Here Comes Restaurant Week(s)

Happy March, ladies and gentlemen! We’ve made it through the worst of the winter and spring is just around the corner. In Fort Myers, the Red Sox have started playing games and, here in Boston, we are getting ready for Restaurant Week once again.


This year marks the 5th anniversary of Boston Restaurant Week (which actually runs for two weeks), when the best spots in the city offer three-course prix fixe menus at the low cost of $33.10 for dinner and $20.10 for lunch (the price increases one cent annually, echoing the current year). Co-sponsored by the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau and American Express, the twice-a-year event (there’s also one in August) is designed to drum up a little business during an otherwise slow time of year for restaurants. In theory, it’s a great opportunity to go out and try new places whose normal prices may cause you a bit of hesitation.

In reality, Boston Restaurant Week is a complete zoo, with most restaurants offering food of a substantially lower quality than they regularly do, thereby maximizing their profits. The whole thing is really one big smoke and mirrors trick that the industry plays upon the public. Aside from the steak houses and some of the elite “special occasion” restaurants like L’Espalier, Mistral, and No. 9 Park, you can go into just about any participating restaurant on a normal day and have a higher quality dinner at a comparable price. During Restaurant Week, many of the better restaurants cut back on the creativity of their menus, in an effort to please the fairweather foodies who only come out this time of year, while also using inferior (cheaper) ingredients and slashing portions. Nonetheless, the four weeks of the year that make up Boston Restaurant Week are always among the busiest.



In addition to being short-changed on the meal, another aspect of your Restaurant Week experience that is likely to suffer is your service. Restaurants employ a turn-and-burn attitude, trying to cram as many of you into their dining room as possible. For servers, this is a horrible time of year and I always make it a point to plan my vacations accordingly. You would think that it might be a lucrative deal for us, as more business should theoretically equal more money in our pockets, but that’s simply not the case. Not only are the typical Restaurant Week diners, on average, “more frugal” than our normal cliente, thereby leading to lower check averages and worse tips, but the restaurants also stack the schedule, adding as much help as they can. This often results in more trouble and less money for us.



If, after all of that, you still feel like braving Restaurant Week, there are a couple of restaurants who actually do an outstanding job with it:

First, Gargoyle’s on the Square (Davis Sq., Somerville) offers many of Chef Jason Santos’ delicious signature dishes, such as Hawaiian-Style Tuna Poke and Hoisin and Honey Glazed Duck Confit. I always make it a point to get to Gargoyle’s for Restaurant Week because it’s the only time of the year that they’re open on Mondays, which is my night off. They have an innovative cocktail list and a cozy dining room, making this one of my favorite restaurants in the city.

Pigalle (located adjacent to the Stuart Street Theater in the Theatre District) was a treat last year and, by the looks of their menu, is ready to knock it out of the park once again. Instead of the typical three or four options, they offer eight appetizers to choose from (including Bacon-Wrapped Wellfleet Oysters and Duck Liver Terrine) and nine entrees (Slow Cooked Pork Belly and Steak Frites with Creamed Spinach are calling me).


Restaurant Week runs from March 14-28, but participation on Fridays and Saturdays varies from restaurant to restaurant, so you might want to check on that. Reservations can be made through OpenTable or through the Boston Restaurant Week website, where you can also peruse a list of participating locations.