Legal C Bar

A diverting Caribbean subplot in the Legal Sea Foods story also stands as an excellent restaurant in its own right

27 Columbus Avenue (Statler Building), Boston Park Square
426-5566
Open daily 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.
Full bar
AE, DC, Di, MC, Visa
Sidewalk-level access

by Robert Nadeau

The one irresistible force is entropy. Things disperse and lose their order and energy. Even Legal Sea Foods, after almost 30 years in the restaurant business, has 14 locations. There's a little muddle in its once-pure concept, a little less competitive edge in the quality and variety of seafood.

Time for an immovable objector to entropy, executive chef Jasper White -- the man who closed his acclaimed restaurant, Jasper's, before entropy could dull its reputation.

We don't get a lot of story lines for restaurant reviews, but Legal Sea Foods' battle for high standards has always been dramatic, and the addition of a star like White adds a drum roll and a spotlight. By the time "Jasper's new dishes" could be identified on Boston-area Legal menus last summer, they tasted like competent, characterful variations on Legal standards and on the restaurant dishes where White summers in Rhode Island. Rhode Island Red Chowder was a somewhat peppery, tomato-based answer to Legal's New England chowder; clam fritters were a cleaned-up version of the Rhode Island shore dinner appetizer. Good eating, but just another layer on a burgeoning menu.

Legal's second noticeable move under White, however, was to switch to wood-fired grills in all the restaurants. That one really puts a rock in the path of Old Man Entropy. The hotter fire makes a big difference in grilled dishes, and Legal's eccentric service system -- pay first, get served by someone else when the dish is ready -- can ensure peak flavor at the table. Who says a corporate chain can't make a superior grilled scallop?

Now we have Legal C Bar, Legal's old Park Square bar redone with a Caribbean theme. If I knew none of the above, I would pronounce this a terrific restaurant with flawless food, but a bit more stiff and corporate than other restaurants of the same genre. (Think of the party atmosphere of Rhythm 'n' Spice, or the wilder culinary innovations of the Green Street Grill or the East Coast Grill.) My speculation is that Legal C Bar is a diverting subplot in the big story. I can't imagine a chain of Legal C Bars, but I could see the C Bar having a long individual run under chef Novilus Petit-Frère, a Haitian immigrant who worked his way up from busperson over 17 years.

The food is pan-Antillean, and generally goes well with the drinks, which are pan-yacht club. Bermuda fish chowder ($3.95, $5.95) is highly flavored stuff, even if you ignore the pepper sauce (Outerbridge sherry peppers) served alongside. The basic bowl is a dense, darkish fish, perhaps king mackerel, in a sauce with tomato and some allspice. The conch fritters ($6.95) are impeccably fried, mostly cornmeal, like Jasper's Rhode Island clam fritters but better -- because a little conch has more flavor than a little clam, and because the curry-onion mayonnaise on these conch fritters is such a superb dip.

Coconut shrimp ($8.95) are very large but conventional shrimp that have been rolled in coconut (and almond) before deep frying. The dip is a similarly glorified duck sauce made of ginger and orange marmalade.

Then there are "Petit's Haitian-style chicken wings" ($5.95 per dozen). These are peppery, braised rather than fried, and with a sweet-and-sour dip that strikes me as Chinese. With or without dip, they are the funkiest thing on the menu, but the Legal touch is that Petit gets to use only the mini-drumstick sections of the wing. Where the two-boned parts go, I have no clue.

I'm still a fan of the freshness of Legal's fried calamari, and the version here ($7.95), with jalapeño peppers and garlic sliced in, is even better. It may be significant that the waitress describes the calamari as "Rhode Island style." Bajan curried beef turnovers ($6.95) are only mildly spiced, but the pastry is the yummy flaky pastry an old customer of Jasper's would remember.

There are eight kinds of seafood cooked on the wood grill, and our grilled sea scallops ($15.95, $11.95 as a lunch special) were impressive. The grilling sears them beautifully on the outside, and seals in a lot of flavor. The platter becomes very Caribbean with a chunky salsa-salad of tropical fruit and cilantro, the fried plantains, the rice and beans, and a little cucumber salad. I also tried some divine grilled shrimp on a large caesar salad with grilled shrimp ($12.95), but the salad itself was ordinary.

"Acra" ($10.95) is a dish with a pretty story. In West Africa, acra are bean fritters, related historically to the pakoras of India. These fritters came to the Caribbean in slavery times, and the name was also applied to salt-cod fritters. The Legal version, supposedly in the style of St. Lucia, are exquisite, soft pancakes with a stimulating saltiness that demands beer.

Speaking of beer, Legal C Bar has the well-known Jamaican imports -- Red Stripe, Dragon Stout -- and one I hadn't seen, Carib Shandy ($4), which is a blend of lager and a mild ginger beer. The rum drinks are made to Legal standards, although I should warn you that the blend of rums in the "Rum Runner" cocktail ($5) ends up with a strong vanilla flavor evocative of pink bubble gum. The swizzle stick of sugarcane is very classy, however.

Legal C Bar also has a few interesting desserts. The tropical floating island ($4.25) is a fluffy-soft meringue over a C-shaped, rum-flavored pastry cream and some chocolate sauce. This kind of light dessert works well in tropical weather, and it also works in the Boston winter after a tropical meal. Coconut-lime cake ($4.95) is a kind of layered moon pie over a chunky banana-papaya sauce, and homemade lime sherbet ($4.25) is zowie-good, with a ginger rolled cookie and a mango sauce.

Service is excellent; dishes come out in random order, but otherwise the old Legal system has been retired. The room has the modern, fish-market coldness of Legal Sea Foods, despite maps and pictures from the Caribbean Islands and a musical background of zouk and soca. I think the tile floor is the problem, or maybe it's just the snow on the sidewalk outside the window.

Mrs. Nadeau says this is the best restaurant she's eaten at in ages. I'm more prone to not-quites, but when Legal C Bar isn't authentic, it's usually because the ingredients are too good.