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Parsnip, first announced in January 2014, will officially debut on November 3, 2015, the restaurant posted on social media yesterday. Located at 91 Winthrop St. in Cambridge's Harvard Square, the multi-level restaurant has turned the former UpStairs on the Square space from a zebra-bedecked playground into more of an austere mid-century modern venue.
Several members of the opening team previously spoke with Eater, detailing their thoughts on hospitality and simple, well-sourced ingredients.
"When you're here, you're in our home," said bar director Steven Lemley at the time, "and we like for you to feel that sort of equal comfort with all of the highly skilled elements of hospitality that come into it. It's very important to us that we provide an excellent product with humility."
Executive chef Peter Quinion comes from the UK, where he had been working on developing an 18th-century manor house outside of London, also owned by Parsnip owner Gerald Chan. And chef de cuisine Ryan Marcoux is already known around these parts — he was previously chef de cuisine at Boston Chops in the South End. General manager Ian Rose is local as well; he's a longtime alum of Ten Tables in Cambridge.
As for the food: "By the nature of where I’ve been and where I’ve worked and even just how food is now, it’s globally inspired," Quinion said previously. "If you’re trying to say 'What are we?' and 'What’s modern American cuisine?', well, that’s global. Food is global, unless you’re talking about [cuisines like] traditional Italian, traditional French. Food is naturally becoming globally inspired. And it’s ingredients-led."
The different spaces will feature somewhat different concepts, with a typical appetizer-entree-dessert feel in the high-ceilinged dining room downstairs and more of a casual feel upstairs in the lounge. "It's a little bit more casual, a bit more fun, and a little bit more British and eclectic in some cases," Quinion said previously, describing the upstairs lounge. "Overall, the larder is the same, so the difference is in how the food is presented. The staff, the love, the ingredients are all from the same box."