5 days ago
A New Fine-Dining Restaurant With Familiar Dishes and Faces Opens in Beacon Hill
Nine, located at 9 Park Street Place, is set to open on Friday, August 15, with three menus: a seasonal tasting one, an la carte one, and a bar one. Reservations can be booked online. While some favorite dishes are returning, chef de cuisine Andrew Simonich shares some exciting new menu items and his updates on some menu classics with Eater.
'Walking in the doors, you always knew you'd be getting that classic French and Italian cuisine,' Simonich tells Eater. 'My leaning is to keep those techniques as our home base, but broadening the scope of where I pull influences, so we're broadening towards the Mediterranean influences and across Europe,' he says.
Simonich is returning to the location where he got his start, back in December 2019, when he interned during a very busy holiday lunch season. The Johnson & Wales graduate stayed and worked his way up, and after a stint at Menton, was running the kitchen at No. 9 Park until its closing in October of 2024. 'We were sad that the old restaurant was going away, but excited for something new to come in,' Simonich tells Eater of No. 9's last days.
Dishes at Nine. CJPR
Not surprisingly, the chef has been grappling with the weight of the expectations from guests who've been visiting the location for decades, and Simonich assures that Nine will still serve classics like steak tartare, a steak, and perfectly cooked duck. The fresh pasta program, which he says is near and dear to his heart, will remain a major part of the menu, with current dishes like uni spaghetti made with squid ink oil and a compound uni butter, and chicken tortellini with mushroom ragu. The chef added new dishes to the a la carte and bar menus — including a burger with a foie gras-infused bun – because, he explains, some people just want a quick plate of food before heading to a show. Of course, a very seasonal, ever-changing tasting menu is still available for those who want to indulge for $180.
Desserts and pastry — including a soufflé — will be created by Brandon Wells, formerly of Deuxave, Simonich tells Eater.
The bar at Nine. CJPR
Nine will have a lighter and brighter look than its predecessor, newly designed by Lorenzo Lorniali and Federica Di Biase of Adige Design. During the renovation process, the original brick arches inside the building were uncovered and exposed, now bringing in a lot more light in the back dining space.
Previously, No. 9 Park was the crown jewel of embattled chef Barbara Lynch's Boston restaurant empire. The French restaurant's impact on Boston's dining scene was massive. Opening in 1998, it received national acclaim, including a James Beard award for Outstanding Wine Program in 2012. Lynch shut down the restaurant — as well as all of her other locations — at the end of 2024 following a tumultuous leadership period that culminated in two toxic workplace investigations published in the Boston Globe and the New York Times. Lynch has denied all claims.
