Anago Bistro (Cambridge, MA), RIP
Rob Gross
Anago Bistro, just outside of Central Square, Cambridge (down the
block from Toscanini's, if that helps) is closing this Saturday,
June 28. After the summer, the owners and staff will be opening
a larger restaurant at the Lenox Hotel, on Boylston Street in
Boston. I went as part of a group to have one final meal, which
I'll describe below, but first a bit of history.
Around the time I arrived in Boston, one of the most interesting
restaurants was Panache, owned by Bruce Frankel. This was one of
the high temples of nouvelle cuisine in Boston (perhaps even in
America). I dimly recall the rumor that it two quarts of stock,
reduced, to sauce each entree. However it was done, the sauces
were as intense as any I've ever eaten.
Frankel went on to open another restaurant at a second-floor
location along Boylston Street, roughly where Rattlesnake Bar is
now. This place was well ahead of its time, trying to serve
almost entirely American food with American ingredients, at a
time when few realized that American-made cheese could be
comparable to European ones. After a few years, Frankel gave up,
and renamed Panache as 798 Main, trying his American-influenced
dishes there.
A few more years passed, and Frankel sold the restaurant to Bob
Calderone and Susan Feingold (spelling and names approximate, I'm
afraid), who renamed it Anago Bistro, and gradually changed the
menu, some for the better and some for the worse. The key
element remained intense sauces on at least some dishes.
One lovely feature of Anago Bistro was a tasting menu, available
early in the week. For thirty-five dollars per person, the table
got an assortment of dishes served communally. That was what we
ordered last night. We began with tuna sashimi in the shape of a
cylinder, on a bed of slivered cucumbers surrounded with slices
of smoked salmon. Another appetizer was carpaccio, served on
lettuce atop triangles of grilled flat-bread. The third was a
blue cheese and caramelized onion tart. As two members of our
group of four had no interest in eating raw fish or meat, I got a
very large share of the carpaccio and the tuna, and both were
absolutely spectacular.
The fish course was a grilled salmon served atop fiddleheads in a
very intense sauce, and sauteed softshell crabs served on top of
crab ravioli dotted with saffron mayonnaise. I found the latter
a bit precious, and the former amazing.
Meat course: osso bucco made from lamb shank, atop more
fiddleheads, in a very reduced sauce, served with mashed
turnips. Sirloin with mashed potatoes was the other serving, and
it was good but less exotic.
Desserts: creme caramel, fruit crumble with home-made vanilla
ice cream, chocolate macadamia nut tart which, if anything, had
too many macadamia nuts, and the lightest tiramisu I've ever
tried.
Well worth the effort, if you see this in time and can get to
Cambridge before Saturday evening (though you'll need to request
the tasting menu when you make your reservation). Otherwise, we
can hope that the new incarnation in the new location will be as
good.
Oh, yes, given that the location has been such a blessing for
restaurants for the past two decades, it's worth mentioning that
a restaurant named "Salts" (I think) will be opening over the
summer at 798 Main St.--Rob
--
Rob Gross (617) 552-3758
Department of Mathematics http://fmwww.bc.edu/MT/gross/
Boston College gr...@cs.bc.edu
Chestnut Hill, MA 02167-3806 gr...@bcvms.bc.edu