En Boca Will Bring Small Plates to Former Sandrine's Space This Summer

Cambridge Day reports some new details on the restaurant that will replace Sandrine's Bistro, which closed at the end of March after an 18-year run in Harvard Square. En Boca is the name of the new venture from Classic Restaurant Concepts, and it will open by September.

The hospitality group is known for Irish pubs The Asgard in Cambridge and Boston's Kinsale, but En Boca will not be of that ilk. The menu provided to the Cambridge Licensing Commission features meats, cheeses, and vegetable dishes available in half- or full-size servings, ranging in price from $6 - $21, according to the Day. Entrees will include coq au vin with saffron rice, and chicken and dumplings. The cuisine is "not French but along the same lines of quality," Classic Restaurants' Peter Sarmanian said.

En Boca is now on track to open some time this summer ("certainly before September," a lawyer is quoted in the Day article), after the Cambridge Licensing Commission figured out an issue it had caused itself years ago, when it granted an all-alcohol license in addition to Sandrine's beer and wine permit. The discovery of that illegal, albeit apparently inadvertent, situation of two licenses for one establishment sent the commission and buyer back to the table to determine a new selling price.

Before En Boca opens, the Holyoke Street space will undergo cosmetic renovations, the Day notes.