Expansion common in Boston as fine dining recovers from economic and tourism slump

Nation's Restaurant News, June 17, 2002 by Bret Thorn

BOSTON -- Despite a continued slump in tourism and shrunken expense accounts, a number of fine-dining restaurateurs here are retooling and expanding their operations.

Lydia Shire's Biba closed June 8 for reconcepting and a $3 million face-lift. Steve DeFillippo, owner of the four-unit Northern Italian steakhouse concept Davio's, plans to relocate the original restaurant to loftier digs. And Michael Schlow, chef-owner of Radius, was expected to open a new Italian restaurant called Via Matta on June 15.

Not all restaurants are changing for the better, however. Stan Frankenthaler's Salamander recently filed for Chapter 11 protection, and the restaurant now is for sale.

Frankenthaler opened the original Salamander's restaurant in nearby Cambridge, Mass., in 1994. He closed that restaurant early in 2000 and reopened it in Boston in December of that year.

He blamed the restaurant's failure largely on "opening at the beginning of a very changing landscape in a fairly saturated market." Utility prices in the winter of 2001 were very high, and then that spring many high-tech companies based in Boston began to fail, he noted.

"Actually, things prior to September looked pretty good for the fall," Frankenthaler said. "We had some very nice parties booked for the fall coming out of Labor Day."

But those parties were canceled after Sept. 11.

Overall, however, the mood in Boston is upbeat, according to Peter Christie, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. He said the Boston restaurant business had "come back nicely," following difficult months in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

Tourism is still down, Christie said, noting that international travel at the city's Logan Airport was 22 percent lower in April 2002 than it was in April 2001, and domestic travel was down by 15.5 percent.

"Remember the international traveler, as a rule, stays longer and spends more money," Christie pointed out.

Countering that loss, some restaurants are benefiting from the many companies based in Boston that are holding their offsite meetings locally rather than bearing the expense of flying out of town, he said.

Schlow said the business at Radius is "fantastic."

"I think there's people, obviously, who are not doing so well," he said. "In flush times everybody's doing well, but right now, there's still a good amount of businesses that are doing really, really well."

And some operators are ready to capitalize on that continuing success.

Ken Himmel, owner of Grill 23 in Boston and Harvest in Cambridge and also one of the developers of the AOL/Time Warner Center in New York, joined forces with Shire by purchasing a share of Biba. The restaurant will be renamed within 30 days and is scheduled to open in the late fall.

Shire shifted her interests earlier this year when she took on the task of running Locke-Ober, a 111-year-old landmark restaurant in Boston. Himmel first worked with Shire some 25 years ago, when she was the chef at Harvest. He later sold the restaurant to Ben and Jane Thompson and then bought it back in 1998.

"I saw an opportunity here in Boston with Biba," Himmel said. The entrepreneur says the building's owner, Ron Druker "is a very good friend of mine," and its architect, Howard Elkus, also redesigned Harvest after Himmel repurchased it.

"So when I sensed that there was a time for a change, maybe, with Lydia and Biba, we approached Lydia and we approached Ron Druker," he explained.

Himmel says the restaurant will follow the strategy he has developed at Grill 23 and Harvest in having a chef as a partner.

"Our positioning for the new restaurant is Lydia has 25 years of talent. She's one of the most creative people in the world in this business," Himmel said. The menu will be built around Shire's tastes and talents; "it will be the best of Lydia," he said.

Himmel has hired Adam Tihany to design the restaurant, which he said he hopes will have an ambience that is a cross between The Four Seasons restaurant in New York and Postrio in San Francisco.

In addition, the restaurant will have a "bar chef" who will create signature drinks with only fresh products and serve them in customized glassware.

He anticipates check averages of $100 per person -- about the same as at Grill 23, which he predicted would do $12 million in business this year. He expects Harvest to do $4.5 million in sales this year.

Schlow of Radius and his business partner, Christopher Meyers, took over another of Shire's restaurants, 7-year-old Pignoli, in Park Square.

"The landlord came to us," Schlow said. "We were looking at a space in the area. He knew about it, and he came to us.... He said, 'Pignoll is going out of business; why don't we talk?' And so we talked, and literally within a week we made a deal."

The kitchen at Schlow's new restaurant, Via Matta, will be run by his longtime sous chef at Radius, Luis Morales, who spent five months in Italy preparing for his new position as chef de cuisine.

Schlow said the restaurant's food would be from four Italian regions. "We're trying to be very Italian and think of what's near us" and use local ingredients. So during the summer he will make use of the Massachusetts Bay area coastline and present food in the style of Southern Italy's Amalfi coast. During the winter months the regions of Piedmont, Tuscany and Emiglia-Romagna will be highlighted, he said.