THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Metro

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Metro Restaurant Review:

Amanda Lydon cooked her way into the hearts of Bostonians with her subtly intellectual take on cuisine de grand-mère at Truc. Next up in her promising career is Metro, a large-scale show of a brasserie backed by the owners of the posh Barcode and Vox Populi. It looks the part: Cosmos aplenty at the bar, worn mirrors meant to evoke the Left Bank, and a cutesy wicker-chaired café for taking croissants en matin. There are a whopping 200 seats in all. For the intently watched Lydon this is a challenging move---minute detail to mass-production. Once-mellow Porter Square is no doubt thrilled about having a restaurant as useful as Metro helmed by a chef as gifted as Lydon. For everyday, mid-range priced, crowd-pleasing fare, it’s a catch. Who doesn’t love coq au vin, frisée lardons, roast chicken, and towering seafood platters? But looked at with the standards one must apply to a talent like Lydon’s, paying special attention to detail work, Metro is a stretch. Inconsistent seasoning, once good--once bad execution, missing inspiration---the signs of being stretched thin are all too apparent. There are soggy panisses (chickpea fries from Province) and a Niman Ranch steak somehow lacking its salty-seared oomph. Metro lacks the spice-twist or sauce-tweak that make Lydon’s best cooking such a global-eyed joy. The result is that dishes like the braised lamb with sweet spices (cumin, cinnamon, and others Lydon credits to her Armenian Mother’s influence) and Maine crab with buttered bread crumbs, cucumber and tarragon end up underlining the shortcomings of Lydon’s cooking. We hope she gets her chance.