As the first guests have been seated in Menton's elegant dining room since the restaurant opened on Saturday, they've no doubt been impressed by its extraordinary fare, stylish design and attentive service. But for Barbara Lynch, the restaurant's legendary chef and owner, this opening represents more than the premiere of her latest endeavor. For Lynch, Menton is the culmination of her nearly three decades in the culinary industry and five years of intricate planning and collaboration.
"I've been cooking for 25 years and finally decided that this is the restaurant of my dreams," Lynch said. "This is the one that I want. It's very glamorous; the food is incredible; the service and hospitality are top notch. It's probably going to be one of the best restaurants in Boston." And judging by her previous success in the city, this may well prove to be the case.
A refined dining concept
When Lynch opened her first restaurant, No. 9 Park, in Boston's Beacon Hill area in 1998, the concept behind it was the guiding force by which she and her colleagues made decisions. No. 9 was envisioned as a chic, yet comfortable restaurant that would serve upscale cuisine, and it quickly received rave reviews and accolades from "Bon Appétit," "Food and Wine" and many other publications.
In the decade since her success at No. 9, Lynch expanded her company, known as the Barbara Lynch Gruppo, to include a total of five restaurants, a bar, a demonstration kitchen, a green grocer and a catering company. With each addition, she has developed an equally compelling — and often bold — concept to guide its creation.
"One of Barbara's gifts is that she has this really scarily brilliant instinct, and that's pretty much how she operates," Sarah Hearn, public relations and marketing manager for the Barbara Lynch Gruppo, said.
"She's enormously creative and she goes with her gut, so a lot of times she comes up with these things independently and then brings in a very close-knit, very dedicated team, many of whom have been with her for five plus years which, for the restaurant world, is ages and ages," Hearn added.
When the opportunity arose for the Barbara Lynch Gruppo to dramatically expand through a bold foray into the Fort Point area of Boston's South End, Lynch relied again on her instincts.
In 2004, the company committed to a staggering 15,000 square feet of space in an old warehouse that was being redeveloped on Congress Street. According to Hearn, Lynch immediately devised concepts for the enormous new space. "Right off the bat she [said], ‘I'm going to have a fine dining restaurant, I'm going to have a casual place and I'm going to have a bar.'"
In 2008, Sportello, her casual dining restaurant, and Drink, the bar, opened in the space on Congress Street. With the opening of Menton, Lynch's bold expansion campaign was completed.
"Fine dining was the last thing," Hearn said. "She had ideas about what she wanted, and this was ideas going back 20 years [from] all the fabulous dining experiences she's had, the travel, what she's loved, what she's hated, what she thought she could do better, what she thought was perfection. And that was marinating for several years."
What emerged from this process was a marriage of Lynch's long-standing interests in the esteemed cuisine of Italy and the classic culinary technique of France. Put simply: "It's French and Italian cuisine — very refined French and Italian cuisine," Lynch said.
In an effort to highlight the choice ingredients that will make up each dish, the chefs will take a slightly different approach.
"The food is a little lighter than No. 9 Park," Lynch said. "It's more based on fish and vegetables and light, and so forth. If it's about white asparagus, then it's going to be about white asparagus. If it's about the chestnut, it's going to be about that."
This simplicity will in no way translate into its pricing — one of the trademarks of fine dining. Indeed, Menton will be one of Boston's most expensive restaurants and will offer guests two choices: a four-course, prix fixe menu priced at $95 and a seven-course chef's tasting menu priced at $145. Among the dishes served are veal sweetbreads served with carrot, caraway and honey, and Lola duck served with consommé, fennel and farro.
Building perfection
After fully developing the concept for her fine dining establishment, Lynch and her team carefully oversaw the building process to ensure that each facet of their plan would be realized in the completed space.
As part of the design, the 15,000 square foot space was divided into the three restaurants, a large, main kitchen and several other spaces that the company could use for events. In addition, both Sportello and Menton have their own kitchens. While the entire project was executed with great care, particular attention was given to Menton's individual kitchen.
