Charlestown’s Madera 83 Is Now Tangierino (Again)

In the fall of 2017, popular Charlestown Moroccan restaurant Tangierino (83 Main St., Boston), which had opened over 15 years earlier, rebranded itself as Madera 83 and began serving Spanish tapas. Owner Samad Naamad brought in ex-Townsman chef de cuisine Matthew Leddy to oversee the revamp, which included building a vast list of Spanish wines.

It was a big change — and a big risk — for the restaurant (but not unprecedented, as Tangierino began serving French food at one point during its first incarnation), but it seemed to have paid off, “getting most of the venerable Spanish tavern formula comfortingly right,” as MC Slim JB wrote in a mostly positive review for The Improper Bostonian in December 2017.

But earlier this year, Naamad decided to scrap the project and quietly start all over again with Tangierino.

“It’s back and it’s better,” Naamad told Eater via email. “We will transport you to the distant and mystical horizon of Morocco. [We’ve] created again an escape of a lifetime that will enchant and whisk you away.”

(Leddy, meanwhile, has been up in Maine working with Bar Harbor Catering Company since the middle of the year.)

Along with eating Moroccan food, patrons can smoke hookah in Koullshi, which is a smoking lounge in the property’s basement.

Eater spoke with Leddy in September 2017, just prior to the Madera 83 debut, and he said that the restaurant underwent a “complete aesthetic redesign — there’s a lot of Spanish-style wood panelling throughout.”

It’s unclear if the new Tangierino looks like the short-lived Madera 83, or if aesthetic considerations were again included in the most recent transformation. Eater has reached out to Naamad for more details and will update this post as new information becomes available.

• Longtime Charlestown Restaurant Tangierino Is Being Reborn as a Tapas Bar [EBOS]