The Never-Ending Birthday Bash – North 26

If Boston had a Culinary Trail, a la The Freedom Trail, The Bostonian Hotel would be one of the stops. Within this hotel was the legendary Seasons restaurant, incubator of such culinary luminaries as Jasper White, Lydia Shire, Jody Adams and Gordon Hammersley. But the restaurant is no more – the former space now a banquet ballroom. The hotel underwent a thorough renovation culminating in the opening of a new restaurant last fall, North 26. My friend K. is a bartender there – I listened to her stories of the horrors of  renovation and then the stories changed to the new chef and the wonderful food again being served at the hotel. She suggested we celebrate our birthdays here with our friend M., another Pisces like K. So this Aquarian in the company of these two Pisceans set out to judge the buzz.

The restaurant is an awkward space. Entering from the lobby, one encounters a long boxcar-like dining area, a somewhat private dining room, a temperature controlled wall of wine and then the bar. For a hotel lounge, the bar area is small, perhaps indicative of the high hopes the hotel has for the new restaurant. In front of the bar is a seating area, cut off from the lounge by a half wall of booths. Opposite the booths is a long banquette with tables and chairs. For a boutique hotel, this front area is a design disaster – the furnishings seem to have come straight from a catalog. But I’m not here to write a design critique but to enjoy the food.

Our dinner begins auspiciously with my martini. I challenge the bartender to make me a 2-to-1 gin martini with orange bitters which she does perfectly –  cocktail bliss.  I peruse – isn’t that the verb reviewers use to signify ”reading”? – the wine list, a list heavy on California offerings with a smattering of other New World wines and some Old World selections. (Disclosure – I’m not a fan of many California wines: they leave me – as a fellow Wineaux says –  with palate fatigue.) We begin with two appetizers for sharing - Oysters Casino and Semolina and Mascarpone Dumplings with Rabbit Ragout. The first consists of three very large oysters baked under a covering of casino butter which contained a generous amount of diced bacon - and things do go better with bacon. These are perfectly baked and delicious. The winner though is the dumplings and rabbit – light fluffy dumplings atop a rich rabbit ragout, charmingly presented in a small skillet. We sop up the last of the ragout with bread from the bread basket. For our mains, we order the Pan Roasted Venison, the Sirloin of Beef and the Rack of Lamb Chops. All come cooked at the temperature we specified. Each comes with imaginative sides – potato cake with the sirloin, rosemary carrot gnocchi with the lamb and –  best of all -  toasted caraway seed spaetzle and brussel sprouts with bacon accompanying the venison. Again, bacon the magic ingredient. (Just when will the bacon/pork craze end?) All the dishes are well thought out and attractively plated. We end with the pastry chef’s take on Boston cream pie – a whoppie pie of yellow cake and vanilla pastry cream finished with choclate glaze and served with a tuile spoon. And so ended the final round in this year’s birthday celebrations.

The staff throughout the evening was personable, attentive and professional. Appetizers are in the $10 range, entrees in the mid-20s.  North 26 is well worth the visit – put them on your Restaurant Week itinerary.