Music Feedback
New This WeekAround TownMusicFilmArtTheaterNews & FeaturesFood & DrinkAstrology
  HOME
NEW THIS WEEK
EDITORS' PICKS
LISTINGS
NEWS & FEATURES
MUSIC
FILM
ART
BOOKS
THEATER
DANCE
TELEVISION
FOOD & DRINK
ARCHIVES
LETTERS
PERSONALS
CLASSIFIEDS
ADULT
ASTROLOGY
PHOENIX FORUM DOWNLOAD MP3s

  E-Mail This Article to a Friend
Caffe Umbra
Catch a rising star
BY ROBERT NADEAU

 Caffe Umbra
(617) 867-0707
1395 Washington Street, Boston
Open Sun and Tue–Thu, 5:30–10 p.m.; and Fri–Sat, 5:30–11 p.m.
AE, DC, Di, MC, Vi
Full bar
No valet parking
Sidewalk-level access

To me, Laura Brennan is one of the underpublicized heroines of cheffery. She not only survived studying with the brilliant-but-difficult Madeleine Kammen at the Modern Gourmet in Newton, she was also anointed chef after Kammen returned to France. She was the chef at Michela’s between the reigns of Todd English and Jody Adams. She took over the lamented Mercury Bar after Steve Johnson left. Why isn’t Laura Brennan famous?

I think she’s poised on the cusp of fame with the opening of her own restaurant, Caffe Umbra. The " umbra " is the shadow of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, directly across Washington Street. The cathedral is under its own shadow these days, and I don’t know if post-Mass diners contribute to the buzz at Caffe Umbra, but both loyalists and critics will find a lot to like on Brennan’s menu. There are flavors from every phase of Brennan’s career, and a lot of nice details that others are sure to copy.

The opening menu is dedicated to Kammen, and starts with " MMK’s cream of lettuce soup with lobster butter " ($7). Madeleine Kammen has always been the anti–Julia Child, so her cream-of-lettuce soup is barely creamy; instead, it’s deeply flavored and set off with plenty of pepper. It’s served in a smaller-than-fashionable bowl, so it actually gets to the table hot. The lobster butter is an orange-white cloud of contrasting flavor at the soup’s center.

I was most impressed with a simple vegetable aïoli ($7). Veggies come in pairs — a split new potato, green beans and asparagus, a split baby artichoke, a couple of baby carrots, and a neat surprise: a split baby beet poached in cinnamon. The aïoli part is a pleasantly smooth mayonnaise tasting more of lemon than the traditional garlic. An appetizer of brisket ($9) matches sweet and slightly crispy beef with walnuts and a scrumptious little spinach tart. Shrimp salad ($9) is almost Scandinavian in style — nine long shrimp on a mound of dill potato salad with grapes and arugula.

Pastas and risotto are listed separately, and could make a fourth course for starving big spenders. There’s also a pasta sampler ($20) with bits of five pasta dishes. This is someone’s perfect dinner, but we skipped to the entrées. Don’t shy away from the skate wings ($20); skate is one of the most delicious seafoods. Brennan completely removes the bone and cartilage, so you have four triangles of fried white flesh piled onto a purée of cauliflower and potato, trimmed with puréed peas, and topped with fried crumbs of cauliflower and smoky bacon.

A special on swordfish ($23) was a wonderful piece of light, white, meaty swordfish, served on a soupy pile of ditalini pasta, carrots, and fava beans, all in a broth redolent of saffron and cinnamon. The restaurant has a signature presentation of a little condiment on each plate in a wooden spoon. The wooden spoon with the swordfish featured a black-olive tapénade.

Goujonettes of sole ($21) are strips of fish, sort of like fish " tenders, " lightly breaded and — our waiter insisted — seared, not fried. This is served on a mound of " brandade soufflé, " which is indeed lighter and not so salty as the true Provençal paste of salt cod and potatoes. A lovely assortment of wild mushrooms adds to the effect, as does a wooden spoon of the lemony aïoli.

Roulade of pork loin ($18) is fine meat, brined for juiciness, rolled around a filling of homemade sausage and cut thickly. This time the wooden spoon contains a chutney with a lot of coriander seeds, and the garnish includes a sweet-sour sauce and roasted cloves of garlic.

Plates aren’t vast, which allows the diner to employ the large French-bread rolls for their original purpose as the main starch of the meal, perhaps fortified with pipings of sweet butter, and additions of coarse salt and cracked pepper from small bowls on the table.

The wine list at Caffe Umbra is large and interestingly arranged. Somehow, the restaurant has found affordable French bottles to go with the food, such as the 2000 Marc Brédif Chinon ($35). Chinon is an ancient town in the Loire Valley that makes a red wine formerly quite acidic and long-lived. Brédif has modernized the wine to be drinkable within two years, still with lots of dark bramble fruit.

The desserts on the opening menu aren’t groundbreaking, but each is excellent for its type. Flourless chocolate cake ($8) is somehow lighter than the others, but with a full flavor of butter chocolate, a nice cherry sauce, and real whipped cream. The pot de crème ($8) is strong coffee, not chocolate, with two wonderful chocolate-phyllo-pastry turnovers on the side. Lemon-curd tart ($8) is thin, with a superior, almost brickle crust, and topped with lightly browned meringue and blueberries. The cheese plate ($11) has three cheeses: slices of a hard cheese like parmesan or Asiago, a melting double-cream like a brie, and a very melted triple-cream with an ash crust. Preserved figs and toast points garnish the plate. Tea ($4) is served in proper pots, and decaf ($2) is very good.

Caffe Umbra is a long, high room with bare-brick walls that reflect a lot of noise, even by new-restaurant standards. Service was very, very good on a crowded weeknight, and a filled new restaurant on a weeknight is an impressive sign of early success. The crowd is a South End mix, with some older customers who might have followed Brennan’s career. They were not disappointed.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com

Issue Date: June 27-July 4, 2002
Click here for the Dining Out archives
Back to the Food & Drink table of contents.
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend

home | feedback | about the phoenix | find the phoenix | advertising info | privacy policy | the masthead | work for us

 © 2002 Phoenix Media Communications Group