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[Dining Out]

Lucky’s Restaurant
A Rat Pack lair in a digit-head world
BY ROBERT NADEAU

dining out
Lucky’s Restaurant
(617) 357-5825
355A Congress Street (Waterfront), Boston
Open Mon–Fri, 11 a.m.–2 a.m.; Sat–Sun, 6 p.m.–2 a.m.
AE, DI, MC, Visa
Full bar
Down four steps from sidewalk level

Lucky’s used to be a dive named Stuart’s, a serious subterranean drinking bar for guys in the printing trades. Now Congress Street is a digital gulch with artist’s lofts about. People watched for months as union labor and fancy trucks came and went to rehabilitate the old Stuart’s into ... a subterranean ’50s-retro bar so perfectly done that it looks as if they didn’t change anything. No decorator could so surely and carefully mismatch plaids. No architect could so knowingly specify red lighting along with lampshades decorated with red circles. What restaurant supplier could come up with just the right chrome barstools? They must have taken everything in Stuart’s, had it remade in some Hollywood scenery shop, then added the Salvation Army couches without which no drinking establishment can be licensed these days.

The spell is broken only by the music (’60s Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and a little ska) and the crowd — twenty- and thirtysomethings packing in together after a day at the electronic easel. They’re loud, they drink more than they eat, and their cell phones make those Jetsons noises in this Archified bunker of relictory retro. Stuart’s was a two-sided bar, and Lucky’s divides this inheritance into a smoking side and a non-smoking side. We ate on the non-smoking side, but as the non-smoking side emptied out toward 9 p.m., I strolled across the way and found another kind of retro crowd altogether — mostly guys, mostly in pairs, mostly looking around. This was the real deal behind that bachelor-pad music, the techno of the ’50s. The management is wise to lay off the Mantovani; it would empty the room.

The food is a combination of today’s bar food and today’s archly retro food. The best of it is the smoked-chicken quesadilla ($6), an effective combination of flavors in a wedge-sliced tortilla sandwich, although the salsa could have used some fresh cilantro. Fried calamari ($6, $9) was a large portion, but reached our table limp, with an unconventional dip of blue-cheese sauce and a heap of celery. Must be the influence of those Buffalo squid wings. The “Big Caesar” salad ($6; $8 with grilled chicken) was well shredded and not overly large, covered with strings of cheese, and served with an anchovy on top and dressing more redolent of olive oil than garlic. “Texas Chili” ($3, $5) was, of course, Boston chili with a lot of tomatoes; it hinted at Cincinnati chili with a dash of allspice, and was served like a dip with a vast heap of tortilla chips.

The “Lucky Burger” ($7) is “flat grilled.” I can think of three possible definitions for that phrase, but it seems to be cooked on a flat griddle. Thus it doesn’t taste of flame, but it’s a large piece of good beef on a very large bun, served with a small pile of field greens (!) and some sautéed onions and peppers. Ketchup is produced promptly with orders of the burger.

“Bella’s Meatloaf” ($10) is for big eaters. You get two steaks sliced out of a big log of meat loaf wrapped in bacon. You get lumpy mashed potatoes. You get gravy. The pork chop ($10) is only a little smaller. Ours was unfortunately so overdone that we needed a knife we didn’t have (flatware had been randomized our night). Squash and beans alongside were also underdone, a better effect with squash than with beans. The topping of tri-colored peppers and onions was excellent. A special on salmon with a crisp crust ($15) was served with a weird tomato sauce that looked like applesauce, excellent roast asparagus, and oven potatoes.

The bar service at Lucky’s is likewise a mix of half-informed retro and today. A glass of merlot ($4) was soft as marshmallow fluff. One of our party had to explain to the waitress what ruby port was. But they will make you a Manhattan or a Rob Roy faster than the late Sammy Davis Jr. could snap his fingers.

For dessert, you pay only $4 for something like chocolate cheesecake, wishing it were ganache, or apple pie with cinnamon ice cream that doesn’t have much cinnamon flavor.

Service at Lucky’s was friendly but inept. We couldn’t get the right flatware on the table without stealing it ourselves. Glasses piled up while plates were whisked away hastily. We were offered dishes intended for other tables, and eventually got a chance at someone else’s bill as well. I think some of this confusion was due to the very loud, low-ceilinged room, where you can’t hear what people say, and sometimes the noise drowns out even one’s own thinking.

Memo to servers: when switching bills among tables, remember not to hand each party the wrong credit card. That gives everything away. And there is always the risk that one of the parties might be a restaurant critic, who will use the lengthy remedy time to compose an embarrassing description of the error for the end of his or her column, even though the manager reduced the eventual check considerably.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.

Issue Date: April 5-12, 2001




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