Hamersley's Bistro Review

Overall rating: 92

Food rating: 93

Hamersley's Bistro: Wonderful South End restaurant with meals that range from very good to great

We go to Hamersley's several times a year, but somehow I haven't gotten around to reviewing it.

Hamersley's is in the South End, which means parking can be a hassle if you don't want to pay to valet park. I know lots of people who rarely head to the South End for this reason, but Hamersley's makes it worth the trip.

The interior at Hamersley's is quite large with most seats in the main dining area providing a view of the open kitchen. The atmosphere is fairly upscale and formal, and people are dressed anywhere from casual to suits and ties.The noise level is moderate; certainly not to loud to have a conversation at a table for four. The waitstaff are typically helpful and ready to make suggestions.

That said, we find eating indoors at Hamersley's can be a bit stuffy at times, and in good weather we always try to eat at one of their outdoor tables next to a small park looking out onto Tremont St. This is just a beautiful location for dinner, both inviting and romantic.

Unfortunately, winter approaches, so we were eating indoors tonight. Gordon Hamersley was front and center cooking in the kitchen.

We ordered a couple of specialty cocktails: a pomegranate cosmopolitan and a "Green Mountain Manhattan made with maple syrup. The cosmopolitan was too sweet, and the flavors in the Manhattan were only okay.

Bread was served that was good but not great tonight. The bread selection can vary, and sometimes the breads are wonderful.

The menu varies seasonally. For an appetizer, I got a curried acorn squash and apple soup served with smoked shrimp. There was Greek yogurt and some green herbs to mix in. This had an interesting and unusual flavor and was very good.

For an entree, I got a special: a veal osso buco (yes, sorry about that) that was excellent. My wife got the pan-roasted lobster with chickpeas, couscous, and spinach that was great. It comes with a spicy sauce that the waiter strongly hinted she should get on the side rather than mixed in and that seemed like the right choice since it overwhelmed the other wonderful flavors on any bite it was added to. We got a side dish of Brussels sprouts with apples and walnuts that was also great.

For dessert, my wife got the pot de creme, which she thought was delicious though seemed less interesting to me. I got the apple upside down cake with maple walnut ice cream, which was incredibly good.

Before tip, the meal (including two drinks and a glass of wine) was $165. This was a lot of food. I have had better meals at Hamersley's but various dishes were really great. The food came extremely quickly, which made things feel a bit rushed, though this seems to have been caused mainly by our snapping up one of the last two orders of the osso buco.

If you haven't been there and like fish (or even if you're only lukewarm on fish), I'd suggest getting the spicy halibut. I've gotten this many times, and it is always amazing. Hamersley's is also known for their roast chicken, which lets you see what a great chef can do with roast chicken but still never seems as interesting to me as some of the other dishes.

Overall, Hamersley's provides a reliably excellent meal, and sometimes the food is just incredibly good. So, if you're willing to brave parking in the South End, this is really a great place to go.

Puritan & Company

Overall rating: 82

Food rating: 84

Puritan & Company: Good food in Inman Square

We've been to Puritan & Company twice now, and the food has been consistently good on both visits. Like most of the other restaurants we seem to end up at, it serves locally sourced modern American cuisine.

The restaurant is in Inman Square and the dining area has a fairly open floor plan, but is so dimly lit that I needed the light from my smartphone to read the menu. The noise level is quite high, but we were given seating at a table near the corner of a bench that allowed us to sit next to each other and this made for a reasonably intimate dining and conversation experience. However, at many other tables we'd have been across from each other and been raising our voices to be heard.

Our waiter was knowledgeable and helpful in selecting food and wine (they serve wine and beer, but not mixed drinks). I had ordered a white wine on his recommendation and he brought a second wine for me to compare, which I ended up choosing, though this was a bit of an unmentioned upsell as that wine was significantly more expensive (though worth it).

Excellent dinner rolls were served with butter. We ordered an appetizer of wild mushrooms served with an egg, arugula, garlic and a thin slice of smoked brioche. This was quite good.

For an entree, I ordered a special: sablefish, served over some greens and a lemony beurre blanc. This was tasty though the portion was fairly small. My wife ordered the other special: a rib eye steak that had been aged in-house and served with hen of the woods mushrooms and celery root. This was also quite good, though we were told it would come medium rare and it was actually very rare.

We didn't get dessert.

Overall it was a good meal at a fairly standard price. We know some people who are really high on Puritan & Company, but while we've enjoyed two meals there, we haven't loved them. Also in Inman Square, though a completely different style of food, Oleana is much better and more interesting at a similar price. A short drive from Puritan & Company and serving similar cuisine is Bergamot, which we think has better food, has larger portions, is somewhat less noisy, and, with their nightly prix fixe, is less expensive. However, Puritan & Company has its own styles and flavors and should be worth a visit.

51 Lincoln Review

Overall rating: 79

Food rating: 79

51 Lincoln: Pretty good, but better food available in the neighborhood

Continuing our trend with Lineage of going back to a restaurant we'd been to once in the distant past, we ate for a second time at 51 Lincoln. We'd been there years ago and had thought it was overpriced for what it offered, but have been hearing good things and thought we should give it another try.

51 Lincoln is in Newton Highlands and like many other restaurants reviewed on this blog features creative preparations of mostly locally sourced foods.

The restaurant includes a bar area with a TV showing sports that is pretty well separated off from the dining area. We had early reservations and despite the restaurant being mostly empty were initially given seats directly in the line of wind gusts when the outside door opened. The hostess was happy to reseat us when asked.

We started out with drinks, ordering a "scarlet martini" that we both thought was excellent. (Later, I ordered an inexpensive Riesling that was awful.) Bread was served with two dips: an interesting tasting hummus, and a tomato/chili. The bread was good and the dips were very good.

For appetizers, we got a poached pear salad, and the preparation of the pears, with a tangy/spicy vinaigrette was excellent. We also got a braised beef ragout served with polenta that was also very good.

If the meal had stopped at this point, we would have concluded we'd been overly harsh in our opinion of 51 Lincoln in the past.

For entrees, we got mahi mahi and chicken under a brick. The preparation of the mahi mahi (pan seared, with roasted butternut squash, oyster beurre blanc, butternut squash chips, fennel and golden beet salad) sounded wonderful but was pretty standard and dull and the mahi mahi was a bit overcooked. The chicken under a brick (chive buttermilk biscuit, chanterelle mushroom ragout, carrot puree) was similarly better on the menu than on the plate where it was pretty dull, though the mushroom ragout went well with the biscuit.

For dessert we got a special: a bread pudding made with mission figs and covered with dark chocolate sauce. This was tasty, but again not nearly as inspired as it sounded.

One definite plus to our visit was the waitress. When my wife asked whether to get the chicken under a brick, or the much more expensive ribeye, she did not try to steer her to the more profitable meal. She also quickly removed the awful wine and didn't charge us for it.

The cost of the meal (with four drinks) and before tip was about $158. Sycamore, about two miles away from 51 Lincoln is similarly priced, has equally good drinks, and the food is tastier and more interesting, and Farmstead Table near Sycamore is somewhat less expensive and also has better food overall.

Unlike with our reassessment after eating at Lineage, I doubt we'll be heading back to 51 Lincoln anytime soon.