a high-end, special occasion spot (she’s hoping diners will wear jackets), the décor, designed by Cheryl and Jeffrey Katz, is subdued. Looks like the entry has some nice details, and the Moroccan style lighting in the dining room keep it from coming off as dull.
It’s named for a small French village near the Italian border, and according to the press kit, “The cuisine is a marriage of refined French technique and soulful Italian cooking.” There are two menu formats: a 4-course prix fixe menu for $95 and a 7-course chef’s tasting menu for $145. Pricey.
Photo: Justin Ide
The palette is composed of earthy greens, grays, and browns, with accents of silver, bright white, and black. A Murano glass chandelier hangs above a silver leather reception desk. Iranian carpets cover the floor of the lounge.
Photo: Justin Ide
The main dining room features Italian wood veneer-clad walls, traditional black slat back chairs, glittering banquettes, and natural linen and white cotton table cloths
Photo: Justin Ide
The main dining room features paintings by Matt McClune, an artist and onetime bartender at Lynch’s No.9 Park, who is now based in the Burgundy region of France.
Photo: Justin Ide
Painter Matt McClune, who has a BFA from Mass Art, is represented locally by the Howard Yezerski Gallery at 460 Harrison.
Photo via Grubb Street Boston
The kitchen has marble mosaic floors and a stainless steel Molteni cooking suite, imported from France. Apparently it was a huge deal to get it into the space, since it’s all one piece.
There’s a view of the kitchen from the chef’s table, a glass-fronted room at the back of the kitchen. The space includes a silver banquette runs the entire length of the room, Philipe Starck ghost chairs, a faux-bois floor, malachite wallpaper, and stark graphite drawings of trees and flora by Dean Brown. Nineteenth-century reproduction French garden mural wallpaper covers the hallway leading to the private dining room. I wish I had a pictures!
Photo: Justin Ide
M E N T O N
354 Congress Street
Boston, Massachusetts
617.737.0099
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Read my interview with Lynch on her new cookbook Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition on eBay’s new style site The Inside Source, where Lynch names her must-haves for every kitchen.
