Tiffani Faison to Open Tiger Mama This Summer

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With a Wahlburgers outpost on the horizon, as well as Tim and Nancy Cushman’s high-energy izakaya, Hojoko, due to open inside The Verb Hotel, it appears the Fenway might be the next great dining destination in Boston. Well, add one more to the list, as former Top Chef contestant Tiffani Faison has announced an upcoming sister restaurant to her Texas barbecue hub, Sweet Cheeks Q.

As first reported by the Globe, Faison’s latest project, Tiger Mama, will be located at 1363 Boylston Street in the former Barrio Cantina space run by Michael Schlow. A Southeast Asian-inspired restaurant, Faison’s menu will draw upon elements of Thai, Vietnamese, and Malaysian cuisine, particularly the casual street food she considers some of “the best food in the world.”

“My wife Kelly [Walsh] and I have been talking about doing a Southeast asian restaurant since we started traveling there back in 2008,” Faison says. “We decided to do Sweet Cheeks first, but this project, in this particular incarnation, has seriously been in the works for well over a year. It’s just such an incredible region, because there’s food on the streets everywhere. Everyone eats food on the streets. I remember going there for the first time and thinking, ‘This is unbelievable!’ That really kept us going back. In some ways, it’s kind of a similar opportunity as Sweet Cheeks, where we’re taking a food that I really love and representing it in a way that I don’t see done around here.”

Faison is currently working on finalizing her menu, but she says patrons can expect to see plenty of seafood, “fresh, vibrant” flavors, and even tiki drinks from the Bangkok-inspired bar (one of two very different types of bars located inside Tiger Mama) near the open kitchen in back. The space is currently under construction and they’re hoping to give the place a “darker, sexier aesthetic,” Faison says.

Tiger Mama is projected to open in July.