Seasoned stars
South End’s famed eateries thrive amid changing scene
Seth Woods remembers what it was like to be the new kid on the block.
In 1995, when he was just 27, Woods opened his first restaurant, Metropolis, in a former Tremont Street ice cream shop one block away from his South End apartment. The success of that European-inspired cafe helped usher in a wave of similarly elevated eateries to a Boston neighborhood that then reminded Woods, a New York City transplant, of the exciting East Village: “rich in culture,” if not money, said Woods, and filled with diverse, artistic communities and lots of potential.
Woods' success has grown. He's now executive chef and partner in the Aquitaine Group, which has eight upscale restaurants, from the eponymous French bistro Aquitaine to the Italian trattoria Cinquecento, most of them located in the South End. He's no longer an ingenue; he's a veteran.
So too is the South End. For years the neighborhood enjoyed a reputation as the trendy hot spot in Boston's restaurant scene. Now that mantle arguably belongs to other areas, like the buzzy waterfront. The South End, it seems, is ensconced in a new, more mature identity as a steady-beating heart of Hub dining. It has ceded funkiness, but in favor of storied and reliable neighborhood restaurants mixed with some classy recent newcomers.
In short, South End dining has grown up — and that's great, say restaurateurs, as long as it doesn't also grow boring.
“The biggest change over the last 20 years is that the number of baby carriages has increased tenfold,” said chef Andy Husbands, alum of TV's “Hell's Kitchen,” whose South End restaurant Tremont 647 celebrated its two-decade anniversary in December. Husbands opened 647 as a 26-year-old hot shot, and the restaurant and its sibling cocktail bar, Sister Sorel, have been South End fixtures ever since, bolstered by early and lasting popularity with the local gay community, which — alongside a vibrant immigrant population — gave the increasingly affluent South End character and vitality long before Johnny-come-lately gentrifiers arrived.
Husbands hardly rues progress. Back when he started, the South End was mostly a restaurant wasteland, save for a few unlikely standouts such as the iconic fine-dining institution Hamersley's Bistro, which shuttered in 2014 after 27 years. Husbands attributes the success of 647 — now a South End anchor business where future award-winning chefs earn their stripes — to unwavering consistency, including a commitment to reliably accessible price points in an expensive-skewing neighborhood and to neighbor-favorite events such as “Taco Tuesdays” and a weekend “Pajama Brunch.” But even as his restaurant reached its latest milestone, he refused to look backward.
“The South End has changed in a really good way,” Husbands said. “I'm not one of those people who hates change. I love it.”
After all, that change has ushered in some of the city's best restaurants: including Toro, star chef Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette's buzzing tapas restaurant that has spawned siblings in New York and abroad; Myers + Chang, an inventive Asian eatery from James Beard award-winning chef Joanne Chang; and B&G Oysters and The Butcher Shop from dining doyenne Barbara Lynch.
The South End is “maturing well” agrees Woods, who tries to walk a fine line between honoring the neighborhood's history and adapting to its present. Almost half the Metropolis menu are mainstays since opening, said Woods, but he also gives his interiors facelifts — Metropolis and Aquitaine received renovations last year — and swaps concepts to reflect changing tastes: In 2015, the Aquitaine Group's staid American restaurant Union Bar & Grille was reimagined as the convivial Italian-American joint La Motta's.
Woods does acknowledge, though, that the South End may have sacrificed some youthful verve for its grown-up sophistication.
“I don't think the South End is as cutting-edge as it used to be,” said Woods, who cites high rents that preclude younger crowds from moving in, opening businesses and fostering innovation at those that exist. “The dynamics of the neighborhood have changed. Not in a terrible way, it's just the life cycle of a neighborhood.”
“I don't know if I'd be able to open the same restaurant today,” said David DuBois, who was 29 when he opened the current