Some highlights of this particular space's construction include the incorporation of a Molteni, a large, custom-made French cooking suite. The suite features three burners, two flat tops, four gas ovens and a plancha (an iron griddle). With its impressive size, the Molteni dominates the center of the kitchen. The suite is particularly innovative because it allows Menton's chefs to work around a common space as opposed to a traditional line format that often defines similar kitchens.
Another highlight is a glass-enclosed room, known as the chef's table, located behind the Molteni. This space, which can seat up to 14 and is available for private bookings, was designed so that guests could personally witness the fascinatingly complex process entailed in the preparation of every plate. It places them, quite literally, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the kitchen.
A feast for the eyes
Although the menu occupies fundamental importance at Menton, Lynch also sought to develop a space whose design would enhance the fare on the menu. For this project, Lynch commissioned designers and long-time friends Cheryl and Jeffrey Katz of C&J Katz Studio.
"She can basically talk about what she loves, what she tastes, what she feels, and then the Katzs can take that and actually translate that into fabrics and palettes perfectly," Hearn said. "They're in her head. They basically translated all of those feelings and desires into this beautiful palette."
Guests at Menton enter through a small vestibule off of Congress Street into a lounge decorated with richly upholstered couches, walls covered in muted gray paneling and thick, patterned carpets. This lounge area, intended as a place for parties to assemble before being seated, sets the tone for the elegantly understated dining room across the next threshold to the dining room.
Menton's dining room is dominated by a bold, yet restrained color palette reflected primarily in its gray, wood-paneled walls, deep green carpeting and dark gray ceiling. Substantial yet simple black armchairs are situated around each of the restaurant's 15 tables, which are covered in white linen. The center of the room is dominated by three pendulous, translucent glass light fixtures that hang above two grey islands with undulating sides.
The careful attention to the design extends to each table, which is set with specially selected French china and flatware, Austrian glasses and crisply starched napkins. Like the restaurant itself, the tables that greet the guests aren't cluttered with the accoutrements one might expect in a fine dining establishment. Rather, they further reflect the timeless simplicity with which the space was designed.
The overall aesthetic isn't overdone, and according to Hearn, that was in keeping with Lynch's wishes.
"Barbara always says this is what she envisions of being the glam, luxurious, grown-up expression of fine dining," Hearn said.
Training connoisseurs
One of the final, yet most important, aspects of the preparation for Menton's opening was the training of its staff. According to the restaurant's general manger, Alec Riveros, the training process was designed so that each employee would fully understand and consistently deliver the restaurant's delicately crafted concept to the guests on a nightly basis.
According to Riveros, each staff member participated in a rigorous, two-week training program before the restaurant's doors opened. During this training, the restaurant's management team introduced and discussed each of Menton's core standards. They also discussed the restaurant's extensive wine program in detail.
"This business is one of dealing with people and managing people," Riveros said. "We're not managing a particular product. We're managing people's feelings, we're managing people's performance and we're managing guest expectations. The bar is set pretty high when you're charging those prices."
One of the most important aspects of the training was establishing a smooth relationship among the multi-tiered level of customer service in the restaurant. Riveros said that this type of communication was extremely important because "potentially 12 people could be involved in the process of one appetizer being ordered from the guest to the kitchen, from the kitchen back to the table.
"We're not here to tell our guests how we want them to eat or how we want them to experience Menton," Riveros added. "We're here to guide them through an experience that could be two and a half, maybe three hours long, maybe even more. We're here to provide them an experience that brings them more than satisfaction of coming to Menton, but one that they will remember."
From Fort Point to the French Riviera
As is often the case, the name for the restaurant was one of the last things to be chosen. Despite its late arrival, it perfectly fit Lynch's highly developed fine dining concept. Menton is a small town in the French Riviera near the Italian border, and its name was suggested to Lynch by one of her designers.
"It's mainly a French population, but the cuisine is Italian," Lynch said. "I've driven through the town, and I know a lot about it. It's probably a place that I've had in the back of my mind, where I'd love to have a house or retire to at some point. And so as we did, we did more research … it fits everything that we're doing."
And now that the doors of Menton have been officially opened to the public, excitement is high among the staff as they witness the first days of their delicately crafted Franco-Italian creation.
"I think people are going to be blown away," Lynch said of the restaurant. "The décor is amazing; it's very elegant and luxurious. It's kind of different from everything else I've done."
