Leigh Whittaker follows her heart to Newbury Street with the opening of her restaurant Le Mari.
The renovated interior
The chef-owner of Newbury Street’s latest restaurant, Le Mari (lemarirestaurantboston.com) is anything but typical. For starters, she’s a woman and her longest professional tenure wasn’t at a restaurant, but at the helm of a global medical device company where she worked for close to twenty years. And yet, ironically, it was the connections she made in her previous life that have helped to shape her new one. Nubar DerHagopian, the owner of the Newbury Guest House in whose building Le Mari resides, knew Whittaker from his days doing acquisitions at a medical device company and when he saw her bid come through for the restaurant space, he gave her and her partner, restauranteur Marty Bloom, the green light.
The 1,300-square-foot space, which once housed Bar à vin 1855, is a unicorn in the city’s restaurant landscape. Not only does it have coveted patio space on Newbury Street but it comes with an innkeeper’s license, allowing restauranteurs to serve a full bar without having to buy the typically prohibitively expensive liquor license. Another advantage is the built-in late-night crowd of guests looking for a nightcap before retiring to their rooms.
The duck confit with crispy rice, blood orange and fennel.
Whittaker made the place her own with a new color palette. She swapped old banquettes out for additional bar seats but generally decorated with a light hand. Her menu is similarly pared down featuring a handful of crudo and small plates, mains, pastas and a couple of soups and salads. Within the concise offering however, is a range of dishes. Find razor clams and bone marrow aioli on the crudo list and small plates that range from a duck confit with crispy rice, blood orange and fennel—inspired by Nobu’s popular crispy rice with spicy tuna—to king crab. The classic bolognese and chicken Milanese are standouts, and Whittaker stretches her creative muscles in the sea bass with tzatziki, fennel, Granny Smith and sumac and the Lion’s Mane mushroom entree with butterbean puree. For now, Le Mari serves dinner, brunch and a not-so-secret late-night menu, but Whittaker is considering opening for lunch in the fall.
Working alongside Whittaker in the kitchen is sous chef Jack Foley, formerly of Fox & the Knife, where Whittaker landed after a stint at Earth at Hidden Pond and after her training at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.
The restaurant’s entrance on Newbury Street
Opening a restaurant is a bold move to make at any age but so far, Whittaker is doing it with a smile. “I’ve found the art that I love and it makes me happy every day.”
Photography by: ARMANI THAO
