In August 2013, the James Beard Award-Winning Chef Tony Maws opens The Kirkland Tap & Trotter, his second Boston-area restaurant, touting a menu of rustic, hearty fare combining phenomenal ingredients and unexpected flavors that you would find Maws cooking at home for family and friends. Located around the corner from one of Chef Maws’ food idols – Julia Child’s house – in Somerville, The Kirkland Tap & Trotter’s atmosphere will embody an eclectic and cozy neighborhood vibe akin to some of the best “gastropubs” in England.
“The Kirkland Tap & Trotter is an ‘every night of the week’ kind of establishment, serving favorites you would find my friends and family gathered around on a Monday night,” says Tony Maws, who first introduced Bostonians to his cuisine in 2002 with Craigie Street Bistrot, later reincarnated as Craigie on Main in 2008. Chef Maws’ French-inspired “refined rusticity” and an unyielding passion for the best local, seasonal, and organic ingredients, have become his trademark. A James Beard Award Winner Best Chef Northeast (2011) and Food & Wine Best New Chef (2005), Chef Maws is a pioneer in the locavore movement and nose-to-tail cooking known for blending Parisian “slow-food” with New England ingredients. “You’ll find the same ingredients on the menu at Kirkland Tap & Trotter that you see at Craigie, but here they will be prepared simply and perfectly executed. You won’t see any swooshes on the plates here. I wanted to create a place where I could hang, and guests can embrace my jeans and a t-shirt philosophy, feeling comfortable enough to eat with their hands and play air drums.”
The 115-seat restaurant includes a 12-seat bar, with additional seating at high top tables alongside a large open dining room. The kitchen and menu centers around a large wood-fired grill set into a masonry base, featuring dishes such as: Grilled Spice Crusted Chicken Wings, radishes, arugula; Grilled Red Chile Salmon Head, oxalis; and Grilled Sardines Provençale, parsley, red onion.
The drink menu is also representative of the libations that Chef Maws and his friends and family enjoy imbibing at home, and will feature a large beer list, and an expansive wine by the glass list tilting toward Old World terroir and funky wines made by real people. Additionally, The Kirkland Tap & Trotter has partnered with Revolution Cocktails to create a unique cocktail menu with drinks that are well-crafted but “don’t take ten minutes to make.”
