Weekly Digest: Rebel Rebel Wine Bar Now Serves Lunch, Plus More Must-Know Food News
Harvard Square has a new café, celebrate the hemp harvest with Dinner at Mary's, and other newsworthy leads on where to eat right now.
It’s a busy time to be a food lover in Boston. Here, an easily digestible roundup of the restaurant news stories you need to know to have a delicious week. (And if you missed last week’s Weekly Digest, check it out here.)
Chef Tiffani Faison. / Photo by Mike Diskin
Chef Tiffani Faison Creates an Eventide Bun
Eventide Fenway is, gratefully, passing the time without baseball by shucking half-priced oysters all fall and winter long, every Sunday through Thursday from 4-6 p.m. Plus, Eventide’s guest-chef Bun of the Month series has returned—and on deck is the one and only Tiffani Faison. To introduce her seasonally stacked Turkey Katsu Bun with cranberry sweet-and-sour sauce, hot mustard aioli, and Brussels-sesame slaw, the maverick chef will be in the house on Wednesday, Nov. 6, beginning at 5 p.m., with additional specials on the board. Try the Sweet Cheeks/Tiger Mama/Fool’s Errand/Orfano chef’s new roll anytime between 5 p.m. tonight and the end of November.
1321 Boylston St., the Fenway, Boston, 617-545-1060, eventidefenway.com.
Bluestone Lane photo by Ben Hider
Bluestone Lane Coffee Flows Into Harvard Square on Friday
Some of the spirit of Crema Café has been reborn in original cofounder Liza Shirazi’s growing Revival Café & Kitchen company—albeit not in Harvard Square. But as of Friday, Nov. 8, Crema’s former two-floor, Brattle Street home will once again be filled will coffee (and avocado toast): Bluestone Lane opens its first Boston-area location this week, debuting the company’s brand-new menu. Along with a signature “avocado smash” served on multigrain toast with heirloom cherry tomatoes, feta, sunflower sprouts, and olive oil, Bluestone will offer new items like a vegetarian “big brekkie” at brunch, a new autumn salad, and a spiced cauli sandwich for lunch. The company plans to seek a Cambridge liquor license in the future, too. The New York-based, Australian-inspired “hospitality and lifestyle brand,” as Bluestone Lane describes itself in a press release, the company redid the 60-seat space “to blend signature Melbourne and Sydney coastal café aesthetics, with the existing features of the building.” That means mosaic tiles frame the bar, and Australian beach prints and greenery “ornaments” are set off against the brick walls and high ceilings. The Harvard Square café will be open daily from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Meanwhile, Bluestone Lane also announced plans to open a small, grab-and-go coffee shop in the lobby of the 125 High Street building in downtown Boston.
27 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, bluestonelane.com.
Dinner at Mary’s photo by Matthew McLaughlin Photography
Dinner at Mary’s Harvest Feast
Hemp might not be the crop that comes to mind when you think about New England’s harvest season, but that should change in this new, legal era. Stockbridge, Vt.-based Luce Farm, whose roots are in organic vegetable farming, has been growing hemp (a cousin of the cannabis plant) to produce wellness-focused CBD-infused products since the industrial crop became federally legal in 2014. But Luce Farm has kept close ties with the dining community, and on Saturday, Nov. 9, the farmers are teaming up with the pop-up Dinner at Mary’s to celebrate this year’s harvest with a menu of seasonal flavors like a warm mushroom salad, crab cakes with Bosc pear and fennel salad, and more. Learn more about the (non-government-regulated) purported health benefits of the non-intoxicating cannabidiol (CBD) during the 5 p.m. seating, which will not feature any of the more psychoactive compound THC. During an 8 p.m. seating, there’s an option to dose each dish with either THC (not grown by Luce) or CBD, giving guests full control of how much to take. Each five course menu is $160, all-inclusive, but you need to become a Dinner at Mary’s member to get tickets. You’ll get details about the location of the harvest dinner after securing your tickets.
Dinner at Mary’s and Luce Farm Harvest Fest, Saturday, Nov. 9, seatings at 5 and 8 p.m., dinner-at-marys.com.
Photo courtesy of Rebel Rebel Wine Bar
New Lunch Options Abound
It gets dark at 4:30 p.m., and mushy leaves are covering the sidewalks: It’s officially stick season. The upside? With a new season comes a slew of new lunch and brunch menus. Medford’s new barbecue-and-blues spot, the Porch, just debuted Dirty South brunch on Sundays from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m., with a menu of soul food dishes like fried chicken and waffles, South Carolina hash, and hoe cakes served up to a Dirty South playlist spun (noon-4 p.m.) by DJ Amadeezy. The Financial District’s beautiful new Mariel is now serving weekday lunch, with options like a Cuban rice bowl topped with a choice of protein like charred mojo cauliflower, or grilled chicken adobo; and a signature pressed Cubano sandwich with slow roasted pork, ham, gruyère, pickle mixto, mustard marrón, and garlic butter on house-made Cuban bread. Six / West at South Boston’s new Cambria hotel is also now open all day, every day, with brunch from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. every weekend, and lunch debuting November 4 and running daily from 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Finally, Rebel Rebel Wine Bar could be your new lunch spot, too: The Bow Market bôite is now open Thursday-Monday at 11:30 a.m., with exactly one deliciously French option to eat: A ham and butter sandwich on Iggy’s country baguette (pictured). Served with a side of cult-favorite Bonillas center-cut potato chips, it’s made with Beurre de Baratte, and “we’ll change up the ham depending on what’s available at Formaggio,” says Rebel Rebel owner Lauren Friel; this week, it’s jambon de Bayonne. Pair it with something fantastically fizzy for $15. Bon appetit!
