One of the problems with prosperity is the spiraling cost of opening new restaurants, which drives would-be owners to distant locales. And one of the advantages of prosperity is the spiraling cost of opening new restaurants, which drives would-be owners to obscure neighborhoods and distant suburbs. Before the 1990s, a few eccentrics ran fine restaurants in the provinces, but it was generally safe to skip anything beyond Boston, Cambridge, and surrounding towns — with the possible exception of Waltham. These days, a foodie without wheels is forced to listen to endless tales of great meals eaten in Wellesley, Concord, Hingham, Salem, and other locations hitherto discussed only by historians.
The Equinox Grill will not make anyone forget about Pigalle, but it will raise a lot of questions about why we should drive east instead of west from, say, Newton. Imagine, if you will, a good South End bistro with free parking, plenty of room in a quiet dining room, and terrific wines by the glass. The minute you walk into Equinox, you’ve already saved about $35, your blood pressure is down, and you can actually talk to your companions.
The value of good wine by the glass cannot be overstated. If you habitually order a glass of merlot, you may have noted how bland and similar-tasting these wines have become over the past few years of the merlot vogue. But the 1998 Beringer Founders Estate ($6.25) at Equinox has distinctive berry-like fruit aromas and a little spice — very unusual in California merlot at any price, and reminiscent of fat-year St Emilion back when one could actually buy Bordeaux. On the white side, the sauvignon blanc is a California 1999 Buena Vista ($5), and it’s another brilliant selection, with some of the intense, lemony flavors of a Sancerre. Both wines are ideal with food, but I could sit quite a while and just sip either one with Equinox’s excellent breadbasket full of warm, crusty French bread and an Iggy’s-style fruit-walnut bread.
When the appetizers arrived, I was quite taken with the lobster pizza ($9.95), a dish made famous at Biba but quite neatly done here. The Equinox really is a grill, something I most appreciate when you can warm a cool night with something like this thin-crust, beautifully crisp little pizza. Its topping nicely balances lobster meat, toasted cheese (fontina, with a little more flavor than mozzarella), sautéed shallots, and crunchy asparagus. Also fit for a chilly evening is the grilled-steak salad with blue cheese ($11.95), which reminds us that chef Jeff Evans is a former executive chef at Abe & Louie’s. The steak is a flavorful flank, with a slight marinade, served with mustardy arugula, cherry tomatoes, sugar-snap peas, and a bit of red onion. The salad is overdressed, as though to offset the undressed arugula and leaf lettuce served with the seared crab cakes ($8.50). The latter is an otherwise excellent little plate, with two flavorful crab cakes, a mustard sauce, and a lively radish salad.
With entrées, you may want to stay in the key of meat with something like the garlic-lime pork tenderloin ($16.95), here done with a sweet-sour relish of peppers and onions, garlicky broccoli, and salty polenta with red bell peppers. The polenta is grilled, too, but oversalted. The summer special of seafood risotto ($18.95) may be coming to an end, but I hope not, because this is one of the creamiest risottos around, just the way I prefer it, and well flavored with seafood stock and cheese, in addition to lots of scallops, slices of fennel, and a garnish of four clams and five mussels.
Another promising summer seafood dish is roasted Chilean sea bass ($17.95). The key here is a great topping of preserved lemons and caramelized onions, and a nice side of dry-fried sweet-potato sticks. The side of wilted spinach was weirdly oversalted in some bites but not others, and the bass itself — generally the best seafood shipped to Boston — had perhaps been sent by second-day air. It was buttery, but lacked the sweetness of truly ideal fish. Still, the only really weak entrée at Equinox was a daily special of scallops and linguine ($16.95). The pasta was toothsome and the Romano beans al dente, but the tomatoes and scallops were dull in what has been a wonderful season for both.
Decaf coffee ($1.75) at the Equinox was excellent on two slow evenings when it would have been easy to forget the pot and serve the coffee burnt. The desserts are less exciting than the rest of the menu, although they showed some creativity. The best I had was a " raspberry fudge brownie " ($4.50) that turned out to be two squares of flourless chocolate cake. I guess the theme here is pleasant surprises, as a carrot-cake special ($5.95) was homemade and enriched at every turn — spicier, with lighter texture and cream-cheesier frosting than most. Lemon-berry tiramisu ($5.95) is a nice variation on the usual chocolate-espresso flavors, but why play with berries when Massachusetts peaches are still coming in, and our apple harvest is now under way?
The Equinox is a long room that gets classier as it goes on. The front has a window, some folk art, and a gallery of fine photographs. But the back has ragged salmon-orange walls. The music is muted jazz, and the low decibel level is perhaps the main reminder that we aren’t in Boston anymore, Toto.
I should mention that Equinox also serves lunch, and the dinner menu carries a selection of burgers and sandwiches that are probably very good, and a cheap way to enjoy a glass of wine with food. Just remember: red with cheeseburgers, white with fried calamari.
Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com
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