Belly up to the bar

Fine food can be had for a song -- well, almost -- if you dine in restaurant bars

by David Valdes Greenwood

DINING

Maybe you're over pub food but aren't quite ready for the pressure of a formal dining room. Or you want to take a date somewhere snazzy without needing a reservation. Perhaps you're a foodie but your gastronomic reach exceeds your fiscal one. All over the city, diners such as yourself are discovering that life at the bar can provide the best of all worlds: great food and decent prices. The trick is in knowing where to go and what to look for once you get there.

I rarely drink anything exotic, so the lure of a bar was lost on me until a recent trip to New York City. There, in the bar area of Tabla -- the hot restaurant du jour -- I was sucked in by the melding of casual energy and good design with outstanding food. The playful, congenial vibe in the bar area, which takes up the entire first floor, was in direct contrast to the stately, serious dining area. I decided then and there to try out bar dining in Boston.

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Wine help
Bar dining
Late-night eats

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With my partner in tow -- no convincing needed -- I charted a course of bars on both sides of the river, aiming for a mix of the hot hot hot and older favorites, and setting myself a goal of $50 for the evening (before tip). As anyone who eats out (above the paper-tablecloth level) in this city knows, that's not a huge allowance. But part of the joy of upscale bar food is that it can be gotten cheaply.

Before you grab your credit card and swing up on a barstool, a suggestion: the most important rule is to remember that you are not there to celebrate winning the lottery. There's no need to get two of everything just because it's possible. Two appetizers and a single shared entrée will usually fill two people quite nicely. Additionally, you can beef up the meal for free by chowing down on the bread basket. (My theory: the better the bread basket, the happier they are to have bar diners.) Or round it out for a few more dollars by splitting a dessert.

What follows are the results of a grueling week's worth of sipping, tasting, schmoozing, and rubbing elbows with the bar set. Certain food patterns emerged -- frizzled leeks, scallops, sweetbreads, and hanger steak are everywhere -- but otherwise, the experiences were fairly distinct in terms of restaurant personality, atmosphere, and crowd. That's a good thing, because it means there's something on this list for everyone.

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At the Blue Room (One Kendall Square, Cambridge, 617-494-9034), chef Steve Johnson serves up a world's worth of interesting flavors at solid midlevel prices (all appetizers under $10, most entrées under $20). Representative dishes include the vegetable antipasto, which comes with a dozen or so kinds of vegetables (from beets to green beans to large capers) and an ultra-crispy flatbread. The smoky pork tenderloin with hominy and chipotle peppers is an entrée-size appetizer, easily made into a meal by dipping bread in the Southwestern sauce.

We might have called it a night with those items plus our drinks (a martini and a ginger beer), but we just had to throw in a juicy skirt steak with gorgonzola polenta and even a (forgettable) pear crisp to hit the $50 mark. The combination of casual atmosphere (exposed brick, soft lighting) and affordable delicacies may explain why, on a midweek night, there were eager customers filling both sides of the circular bar. The Blue Room is likely to be a bar destination for a long time to come.

Providence (1223 Beacon Street, Brookline, 617-232-0300), older sibling to Paul O'Connell's popular Chez Henri, is the kind of room that picks you up. A whimsical celestial motif combines pillars and mirrors with a blue-and-gold palette to appeal equally to both sides of the Brookline dichotomy -- students and retirees, either of whom might want a nice place to go on Saturday night. The cheer of the room is carried over in the service of Dennis, the knowledgeable bartender (if you learn your bartender's name, you're probably in for a good evening). He led off with an excellent Bombay Sapphire martini, and the evening went well from there.

Slightly more expensive than the Blue Room for entrées (many higher than $20), Providence nonetheless offers some tasty options. The foie gras terrine with brioche toast is flavorful and firm, and the prawns with citrus gelée are fine (though the gelée itself is the star of that dish). The lamb-chop entrée is ideal for sharing, as it comes with two ample, delicious chops. We had filled up before the meal on leek rolls (served in glass-and-metal sculptures) and so had to skip dessert, but we were definitely full by the time we reached our cash limit.

You can't go to Radius (8 High Street, Boston, 617-426-1234) without feeling that you've discovered how the other half lives. Radius is unlike anything in Boston, a destination restaurant that deserves to be one. The modern-meets-deco minimalism is red and gray, and attentive staff members float through the circular space. Distinctive enough for its acclaimed food (and attendant high prices), Radius also has something no place else does: a first-come, first-served communal table midway between the dining room and the standing bar, where diners perch on barstools. Here you can chat with strangers or simply eavesdrop (in our case, listening to corporate CEOs complain that NBA players are greedy).

Before you order, a welcome freebie arrives at your table (for us it was caviar, thank you very much), and another (handmade candies) will follow your meal as a parting gesture. In between, we had a zingy squid salad à la Provençal, which was fine but paled by comparison to the melt-in-your-mouth homemade gnocchi. We ordered the scallops with frizzled leeks (it was bound to happen sometime), which the kitchen thoughtfully split for us into two fully plated meals; the scallops were good, but the wild-mushroom mashed-potato side dish was the stuff of food lust. Because appetizers were all over $10 and entrées climbed into the upper $20s, we had to pass on dessert, but we blew past our goal anyway by ordering a nice chardonnay. (And the staff is so eager to help, you may end up ordering another glass before you realize it.) Still, there's a word for this kind of place: fabulous.

At Clio (in the Eliot Hotel, 370 Comm Ave, 617-536-7200), Ken Oringer has won raves for his food (which is, on the whole, more expensive than even Radius's), but on the night we went, it seemed obvious that the wonders of his cooking are directed at the dining-room patrons. From our first request for a beverage to our eventual decision to leave, the bartender was clearly not interested in serving us (his only patrons). He never asked if we wanted to see a wine list or a menu, and he actually made a face when asked if there was a signature drink. Important message to bartenders: if you make it clear you think poorly of the customer, you'll lose the customer. We crossed Clio off our list -- and left hungry.

At No. 9 Park (9 Park Street, 617-742-9991), all things came together. The prices are accommodating (from as little as $5 for an appetizer), and there is a separate bar menu. That means that Barbara Lynch has thought carefully about what foods are best suited to casual dining, and what the portion sizes should be. The crispy duck leg with fig glaze is sweet and perfect in texture, and the steak Florentine is also quite successful. But the surprise was Lynch's crisp, lighter-than-air rendition of onion rings. Even the steak was less than $20, allowing us to order sweet-potato pithiviers for dessert. Its flaky crust and rich filling were remarkable, and it was truly unusual (which matters after being exposed to so much trendy food).

No. 9 would have won me over with its food alone, but it also gets the details of the bar right: a beautiful pale-green space accented only by beaded lamps. You may join the hubbub at the bar proper or take your date to one of the small side tables for some privacy. Joe, the bartender, is knowledgeable about both wine and cocktails, and he makes a terrific Cosmopolitan (the most memorable of all the mixed drinks we tried all week).

Our evening at No. 9 Park was everything one wants from bar dining: great atmosphere, amazing food, a little buzz, and a lot of fun, all for a price we could live with in the morning.

David Valdes Greenwood is a food snob.