Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/78062
B 126 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM transform the waterfront into a hot nightlife district. The Legal Harborside building has helped One of Red Lantern Restaurant & Lounge's Buddha statues watching over the crowd. Dancing and mingling at Gem Restaurant & Lounge at The Hawthorne. Now, Ross observes, standards are higher. "Boston is upping its game. Boston has always had some things in spades: Marathoners. PhDs. More vendors hawking Harvard sweatshirts and clam chowder than any tourist We have world-renowned chefs, and we've been thought leaders in some of the national restaurant movements, like sustainability." And when it comes to new nightlife, the most forward-thinking restaurateurs are scientific about combining food, drink, and design to create sensory and gustatory theaters of sorts. could possibly want. Looking at today's nightlife scene, you could be forgiven for assuming we've always had an abundance of high-style spots for mingling, munching, and tipping back icy martinis too. Surely it's normal to attend a launch party for a shiny new hotspot nearly every month, no? In fact, the last year and a half have brought some of the largest bar and restaurant openings the city has ever seen—and, unlike with past booms, the growth hasn't been limited to one corner of town: There is Storyville in Back Bay, Trade on the Waterfront, Descent at the W Boston in the Theater District, Julep Bar and Nix's Mate in the Financial District, and Catalyst Restaurant in Cambridge. The frequency of these debuts has been a boon to Boston's social scene, not to mention its economy. But perhaps more interesting than the fact that Where we've been has become a reflection of who we are, and we've become gourmands and design aficionados. developers, business owners, and patrons seem bullish on the market for nightlife is that the nature of our nightlife itself has shifted. Thumping music and velvet ropes are no longer enough to draw crowds (or at least the kinds of crowds you want coming back). "It's not just a restaurant or just a night club anymore. It's an entertainment venue," observes Charlie Perkins, president and owner of The Boston Restaurant Group, Inc., which specializes in the sale and appraisal of restaurants. It's the nature of what "entertainment" means to us that has changed. The new Bostonian wants not just music, but also quality cocktails, delicious food, and sophisticated high-design spaces. "Twenty or thirty years ago, you could find a space, paint it black, bring in some speakers, and call it a day," says Boston City Councilor Michael Ross, a vocal supporter of some of the city's biggest mixed residential and restaurant projects, including the redevelopment of the area around Fenway, where The Hawthorne most recently opened. Fresh design, Ross says, is an increasingly important part of today's nightlife projects. "It used to be if you had a great sign out- side, you could bring people in," he says. "You'd look at some of those places today and kind of wince." Architecturally, The Liberty hotel's award-winning design led the way with its incredible renovation of the old Charles Street Jail. For its first few years, from 2008 to 2010, it was the place to be no matter who you were, and it still draws significant crowds (especially on Thursday nights). The popularity of such a beautiful space made scene-spinners and restaurateurs realize that design is crucial, and now they go to great lengths to create gorgeous spaces. Perkins estimates that the glossiest build-outs in town run $650 per square foot, or about $9 million for a space the size of Empire Asian Restaurant & Lounge. And Empire partners Ed and Joe Kane, Randy Greenstein, and Kevin Long spared no expense design-wise: they commissioned a custom slab of marble from top-notch stone cutters at Cumar for the sushi bar, created coffered ceilings and wall screens modeled on Hong Kong hot spots Ed Kane toured (and sketched) himself, carefully placed lighting, mosaic tiled floors and back splashes, and an open kitchen with a hard-to-find large-capacity wok. When they found a blue toile fabric depicting a Chinese scene, they had it reproduced by hand on wall paper and laid beneath glass as an accent to the sushi bar's Italian gray stone. The shift in what we demand from our nightlife follows the national trend. As a culture, we're starting to appreciate, as those in Paris, Tokyo, and Barcelona long have, that there's more to nightlife than loud music and potent cocktails. Possibly it's also the HGTV and Food Network effect, where we idolize designers and chefs. The appreciation for design and great dining, however, has permeated our modern lifestyle, and at night it's become a sport. We track new restaurants we've tried like notches on a bedpost and post photos of our meals on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.