Boston’s Myers + Chang fires a savory salvo with its Tiger’s Tears, a grilled steak salad with Thai basil, lime and khao koor.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, one of the best parts about the midday meal at Boston’s exquisite Sportello (348 Congress St., 617-737-1234, sportelloboston.com), a playfully minimalist spot with a Jetsons-age lunch counter, is the bill. That’s not an insult. In fact, the food is first rate. When chef Barbara Lynch makes a chestnut bisque with Italian truffles, she transforms a peasant dish into one with overtones of royalty. The strozzapreti, twisted house-made pasta tossed with braised rabbit and green olives, is good enough to make you forsake Bolognese sauce forever. But it’s the prices that are truly unusual. That four-star bisque costs just $12, only slightly more than you’d spend at a drab sandwich chain. And the $17 pasta is made with the same thoughtfulness as at Lynch’s exorbitantly priced flagship, No. 9 Park.
Once upon a time, a reasonably priced gourmet meal in Boston was as scarce as a Derek Jeter fan at Fenway Park. Locals faced a stark choice: Hit a dive for a beer and a burger or spring for a glorious, wallet-busting repast. These days, moderate yet classy spots dot Beantown, serving everything from shrimp and heirloom grits to tea-smoked spareribs—all at middle-class prices.
According to Clark Wolf, a New York restaurant consultant, this flowering of midrange dining rooms marks Boston’s passage from dining backwater to one of the country’s great restaurant cities. “A great mid-priced restaurant is the hardest thing to do well,” he says. “It’s a sign that a city has arrived.”
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