:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/45970586/Screen_Shot_2015-02-18_at_10.03.32_AM.0.0.0.0.png)
The buds have yet to spring, and as previously reported, Loyal Nine will open in East Cambridge this week, the Boston Globe reports. The restaurant, named for the secret Patriot organization that became the Sons of Liberty and carried out the Boston Tea Party, will further pay homage to Boston's founders with a menu heavy on lesser-known shellfish, hearty meats, seasonal vegetables, and rustic breads.
"We’re being very conscious about the ingredients that we’re choosing, the flavors that we’re trying to put together, the way that we’re serving food, and what it even means to eat and drink in Cambridge," chef-owner Marc Sheehan told Boston Magazine this week. Sheehan, whose credentials include Menton, Bondir Cambridge, and the Brasstacks supper club, also studied history at Holy Cross. There, he developed an interest Colonial cuisine followed him through culinary school and informed many of the dishes he created for Brasstacks; in a 2013 interview with Eater, Sheehan said he has dreamed of opening "a restaurant based very intensively on New England cuisine" since he was 19 years old. Loyal Nine's menu will feature dishes like braised whelks and Scituate periwinkles; braised mutton with yellow beets and anchovy; and lobster with shagbark hickory nuts.
Located in a former car dealership at 660 Cambridge St., the restaurant has space enough for an adjacent bakery and cafe and will make breads in-house. Sheehan told Boston Magazine the cafe is his partner Dan Myers' (Puritan & Co., Spoke Wine Bar) brainchild. "One of his thoughts [while conceptualizing Loyal Nine] was to be able to have a coffee shop where people could actually be exposed to how a restaurant operates," Sheehan said. "[This space] allowed us to execute that vision but in a cleaner, more exciting manner." The cafe will be open daily from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
The Loyal Nine team is rounded out by Rebecca Theris (Hungry Mother, Les Zygomates) and David Beller (Puritan & Co.) The bar program, curated by Theris, features grower-produced wines by the glass and bottle, domestic beers and ciders, and a rum and brandy-focused cocktail list from Bryn Tattan (Backbar, Merrill & Co.), according to the Boston Globe.
Loyal Nine's 96-seat dining room (and eventual 30-seat outdoor patio) will be open from 5 - 11 p.m. Monday - Saturday, and from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. for Sunday brunch. The bar will stay open until midnight (1 a.m. on Saturdays.).
CORRECTION: The title of this piece initially indicated that the restaurant would open tomorrow, Wednesday, March 25. A representative of the restaurant now says the the opening will be "later this week," but not tomorrow.
