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Barbara Lynch shutting it all down
By adamg on Wed, 10/09/2024 - 6:28pm
Boston Restaurant Talk reports Barbara Lynch is closing the last two restaurants she hadn't already closed: No. 9 Park on Beacon Hill and B&G Oysters in the South End. Lynch ran into some employee issues last year, which included a lawsuit.
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Comments
Sometimes
You get too big for your britches.
Or your bartender's britches, whatever.
I had hundreds of great meals at Lynch's places
over the years, and her restaurants trained a lot of talent that went on to success and impact elsewhere. I can remember liking her food even before she got her own first restaurant (No. 9), at David's in the Transportation Building and Galleria Italiana on the Common.
Her bar program (more specifically, her astute hiring of Tom Mastricola) at No. 9 Park was a great leap forward for craft cocktails, the first place on this side of the river to nail the combination of historical scholarship, craft and attention to quality and little details that defines the category. The bar Drink pushed this envelope further, serving as a huge greenhouse of cocktail innovation and talent that spread like virtuous crabgrass to bars and restaurant bar programs all over Greater Boston.
She cultivated great wine programs and leaders like Cat Silirie. She established a front-of-house service culture that was the benchmark at the fine dining level here for years. And she had the balls and the backing to beat everyone into Fort Point at a time when that seemed crazy, the neighborhood was so desolate back then.
It was gross and disturbing, the way it ended, though based on a huge mound of anecdotal evidence, I believe her fate was deserved. On the way to that inglorious end, though, she left a wide, deep mark, helping blaze a trail for more women hospitality leaders. It was an incredible success story, until it wasn't.
The stinging irony here is that it looks like some of those women following in her wake are finally breaking the hold that toxic dudes have held on kitchens, dining rooms and bars here for so long. But apparently Lynch herself turned out to be just as bad as the booze-addled, gropey, mentally abusive boys.
I hope she finally accepts the help that she needs, and some of the people whom she hurt and stole from on the way get some peace and compensation. Otherwise, this is just a really unhappy, dispiriting end to what was a long, memorable and groundbreaking career in the Boston restaurant industry.
Jodi Adams and Lydia Shire …
… came before her and were already setting new better standards of chefdomhood.
I worked with both and both still seem to have maintained values.
How could you judge the chefdom if you'd only
ever eaten at Lynch's snack bar in the Harbor Islands?
But your point has some merit: Shire and Adams were Lynch contemporaries doing women-led restaurants when that was almost unheard of here, and they're still going without Lynch-type scandals.
LOL
that was served cold
Wow! Thank you MC Slim JB!
Wow! Thank you MC Slim JB!
Such a well articulated overview of an interesting local culinary saga.
The only Barbara Lynch meal …
… I ever ate was the worst fish and chips I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. It happened on Spectacle Island when she was running the snack bar. I was so hungry but I could not even manage more than two bites.
Garbage.
Chefs can be real assholes. Sounds like she was one. Otherwise who cares. I’m tired of reading about her rise and fall. Why do people relish in it so much.
Relish … haha. That’s what was so awful about her fish and chips. Besides the fish being over salted, the relish in the tarter sauce was vile.
Summary judgment based on a sample size of one
is what Yelpers do. I don't think Lynch's massive success and loyal following over decades was some magic trick that worked in spite of shitty food.
Her restaurants weren't perfect. She definitely got away with some unfairly high prices, especially on wine: I was once involved in a long Chowhound.com argument about her wine swindling at The Butcher Shop, to which I brought very detailed data, analysis and receipts. (TLDR: she marked up her by-the-glass wines about 450% over retail, where the typical Boston restaurant markup was about 333%, and serious wine-oriented restaurants often did only 250%.)
I disliked the vibe at her bygone, very pricey flagship Menton: it reminded me of a Fortune 500 corporate boardroom. But that's capitalism, baby: lots of people were happy to pay that tariff for a long, long time.
I get it: it's hard to give restaurants and chefs a second chance after an awful experience. But I have to say, yours was misleading: I never even heard of her running that end-of-nowhere snack bar. You quit there and missed out some potentially great restaurant meals. There's a reason many people besides me are going on, and will go on, about her story.
It was never a question of trying….
… her food again and not because of quality.
I’ve worked with many chefs. But I’ve never been able to afford their prices. What I know of haute cuisine is from home kitchens, travel and when chefs sent me dishes while I was working.
I don’t even like eating out much even when the food is exquisite. I know too much what goes on back of the house. Especially in fancy places.
You can call that a Yelp review too. Just keep in mind, fine dining is not what everyone can afford or actually enjoys.
To my mind, home cooking with friends and family beats all and almost everyone can afford it.
Affordability is very much an issue
for restaurant patrons, especially these days. I recognize my extraordinary privilege in having my restaurant meals partially subsidized by a professional food critic gig. I've also worked in a bunch of restaurant kitchens, and even the worst of what I've witnessed there does not deter me from dining out.
I think you're in a distinct minority if you don't particularly enjoy dining out for reasons other than its expense. It's a big deal for most people, even if they can afford to do it only very occasionally at the Lynch level of restaurant.
