Year of the Cow

Boston isn’t the only city in the midst of a red-meat swoon. Vegas is full of steakhouses. In New York, top restaurateurs like Laurent Tourondel, Jeffrey Chodorow, and Tom Colicchio have opened their own temples of beef. And Wolfgang Puck’s newest outpost in Beverly Hills is the aptly named Cut, which just got a rave review from New York Times critic Frank Bruni.

Still, the steakhouse boom has hit more intensely here. Insiders point to Boston’s oft-repeated reputation for being politically liberal but gustatorily close-minded, and say that although the city has experienced a surge of risk-taking chefs, the population has not yet caught up. “Bostonians don’t like froufrou food,” says Seth Woods, whose Prime 128 will stick close to the modern New York steakhouse model. “Steakhouses appeal to a large swath of people, and if you get them in the door, you can sneak some cuisine by them.” Jay Murray, executive chef at Grill 23 since 1998, adds, “There’s a core group—maybe 5,000 people—who will try cutting-edge restaurants about every year and a half. But they’re not going back every week.” Steak, on the other hand, always sells.

This is what Pino Maffeo learned with Restaurant L, which appealed chiefly to “chefs and food writers,” as he puts it. “When the Boston diner reads that you’re using chemistry to make food taste better, they think, Science and food? There’s no connection,” he says. Six months after Maffeo and partners Nino Trotta and Olzhas Tugelbayev took over the space from owner Debi Greenberg and reopened it as Boston Public, business is better. “What’s changed in the kitchen? Nothing,” he says. The menu retains many of the items from Restaurant L, like Maffeo’s signature Laotian ribs. “But I definitely notice a different clientele,” he says.

In fact, that clientele—specifically, corporate types—is the golden ticket. Everyone’s looking to tap the mother lode of execs with expense accounts. “The business set doesn’t go to Aquitaine,” Woods says. “It’s too bistro. The tables are too close. It doesn’t have big seats.” In other words, it’s not a good place to settle in and close a deal. Prime 128, meanwhile, will be designed for privacy, and located amid the scores of office parks that dot the highway from which it takes its name.