The Bar Mezzana Team Is Opening Another South End Restaurant
Stephi's on Tremont will close, making way for a tasty new concept from chef Colin Lynch and his crew.
Cute culinary couple Heather and Colin Lynch are adding a fourth concept to their growing restaurant group. / Photo by Brian Samuels Photography
Out with the old, in with the new blood: The team behind a growing family of new South End hotspots will soon move into an address currently occupied by one of the city’s most longstanding restaurant groups.
Stephi’s on Tremont is closing, and will be replaced by a new project from chef Colin Lynch and the rest of the team behind nearby Bar Mezzana, Shore Leave, and No Relation, a rep for the latter group confirms. Though Lynch’s crew won’t share their next venture’s name and other details right now, they confirm that the restaurant is slated to move in to 571 Tremont Street this summer, and will be designed by Hacin + Associates, the same South End design firm that created Shore Leave, a still-new, subterranean Tiki haven just a few blocks away.
This is the second recent sign of a shrinking portfolio from the founder of Stephanie’s on Newbury, a popular patio-dining destination since 1994. In 2018, the sisters and restaurateurs behind Stephanie’s Restaurant Group and Met Restaurant Group combined forces and began reevaluating the direction of their respectively branded properties. Shortly thereafter, the 2013-founded Stephi’s in Southie closed. The Back Bay flagship is still chugging along; so is an outpost at Logan airport. (The Met branch of the family currently includes Met Back Bay, neighboring raw bar Saltie Girl, and the Met Natick.)
Lynch and his crew, meanwhile, continue to expand. Bar Mezzana, a coastal Italian restaurant, opened in the South End in 2016 and already sits pretty on our list of the top 50 restaurants in Boston. Shore Leave is one of our current picks for the hottest spots in the city. Inspired by Pacific Rim cuisines, it opened in November and quickly debuted a restaurant-within-a-restaurant concept: No Relation, a nine-seat omakase destination. The group’s top-shelf bar director, Ryan Lotz, will also join the team at the forthcoming Tremont Street property.
A rep for Stephanie’s has not yet responded to an inquiry about the closing timeline for Stephi’s on Tremont, but sail by soon if you want to secure one last meal. Winds of change are a’blowing.
