45 Province St | Downtown Crossing

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: 45 Province St

Really, if you're going to make an effort to be lobbyists, let's all stay reasonable so as not to be dismissed on the whole. It's a fine building with a major - yet fixable - flaw.
 
Re: 45 Province St

True. Put glass over it and it would be ok. But in the photo ^^^ Seabiscuit does look like he might be lifting his tail...
 
Re: 45 Province St

Not about 45 Province, but a review of the newly reopened Marliave's.

Boston.com - October 29th, 2008
A single-minded pursuit of flavor

By Devra First, Globe Staff | October 29, 2008

Scott Herritt, chef-owner of the subterranean Grotto, is cooking on a new level. Several, really: He emerged from the depths late this summer to open a new place, Marliave, a restored 1885 restaurant that features upstairs and downstairs dining areas, plus a little oyster bar.

The levels have distinct menus and missions. The casual downstairs takes fun food seriously -- the likes of sliders, rarebit, and burgers are prepared with real attention, which, with this kind of simple and satisfying food, translates to love.

The more formal upstairs takes serious food seriously, albeit with whimsical touches. The dishes are ornately plotted and presented, with multiple parts and multiple courses. Their translation is a more complicated assignment.

Starters often feature one ingredient prepared several ways, or riff on a single preparation using multiple ingredients. Eggs are served scrambled, poached, and deviled, with farm-raised caviar. Tartare is a threesome of beef, tuna, and hamachi. Even a salad described as "heirloom tomatoes, organic greens, fresh herbs" -- in theory the essence of fresh simplicity -- is elaborate. There's a lovely pile of pea tendrils, greens, and flowers, beside a stack of alternating tomato and mozzarella slices, beside a little bowl of tomato soup. It's very nice, though it looks more like an artifact than a salad.

The other salad on the menu, the ubiquitous beet, is even more done up. (This stands in contrast to the decor, which aside from some potted orchids is dark and austere, preserving the old, slanted nature of the space.) The dish is pink and red and scattered with flowers, with more stacking, this time of beets and goat cheese. It resembles something the Mad Hatter might serve Alice on Valentine's Day, and how you feel about that may depend on who you are. Served to a gentleman of the cognac-drinking variety, it's enough to make his nose wrinkle. He won't touch the dolly-size teacup of bright pink beet soup -- he prefers his wee drams amber -- but it's worth manning up for. It's totally delicious, balanced with a nip of vinegar, and spiked with bits of cheese and nuts. The presentation might be precious, but the dish certainly transcends the usual roasted beets, goat cheese, and greens.

Main courses again are variations on a theme, be it rabbit, lobster, or pumpkin. They come in shifts. So the dish titled simply "Scallops" is a plate of Nantucket Bay coquilles St. Jacques with Mornay sauce, followed by a second plate of divers with artichokes and uni butter. There is nothing wrong with either plate; the shellfish is perfectly cooked, and the uni butter proves a perfect, subtle foil. The slight whiff of the darker-natured sea urchin deliciously corrupts the cheerful, sweet scallop. But together, it's a plate of little scallops in butter followed by a plate of big scallops in butter. It feels redundant.

A pork dish, with meat from St-Canut Farms north of Montreal, features a large cast-iron casserole of cassoulet. It's really tasty, a stew of beans, bacon, pork sausage, and braised shoulder. Cassoulet isn't really an intro to a meal, however, it's the whole story. When the follow-up loin wrapped in bacon arrives, you'll have to gird yours. You're glad to see it, but you've got nowhere left to put it.

The double-plate-whammy makes you wonder whether you should have had a starter, as your main course is more like two main courses, but then, it's two main courses of the same thing and your starter provided variety. So does dessert, which comes in Chocolate (truffles, cake, pudding), Vanilla (very good: creme brulee, cupcake, cookie), and Ice Cream (which changes but might be something like lavender, ginger, and mint). There's a glass dome with cheese off to the side, but cheese doesn't appear on the menu and was never offered. It's good that portions are substantial, as prices are too: $17 for starters and $39 for main courses, plus surcharges on several dishes.

The egg starter, for example, comes with a $15 supplement, presumably for the caviar. Even with a smattering of luxury, $32 seems excessive for a couple of eggs, particularly if the preparation is off. The poached egg on one visit is so overdone it's essentially hard-boiled; these yolks don't run. The scrambled are spooned back inside an eggshell and served in an egg cup. It's a nice presentation, but it's simply scrambled eggs. The deviled egg is quite good, and just the sort of retro comfort food the Marliave knocks out of the park downstairs.

It's hard not to feel frustrated eating here. (It doesn't help that food can take forever to arrive, though the servers handle the situation professionally, providing a complimentary round of drinks.) There is much that is good. The idea of choosing a single ingredient and cooking elaborately around it is appealing. Real thought has clearly been put into the menu. "It's a study in food," our waiter tells us proudly on one visit. Sometimes it works. A main course of Wolfe's Neck Farm beef features short rib with potato puree in flavorful jus, followed by grilled tenderloin with light, flaky onion rings; the beef is wonderful in each preparation, though there's really no reason they couldn't appear on one plate together. The lobster dish starts off with rich bisque containing pieces of lobster meat and an unnecessary foam, then lobster tail and claw perched atop a hillock of buttered spinach, beside a ramekin of gooey macaroni and cheese topped with puff pastry for even more richness. (Why the $6 supplement when lobster is so inexpensive right now?) There's a nice selection of wines, and good house cocktails.

