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Boston Globe

With lush surroundings and playful food, Willow & Ivy will grow on you

The capacious dining room and bar are awash in juniper greens and golds; the walls are adorned with embossed upholstery that look like anaglypta wallpaper. The windows are tall; the sunlight streams in; the martinis clink. Everyone appears well-dressed and well-coiffed, right down to our server, with his monogrammed lapel. Advertisement Pineland Farms Beef Carpaccio at Willow & Ivy. Heather Diehl for the Boston Globe What to eat : This is a New England-focused menu, with many ingredients coming from Pineland Farms in Maine: beef carpaccio, skirt steak, filet mignon. Start with the shareable focaccia pie, topped with clouds of burrata, grilled peaches, balsamic, and chili honey ($19). Instead of ingredients baked into the dough, this version is heated and then topped, pie-style, and it's one of the restaurant's most popular items. Another essential: a monstrous lobster roll (market price), cold and tossed in mayo, with a canister of crisp, salty fries. Ask for a side of hot sauce, which comes in a tiny squeezable plastic fish. It tastes like Tabasco, but spicier. Like any good Boston hotel restaurant menu, there's a range of crowd-pleasing, familiar dishes: clam chowder ($19), Cape Cod scallops in a lemongrass ginger broth ($51), apple-brined chicken with whipped Maine potatoes and sweet corn succotash ($35). Advertisement Chef Daniel Kenney at Willow & Ivy. Heather Diehl for the Boston Globe But it's not snoozy. There are also surprises, like the branzino in bacon vinaigrette; a truly majestic iceberg wedge salad topped with pork belly wedges, crumbled Shropshire blue cheese amid an ocean of Great Hill Dairy blue cheese dressing, and some of the freshest, shiniest yellow tomatoes I've spied all summer ($18). For dessert, share a warm double-chocolate brownie sundae, which collapses into rivulets of vanilla ice cream as the sauce is poured tableside, adorned with ice-cold raspberries. (The presentation will earn you looks from neighboring tables.) Garden Strawberry "Shortcake" at Willow & Ivy. Heather Diehl for the Boston Globe Kenney is partial to the raspberry lime rickey crème brûlée. 'It's a play on a traditional New England drink. It's having fun with little things that spark someone's nostalgia. We're trying to have as much fun while having elevated cuisine and giving guests what they want,' he says. What to drink : Cocktails ($17 and up) match the verdant setting. Try a botanic bliss, made with Tito's vodka, St. Germain, lemon, and lavender, a pear martini with pear purée, or a greenhouse margarita with muddled cilantro. There's also a mocktail menu. Customers sit at the bar inside Willow & Ivy. Heather Diehl for the Boston Globe The takeaway : 'We're trying to break away from that stigma of a hotel restaurant, being a local establishment,' Kenney says. They do a good job. I'd gladly return, and I only live a few miles away. 65 Exeter St., Boston, 617-933-4800, Kara Baskin can be reached at