Ribelle’s Tim Maslow Arrested with Marijuana Edibles at Canadian Border

Tim Maslow. / Photo courtesy of Rex Dean

UPDATE, April 12: The charges against Tim Maslow have been dropped, the Boston Globe reports.

PREVIOUSLY:

One of the local restaurant scene’s biggest culinary rule-breakers was arrested Friday. Tim Maslow has pleaded not guilty to felony drug charges.

Maslow, chef/owner of Ribelle in Brookline, was stopped at the Canadian border in Highgate, Vermont, over the weekend with four passengers and 22.5 pounds of marijuana edibles, a pipe, and another controlled substance.

According to a Vermont State Police press release, Maslow was charged at Franklin County Superior Court in St. Albans with felony possession of marijuana, and possession of a depressant, stimulant, and narcotic. He was released on $5,000 bail. VSP corporal George Rodriguez told the Boston Globe that Maslow was cooperative, and said all of the illegal items were his.

Maslow, a 31-year-old Waltham resident, is a 2014 Best of Boston Best New Chef winner; and the next year, Food & Wine followed suit. Maslow was in Montreal this week participating in a culinary festival called Montreal en Lumiere.

Maslow launched his culinary career at Momofuku Ssam in New York City, before abruptly moving to the Boston area to work alongside his father, Paul Maslow, longtime proprietor of Strip-T’s in Watertown. Maslow transformed Strip-T’s from a suburban sandwich shop that punched above its weight into a destination deli and nightly izakaya.

The Watertown hole-in-the-wall was recently recognized for outstanding service for the second year in a row by the James Beard Foundation. Maslow developed Strip-T’s menu, but is largely uninvolved in the day-to-day.

Saturday night, Maslow also alluded to big changes at his Brookline restaurant, Ribelle. He posted two Instagram videos—both of which have since been removed—showing someone incinerating Ribelle business cards, and the Boston Globe Magazine cover, which praised Ribelle with four stars. One of the captions read, “Last service @ribellebkline in the books. So looking forward to gutting this bitch like a pig and getting it right.”

Boston has reached out to Maslow and the Ribelle team.

UPDATE, February 29: The restaurant at 1669 Beacon St.—Ribelle’s address—is opening for dinner tonight at 6 p.m., despite the events of the weekend. Ribelle has also changed its Twitter name and Instagram handle to its address, Eater Boston has noted.

1665 Beacon St., Brookline; 617-232-2322.