But for each successful dish there's a promising one that doesn't come together. The duck starter one night features meatballs that are undercooked in the middle, paired with hard, underdone foie gras ravioli. The pumpkin main course begins with a pumpkin carved out and filled with uninteresting pumpkin bisque; black truffles in the soup add little. The second plate is pumpkin ravioli with more black truffles. Again, the ravioli are hard; the filling tastes oddly like Butterfingers.

It's nearly impossible to envision each dish before it arrives, as the components aren't listed in order on the menu; the pork, for instance, is described as "sausage, braised shoulder, confit leg, bacon wrapped loin, cassoulet, cabbage," the pumpkin as "soup, ravioli, roasted 'bowl,' black truffle." This menu-composition choice seems deliberately confounding. With a little streamlining -- a more direct menu, perhaps fewer plates per serving, and slightly reduced price tags -- Marliave's upstairs could achieve the consistency and clarity of its downstairs. Then it will feel more like a labor of love, and less like an intellectual exercise.

Devra First can be reached at dfirst@globe.com.
Click to expand...
 
Re: 45 Province St

oh god i'm hungry now...and the Marliave is only 2 minutes away
 
Re: 45 Province St

Thanks for telling me where I'm having dinner tonight. I had no idea that this place had opened, the last time I walked by back in August or there abouts it appeared as though nothing was going on with the renovation and I forgot about the place entirely.
 
Re: 45 Province St

If this is the same Marliave next to 45 Province that has re-opened, then judging by the menu, it is definately not the same management. The old Marliave, or Cafe Marliave, was an old Italian restaurant with things like ziti macaroni with meatballs, and veal parmigiana, and antipasti. This, if it is the same place, is a totally different establishment. These folks must have bought out the old establishment. This appears to be something totally new and definately more upscale. I'll miss the old Marliave, even though their sauce (or gravy as the old Italians call it) was lousy, but it was a fun place to eat.
 
Re: 45 Province St

^^Ditto

And yes, it's a whole new owner/management. Much more upscale now. :-/
 
Re: 45 Province St

I never ate at the old Marliave but the gravy under the new ownership is fantastic and very reasonably priced. I think it was $12. The downstairs (technically the 2nd floor is you enter from Province) is much more casual than the top floor and also far less expensive.
 
Re: 45 Province St

^ Well, there goes another piece of good grit.



Gentrification strikes again.
 
Re: 45 Province St

To be fair, they didn't do a gut remodel. Most of the tin ceilings/walls, wrought iron and tile floor are still intact.

But on the whole, it's still a loss, just not as bad as it could have been.
 
Re: 45 Province St

I went there a bunch as a kid. My mom and dad went often before they were married. Even my grandmother, when she still lived in town, popped in occassionally for "the veal parm." Food was just so-so, but it drew us anyway because it was a Boston institution.

There are -- were -- several other places. Anyone remember Athens Olympia? We called it John's. My great-grandmother used to go to that one. My first cup of coffee. Turkish coffee.

Damn. Wish I could take my son there.

We will check out the new Cafe Maliave. Thanks for the tip.
 
Re: 45 Province St

I work a couple of blocks away from the Marliave and stopped in for a happy hour drink (or two) last week. Never made went to the old Marliave, but the new Marliave has a great atmosphere and the bartender was very welcoming. Didn't try the food, it is a pretty expensive restaurant, however they do have a pub menu with more reasonable prices.
 
Re: 45 Province St

Restaurant food has grown fancier everywhere in this country --including Boston. Elaborate constructions of exotic ingredients are now expected by the recent gourmet palate.

"Twas not always so. Comfort food emporia once abounded; and as they got rarer, the survivors grew more and more prized. Buzzy's Fabulous and Purcell's Cafeteria may be history, but Durgin-Park, Jake Wirth's, Regina's, Mr. Bartley's and the Union Oyster House soldier on not so much as gourmet enclaves, but on the strength of their unchanging and slightly gritty "authenticity" --like flies caught in amber. Marliave was once an august member of this company, but now it's just another gourmet temple.

There's just a tiny bit less Boston now.

If they don't put back the Province House steps, even more will have been lost.
 
Re: 45 Province St

Does anybody remember a place called "Dini's" on Tremont Street across from the burial ground? They had great schrod in there. How about the old, and crappy, Prince Spaghetti House on Washington Street? I think it was next to what is now "the Menino Greenway", aka, Kensington noplace, aka, the Gaity Theatre site.
 
Re: 45 Province St

Dini's Sea Grill. Back in the day, I used to tie one on there before catching a show at the Orpheum.

Now it's the Beantown Pub. A few of us had a post-Shreve's@BRA-hearing cocktail there over the summer. Good news: there's Woodford Reserve behind the bar. Bad news: it's not Dini's Sea Grill.

(I was wrong about the location -- see below)
 
Last edited:
Re: 45 Province St

Dini's was torn down to make way for the new Suffolk Law building. It is not the same location as Beantown Pub.
 
Re: 45 Province St

You're right Ron -- I was exiled to Rhode Island when that happened...
 
Re: 45 Province St

We are waay off topic here (my fault) but does anyone have any photos of that stretch Tremont St before the Suffolk Law building was dumped there?
 
Re: 45 Province St

I do somewhere,might take me a while to find one!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top