Eat Boutique

It’s Maine shrimp season! Being that I am only about 45 minutes from the border, I may have to make a little drive up there - soon! (Link and photo via Slashfood)

Barbara Lynch, a darling of the Boston restaurant scene, has surpassed “boutique” status, or has she? She has been building a restaurant complex in the historic Fort Point section of Boston to the sum of $7.5 million. The development firm building the complex that will house Lynch’s group of restaurants is investing $2.5 million for the extra systems that are needed to support her restaurant complex, while Lynch is working independently to raise the other $5 million. Check out a great article on the details at The Boston Globe. Lynch’s small restaurants include No. 9 Park, B&G Oysters and (my favorite) The Butcher Shop.

I have a tremendous about of respect for Lynch, as she built this little boutique restaurant empire from nothing - but now, as she’s getting money from big business investors, I applaud her success but struggle with calling her a boutique restauratuer. How about you?

No doubt, I will still check out the complex once it opens in the Spring. She has such vision and a unique angle on the Boston restaurant scene.

Check out this article from The New York Times. Frito-Lay is aiming to design a factory that reduces waste and its energy use.

Mark this day: Tuesday, November 13th, 2007. Locavore makes “Word of the Year” by the New Oxford American Dictionary. It’s more than a movement, it’s a WORD.

I read the news over at Dishing at The Boston Globe. Check out the press release on the Oxford University Press blog.

For those very few of you hearing the word for the first time, Oxford says, “The ‘locavore’ movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better.” Don’t we know it!

There was a food-focused panel discussion at the 92nd Street Y in NYC a few nights ago. Marco Pierre White, Thomas Keller, and William Grimes discussed celebrity chefs, haute cuisine and food bloggers. Here’s an excerpt from James Oliver Cury’s post on Epi Log.

“And finally, how do the great chefs feel about food blogs?
White resents the fact that critics ‘who know less than he does about food’ judge him. But he never reads reviews. Keller knows that bloggers are out there, but he hasn’t had the time to see what they’re really doing. Grimes admitted that people like him are a ‘necessary evil.’ Nods all around.”