50 Best Restaurants: The Monday Tapas Menu at Rendezvous

Looking for some after-work sustenance on Mondays? (Who isn’t?) Hoof it to 50 Best Restaurants pick Rendezvous in Central Square for the tapas menu, served at the bar from 5-10 p.m. The small dishes range in price from $4-$8, and the changing menu depends on what chef/owner Steve Johnson finds at the Central Square Farmers’ Market or what’s fresh and available from local produce and fish purveyors.

Recent offerings have included roasted baby Brussels sprouts from Kimball Fruit Farm, bluefish cakes, and fresh Portuguese sardines from Courthouse Fish Market (pictured below). Fall also brings sautéed mushrooms from farmer/forager Steve Parker: hen-of-the-woods in early autumn and then oyster mushrooms in November.

Grilled Portuguese sardines with fennel vinaigrette and maras pepper. (Photo courtesy of Rendezvous.)

My friend and I nibbled on spicy fried chickpeas with kale and preserved lemon when we last visited — they paired perfectly with a Nehru (saffron gin, lemon, and cardamom) from Scott Holliday’s inventive cocktail list. Johnson calls the tapas night — two years running — a “fun, casual way to get a flavor of what we offer.” We couldn’t agree more.

(Rendezvous, 520 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 5-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Info: 617-576-1900, rendezvouscentralsquare.com.)

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