Boston Globe
December 11 2003

New kid on the block brings it together

by Alison Arnett

Reams of print have been expended on the transformation of the lower South End, and the sleek condominiums and restaurants along Washington Street attest to its new life. But Union, with its cool dark wood and brushed metal interior and its long windows open to street, is the place that really shows the neighborhood has arrived. Think of it as lower Washington Street's coming-of-age restaurant. Compared to the others along the wide boulevard -- Caffe Umbra, Red Fez, Gallia, Pho Republique -- Union is the grown-up, the most fully realized, both broad in its menu and sophisticated in its service. It's the Hamersley's Bistro of Washington Street.

Owned by Seth Woods of Aquitaine, Jeff Gates, and Matt Burns, Union is designed to be neighborhood-friendly, and chef de cuisine Stephen Sherman's menu -- with a burger as well as rack of lamb and beef tenderloin -- puts a lot under one umbrella. However, the prices scaling up to $37 for the lamb show the neighborhood is quickly losing the downmarket grittiness that marked it just a few short years ago.

The buzz on the street matches the electric feeling that hums through the place, its big bar area packed, its dining room almost full even on a Tuesday. The dining area matches stylish decor with sort of clubby comfort -- black padded leather banquettes and chairs, modulated lighting and, though it's not the prettiest surface available, soundproofing material on the ceiling.

There's also a pleasing attention to service: coats taken at the door, a waiter who carefully checks his pad to make sure we've all gotten the right dishes, a friendliness that doesn't stretch into over-familiarity. Though the first visit within a month of the restaurant's opening in early October was marred by long waits for the main course for our large party, a second proved much smoother.

All of this fits in with the food, which is appealing and sometimes quite good, but not entirely the point. This is not a foodie's shrine, but a restaurant that aims to please a wide range of eaters.

A thick slice of goat cheese atop a slice of grilled eggplant atop tomato is becoming the all-purpose appetizer. Union's is tasty but settles into undistinguished. A white bean soup scores better, smooth in texture and soothing with thin fingers of tangy shrimp toast as a texture and taste contrast. Lobster tossed with corn and chanterelles, maybe a little out of season by now, still packs plenty of flavor; that and the small and very tender gnocchi with the fricassee could really stand on their own.

Only an avocado and shrimp salad, the ingredients chopped, submerged in a creamy sauce and then molded into a ring, fails because of a heavy hand with chili pepper, a seasoning that must have been intended to highlight the flavors but instead overpowers them.

Sherman says on the telephone that his cooking was shaped by Union Square Cafe in New York, his first major job after culinary school. The accessibility of his food reflects that. His entrees are straightforward: the protein the major part of the plate and the accompaniments tailored to complement that, nothing teased into unusual shapes or fashioned to shock the palate.

A big pork chop has the tenderness of having been brined and then smoked have a pleasant edge to them. The accompanying molasses-laced beans taste exactly like old-fashioned pork and beans, and are quite delicious. One evening in late October, wild halibut comes with purslane greens and creamed corn, a lovely melding of pristine but sturdy fish with the sweet vegetable. Later the fish is cod and a grainy mustard sauce has been substituted, a good foil for the stronger taste of the fish.

Swordfish is another fish that can stand up to assertive flavors, and here it does handsomely with balsamic tempered with butter in a winey, dark sauce. And a provocatively named $10K tuna, which Sherman explains is derived from a contest he won with the recipe while at the Culinary Institute of America, hits more heady notes with a background of grilled fennel and roasted tomato vinaigrette.

Rosy nuggets of lamb fare better on a second visit than on the first, where the lamb rack hadn't been trimmed well enough of fat and the fig sauce too sweet. By the second visit, though, the lamb shone, and simply braised Tuscan kale beautifully offset the fig glaze.

Grilled poussin, stuffed with sausage and cornbread, suffers from being too dry, maybe too hard a fire on the delicate little bird. And the draw for the burger crowd, a beef and andouille sausage burger, is dry, too. Actually, it's more than that -- the combination of beef and sausage doesn't work particularly well. Trying to fancy up a burger is an understandable urge but perhaps one that should be resisted. Mixed meats in burgers never seem really to meld together well.

Union has an imaginative wine list with a fairly wide price range and an emphasis on American bottles. The desserts, under pastry chef Joshua Steinberg, are also ambitious and for the most part quite successful. A dark chocolate fondant cake is the newest twist on molten chocolate, and Union's is lovely, dreamy almost-liquid chocolate under a shell. Steinberg's brown-sugar cheesecake is a way to tame a confection that can be overwhelming by cutting it into small triangles, contrasting the creaminess with plenty of chopped pistachios on top and adding an apple confit baked down until it's winey and dark for a further accent note. And a milkshake with a shot of Godiva liqueur and a big coconut cookie slathered with chocolate is irresistible.

That might be a good adjective for Union. Not everything is perfect, but it's a place that could easily be habit-forming.

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