Boston Legend Lydia Shire Is Opening a New Restaurant at the Seaport

Pioneering Boston chef Lydia Shire is headed to the Seaport. The renowned chef — who currently runs the acclaimed restaurant Scampo inside the Liberty Hotel — is opening a restaurant at the Seaport Science Center in 2024.

The new spot “will complement the venerable Scampo,” according to a release on the news, but details are otherwise scarce on the restaurant at this point. “Lydia is beyond excited about her newest restaurant venture at the Seaport Science Center,” a rep for Shire says. “She is hard at work creating and fine-tuning a unique concept that will complement her storied career and legacy in the culinary world.”

The Seaport has been working hard to position itself as a dining destination by attracting Boston’s top restaurateurs to the freshly developed area. There’s the recently opened Coquette, from the restaurant group behind vibey downtown spots Lolita and Mariel; Grace by Nia, a forthcoming restaurant and live music spot from noted restaurateur Nia Grace of Darryl Corner Bar and Kitchen in Roxbury; and out-of-towners like the New York-based Garret Bar joining in the fray.

Now, Shire can be counted among that crowd. “The building is beyond stunning, and the BioMed team has been more than fabulous,” Shire says of her decision to open at the life sciences building. “It’s the perfect small restaurant concept in such an electric neighborhood.”

This is the first time that Shire has opened a new restaurant in Boston since 2008, when Scampo debuted inside the Liberty Hotel. But Shire has been a trailblazer in Boston’s dining scene for decades: The chef launched and ran Biba in the 1990s to national acclaim, and, in 2001, took over the kitchen at century-old Boston institution Locke-Ober, which banned women from its dining room up until the 1970s. (The same restaurant group behind Coquette has since taken over the space and converted it into the swanky bar and restaurant Yvonne’s.)

“My life now is about pushing myself to be creative,” Shire said in a recent Boston Magazine interview alongside similarly trailblazing Boston chefs Barbara Lynch and Jody Adams. “But that’s what I like to do. I like to push myself.”