Meanwhile, Lynch was one of the most critically-acclaimed (only local two-time Beard Award winner), popular and successful fine-dining chefs in Boston history. The implosion of her empire, a $40M-$50M a year business (I'm guessing, maybe more) at its peak, is a huge story for a lot of reasons.
OT: I miss the "Improper Bostonian"
I could practically taste those restaurant reviews even though they were mostly about places I'd never frequent.
Thanks for those kind words!
It means a lot!
A restaurant critic
A restaurant critic who thinks that people who aren't into restauraunts are a distinct minority?
So what you mean is that your work is of value to MOST people.
Have you looked into the verifiability of your self-serving assumption? Or was that you being a critic of society and how it ought to be served to you, too?
Stick to restaurants, and don't minimize people who value things other than you do, lest your bias show.
Not that its showing here and now or anything. /s
I imagine if I were trying to critique society
in a self-serving way, I might have said, "More people need to be into fine dining so my work will become more relevant."
Instead, I offered the sizzling-hot take that the vast majority of people enjoy dining out even if they can't always afford to do so at the fine-dining level of Lynch's restaurants. (The industry defines fine dining as any place with an average per-capita check size of over $50.)
That's a purely anecdotal observation on my part, but there is the fact that MA residents spend about $25B a year on restaurants of all types, with about $2B of that at the fine dining level, which tier is mostly concentrated in bigger cities like Boston.
I could post self-serving broadsides all day long and it would not reverse the declining influence of and demand for restaurant reviews conducted by journalistic methods. I've been talking about that for 15 years, each one punctuated by the disappearance of one publication or another that used to run professional reviews between a dozen and 50 times a year. We pro restaurant critics been dinosaurs in a tar pit for a long time.
I'll stand by my wild assertion that the vast majority of people enjoy dining out, and at least occasionally in fancy joints.
“ I'll stand by my wild
“ I'll stand by my wild assertion that the vast majority of people enjoy dining out, and at least occasionally in fancy joints.”
Whatever you need to believe.
The fancy joint majority.
Maybe someday if the fancy joints or any joint accepts food stamps or offers sliding scale.
Nice straw man ya got there.
As I already said, I think you're in a distinct minority if you don't particularly enjoy dining out for reasons other than its expense.
You cited other reasons above.
My personal reasons have nothing to do …
…. with the fact that poverty is widespread and much of the working class works more than one job and are trying to meet increasing rents and housing costs.
Fine dining is not in many people’s budget nor of even interest to them.
Why is it so hard to accept that it’s not for everyone? Never has been.
Let me know when you find
someone who is disputing your point here, because it sure as shit isn't me.
My personal reasons have nothing to do …
…. with the fact that poverty is widespread and much of the working class works more than one job and are trying to meet increasing rents and housing costs.
Fine dining is not in many people’s budget nor of even interest to them.
Why is it so hard to accept that it’s not for everyone? Never has been.
I may be a minority.
But I’m not the only person I know who boycotts or is uncomfortable supporting a backwards pay system that exploits workers.
So you don’t order from
So you don’t order from Amazon, Dunkin’ Donuts, pretty much any retail or the myriad of other industries that exploit their workers? Or just the ones you don’t like anyway/that you had a bad experience with once/that you can’t afford.
Way off topic but...
If you honestly believe that then be sure vote NO on Question 5 in the upcoming state and presidential election @Lee.
Once you put tip disbursement in the hands of restaurant management the exploitation of the wait staff will truly begin.
Tip dispersement has always been in …
… the hands of management in one way or another.
Management gets tipped by staff is some places.
Management has also always had its hands in the tip jar in one way or another. Regardless of existing or future laws.
YMMV
I have known two people who have known here fairly well. One worked for her, and the other was a James Beard level chef. They both adored her.
But, those two people I knew, who looked up to here, were also violent and abusive, and had less character and humility between them than a republican senator.
I never met her, but I gotta say, I am okay with that, based on who I have met in her fan club.
I'll get right to the point
I'll get right to the point for you, she deserved this.
I think the fact that this is still a hot story ….
… is partly based in attitudes towards women who have success in traditionally male professions.
That she turned out to be as much of an asshole chef as some other male celebrity chefs who are still successful economically speaking is telling about what people are willing to allow and seem to expect from men and condemn in women.
Barbara Lynch fucked up bad and got her just desserts financially speaking. But to dwell on it just feeds the gossip mill which grinds down women far more severely than men.
Let it go.
Lynch was enough of a national figure
that the New York Times covered this story today.
When is the Hallmark Hour presenting …
… the made for TV Barbara Lynch story movie?
Or will she be featured on America’s Most Wanted.
Give it a rest.
Maybe the fact that you don't like dining out
has some influence on your assessment of this story's importance.
When the country's biggest newspaper runs a story on Lynch's exit from the Boston dining scene after decades of success and acclaim, it's probably because they decided it would be of interest to the vast majority of their readers who do enjoy dining out. Lynch was nationally famous, named to Time's list of the world's 100 most influential people a few years ago.
Good Luck Barbara
You had the talent and the balls to go on a great run for a long time in a City that was a relative culinary backwater. Fine dining is really not my thing. There's just nothing like a dog at Castle Island, or fish and chips at Revere Beach. However, once or twice a year, it's possible in Boston to experience truly great food and service, thanks to people like you and your staff.