dining out

A rewarding year

This column does not believe in best restaurants. Nadeau’s Third Law states: "There are no great restaurants, only great dishes." I have yet to sit down to the perfect restaurant dinner for four in which all 16 appetizers, main dishes, garnishes, and desserts were inspirational as served. And when I do, I still won’t be able to check week after week to see if the restaurant can keep it up. What we do here is steer you toward the great dishes and away from the poorly designed flops (a phrase that takes literal meaning in the Vertical-Food Era). Perhaps we sometimes steer the restaurants away from their own poorly designed flops, but the column is not designed (poorly or well) to assist the restaurant industry — at least not primarily.

These awards reflect my reviewing year, which might be very different from your dining-out year. You get to go back to your favorites, develop a relationship with the staff, and get the dishes you crave, as you crave them. I go to new or newish restaurants, and take what the menu gives me.

The new century began largely without restaurant trends, other than that 2001 was a remarkably good year even before the rush of fall and winter openings that have critics booked solid through March. Though the last decade has seen an accent on improved "produce" — custom vegetables, "trash fish," wild mushrooms, farmed seafood — there has been a return to the kind of cheffery that disguises weak produce, and to the other side of flavor innovation, what Adam Gopnik has called "cuisine d’épices." Many of the most ambitious new restaurants — Oleana, Mantra, Limbo, Jer-ne, and the transplanted Salamander — feature innovations in seasonings, such as herbs, spices, infused broths, and flavored oils. I’m a produce man, but I found myself writing raves about the first three, and saying quite positive things about Jer-ne. 2001 was also my first year back as a 52-week critic after a spell of partnering with Stephen Heuser. In the rush of rearranging schedules a year ago, we both missed handing out our year-end awards for 2000. At the end of this column, I’ve added a few awards for the survivors of my half of 2000.

So let’s open the envelopes:

Restaurant of the year: Oleana. Ana Sortun steps into solo stardom with the understated presentation of exciting flavors in every course.

Asian restaurant of the year: Tsunami. Another case of understated excellence finally takes this award out of Chinatown.

African restaurant of the year: Tangierino.

Fusion restaurant of the year: Mantra, if fusion is what this avant-garde palace is actually about. Some dishes are in a zone of their own, and the décor provides an evening’s conversation. Don’t miss the bathrooms.

Weirdest menu designation: "Trans-Ethnic Crab Cake" at Mantra.

Italian-fusion restaurant of the year: Limbo, where Charles Draghi does some very advanced quasi-Italian things over a pulsing acid-jazz bar.

Best appetizer: why choose? Have the five-way Bento Box at Jer-ne.

Best vegan entrée: bursn (just say "spicy lentils") at Sagla. You’re in this little Eritrean restaurant, tearing off pieces of sourdough pancake and working a fine mound of curried red lentils with a remarkably complex flavor.

Best inexpensive wines by the glass: Equinox Grill.

Dessert of the year: Margo chocolate cake, tinged with almond and brilliantly matched with homemade pistachio ice cream, at Margo Bistro.

Non-chocolate dessert of the year: blackberry tart at Beacon Hill Bistro.

Best neighborhood jewel: Perdix. Also best wine list in an eight-table restaurant.

Best hometown burger: the Zippy burger at Harry’s Restaurant. Also amazing fried clams.

Chewiest al dente pasta: Delfino.

Best of six restaurants reviewed in the North End: Lucca, and quite good in its own right.

Restaurant that just feels right: the Fireplace.

Best restaurant with the worst name: Cuchi Cuchi. (And it’s right down the street from a good-food-bad-name Hall of Famer, Pu-Pu Hot Pot.) The joke about this excellent tapas bar only works if you respect Charo as a pioneering female flamenco guitarist. And it falls apart again if you know that the Cuchi Cuchi dance was actually named after Charo’s childhood dog.

Décor prize: Salamander.

Bistro of the year: Beacon Hill Bistro.

True bistro: Aquitaine Bis.

Worst trend of 2001 (three-way tie): bad decaf, overpriced wine-by-the-glass, gimmicky caesar salads.

Best trend of 2001: excellent restaurants in small downtown hotels (Margo Bistro, Beacon Hill Bistro, Caliterra).

Trend I’d like to see in 2002: connoisseur-level tea.

Trend we will get in 2002: the conversion of tables to bar seating.

The fifth annual Howard Mitchum Medal for innovation in seafood cookery: Big Fish Seafood.

The 2000 awards:

Restaurant of the year: Blue Ginger.

Non-Asian restaurant of the year (with Asian-American chef): Centro.

Asian restaurant of the year: Peach Farm.

Appetizer of the year: sautéed sea scallops at the Federalist.

Entrée of the year: blanquette de veau at Vox Populi.

Desserts of the year: Blue Ginger — all of them.

The pseudonymous Robert Nadeau has a cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for Students (Oryx, $32.50), published under his real name, Mark Zanger, available in bookstores and online. Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com

Where to find them:

• Oleana, 134 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, (617) 661-0505.

• Tsunami, 10 Pleasant Street (Coolidge Corner), Brookline, (617) 277-8008.

• Tangierino, 83 Main Street, Charlestown, (617) 242-6009.

• Mantra, 52 Temple Place, Boston, (617) 542-8111.

• Limbo, 49 Temple Place, Boston, (617) 338-0280.

• Jer-ne, 12 Avery Street (Ritz-Carlton Boston Common), Boston, (617) 574-7176.

• Sagla, 3381 Washington Street, Jamaica Plain, (617) 522-9229.

• Equinox Grill, 61 Worcester Road (Route 9), Natick, (508) 650-8887.

• Margo Bistro, 185 State Street (Harborside Inn), Boston, (617) 670-2033.

• Beacon Hill Bistro, 19 Charles Street (Beacon Hill), Boston, (617) 723-1133.

• Perdix, 597 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, (617) 524-5995.

• Harry’s Restaurant, 149 Turnpike Road (Route 9), Westborough, (508) 366-8302.

• Delfino, 754 South Street, Roslindale Square, (617) 327-8359.

• Lucca, 226 Hanover Street (North End), Boston, (617) 742-9200.

• The Fireplace, 1634 Beacon Street (Washington Square), Brookline, (617) 975-1900.

• Cuchi Cuchi, 795 Main Street (Central Square), Cambridge, (617) 864-2929.

• Salamander, Trinity Place, 1 Huntington Avenue (Back Bay), Boston, (617) 451-2150.

• Aquitaine Bis, 11 Boylston Street (Route 9), Chestnut Hill, (617) 734-8400.

• Caliterra, 89 Broad Street (Wyndham Hotel), Boston, (617) 348-1234.

• Big Fish Seafood, 18-20 Tyler Street (Chinatown), Boston, (617) 423-3288.

• Blue Ginger, 583 Washington Street, Wellesley, (781) 283-5790.

• Peach Farm, 4 Tyler Street (Chinatown), Boston, (617) 482-3332.

• The Federalist, 15 Beacon Street (XV Beacon Hotel), Boston, (617) 670-2515.

• Vox Populi, 755 Boylston Street (Back Bay), Boston, (617) 424-8300.