Azure The Lenox THIS RESTAURANT HAS CHANGED NAMES Azure

THIS RESTAURANT HAS CHANGED NAMES Azure

The Lenox
61 Exeter St. (Boylston St.)
Boston, MA 02116
617-933-4800
Map
Cuisine: Contemporary
Intriguing contemporary flavors---in intriguing contemporary environs---from peripatetic chef Robert Fathman.
Openings: Breakfast & Dinner daily

Features


THIS RESTAURANT HAS CHANGED NAMES Azure Restaurant Review:


Peripatetic chef Robert Fathman, of haute dishes and biker tattoos, oversees this bastion of big city chic, filled with clusters of hanging lamps, plush chairs and a tiled wall of translucent blue that shadows the kitchen behind it---but strikes some as a tad too reminiscent of a public swimming pool. Still, Fathman's cooking overshadows it all. Its oomph is obvious in Azure's sexy signature appetizer, oysters in bondage, whereby the main ingredient is cinched with smoked salmon, rolled in grated potato and pan-fried, then garnished with caviar and crème fraîche. It also oozes from entrées that start tamely and traditionally enough---with, say, roasted fish or seared duck---and end up in wild territory with caramelized cinnamon spätzle and bacon-sage honey or octopus-chorizo ragù. Granted, the divorce of elegance from simplicity, and its subsequent affair with whimsy, doesn't always charm us. But the addition of a bar after Azure's opening was a smooth move; the separate menu it serves---the same as that offered by City Bar in the adjacent lobby---is the simpler stuff of Fathman at his funky best, such as house-made potato chips and crispy-creamy polenta fries, both with eye-rollingly rich and spicy dips, as well as one of the city's best Cuban sandwiches.