Look Inside Cultivar, Opening at the Ames Hotel on Friday

A new restaurant focused on local and sustainable cuisine opens on Friday, June 2, within a historic hotel in Downtown Boston. Cultivar debuts this week at the Ames Hotel with chef and owner Mary Dumont at the helm. The Harvest alumna has been working towards this new venture since departing the Harvard Square restaurant in 2015, as previously reported.

The menu at Cultivar will feature seasonal and regional ingredients, including items grown in an on-site hydroponic garden. Expect to see some seafood — including raw bar items like caviar, oysters, and crudo — along with vegetable-forward appetizers, pasta, and meaty entrees. Dishes include morels and fiddleheads with hummus, lemon thyme, furikake, and lemon; nettle bucatini with lamb neck sugo, yogurt, mint, and pecorino; and braised pork cheeks with whey-braised carrots, turnips, morels, and lavender, among other items. (Sneak a peek at some menu items here.)

Pastry chef Robert Gonzalez (an Eater Young Guns semifinalist from 2016, formerly of Bistro du Midi) will oversee Cultivar’s dessert menu, featuring a lineup of house-made ice creams and decadent desserts ranging from lemon verbena panna cotta to chocolate passion custard with cashew lime sponge cake and mandarin sorbet. Nicholas Daddona (Boston Harbor Hotel) and Dan Lynch (Area Four, Liquid Art House) will take command of the restaurant’s wine and cocktail programs, respectively. Cultivar will have a selection of domestic and global wines and champagnes, beer on draft and in bottles and cans, and cider. The cocktails will incorporate local ingredients, and there will be a specially made blend available from Boston’s GrandTen Distilling.

The restaurant seats 88 in its dining room and has an additional upstairs private dining space that can accommodate 90 seats or 140 people standing. Glen Coben of New York firm Glen & Co. designed the space (as well as the hotel), and Dumont’s wife, Emily French-Dumont, worked in close collaboration throughout the restaurant design process.

Take a look inside:

Grid View

• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar
• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar
• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar
• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar
• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar
• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar
• Cultivar Huge Galdones for Cultivar

• Mary Dumont Will Depart Harvest to Start a New Venture [EBOS]
• Cultivar [Official Site]