Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/94515
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARC ANDREW DELEY/CRAMMED MEDIA (ENGLISH FAMILY), LEIGH VOGEL/GETTY IMAGES (AFFLECK) SO MANY DINNERS... SO LITTLE TIME KING OF TARTS Olives reinvents flatbread. Todd, Isabelle, Simon, and continued from page 80 Isabelle's Curly Cakes "My kids have been around Olives all their lives. This is home. —todd english from English's " stuffed clams, overflowing with corn bread, clam, and diced pancetta; lobster "toast," consisting of butter-poached claw meat on toasted brioche with a Mason jar of tomalley-colored lobster corn soup; and cockles aglio spaghettini pasta tossed with basil pesto, olive oil, and nickel-sized clams. Eponymous Todd English Bluepoint oysters come oyster farm in Westport, Connecticut. Ben Affleck Flatbread tarts with flaky puff pastry crusts are especially good. (The classic San Marzano tart with tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala, and basil is a standout.) Split roasted chicken breast with garlicky spinach, puréed potato, and chickeny jus boasts crisp skin and juicy meat. Grilled marinated skirt steak painted with molasses BBQ sauce and served with creamed corn and shredded short rib-filled raviolios is quintessential English with its brash, layered flavors and creative pairings. Dessert can be chewy, warm, chocolate- chip cookies; custardy brown-butter panna cotta; or a trio of fresh-baked cupcakes from Isabelle's Curly Cakes, the Beacon Hill cupcakery named for English's 19-year-old daughter. All three English children—Isabelle, 22-year-old Oliver, and 16-year-old Simon—worked at Olives over the summer. "Simon was in the kitchen a little bit, Oliver was working the front, and Izzy was working the front as well," their father says. "It was awesome. I spent a lot of time at work when they were younger so there were times [with them] that I unfortunately missed. But it was great to have them all around me and wild to see how much they'd naturally picked up just being around the restau- rant; I mean they've been around the restaurant all their lives." English says he factored in his children in his decision to reopen Olives. "Roots are important to kids," he says. "All the fun stories, all the times they spent there, all the chocolate fallen cakes they've eaten all those years. This is home." Who would have ever guessed that confit chicken wings, beet and goat cheese agnolotti, and Chilean olive oil-poached halibut would qualify as home cooking? BC 82 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM The décor at the new Olives brings the feel of the neighborhood inside. NEW RELIGION A nearby church inspired the new Olives décor. Olives has been such a part of the neighborhood for so long that when it came to renovation, English looked to bring some of the community inside. He added reclaimed wood panels above the open kitchen that were originally part of nearby St. Mary's Church. English purchased the star lights behind the bar around 20 years ago for the original Olives. While they are not plugged in, he is sentimental and wanted to display them, connecting the new space with the old. When he added pendant lights and other design elements, he played off the reclaimed church wood, aiming for a rustic feel to match the cuisine as well. And the best seat in the house is the same one as in the former Olives—the corner window seat where you can look out upon (and be seen from) two streets. Oliver English Todd English changed the face of flatbread in Boston with the opening of his first pizza bistro, Figs, where he served ultra-thin-crusted sheets of dough topped with gourmet ingredients. Since then flatbread has appeared on nearly every menu around town. Now English is changing it up by taking focaccia dough and rolling butter into it for a flakier texture and a flavor more akin to French pastry than Italian-style pizza crust. It currently comes in four options: crispy rock shrimp tart; four-cheese tart; charred pistachio and mortadella tart; and the classic tomato, mozzarella, and basil. "I wanted to make the flatbread more elegant and complex," English says. But he also had business reasons: "With Figs right down the street, I didn't want to compete with myself, so I made the flatbreads a little different." The classic tomato, basil, and mozzarella flatbread.