Lower than a yr after greater than 20 workers accused the famend Boston chef Barbara Lynch of office misconduct, she has closed most of her eating places, citing lease will increase and failed landlord negotiations. As soon as Boston’s most established effective eating chef—with numerous culinary awards beneath her belt, a rave-reviewed memoir, and a coveted spot on Time’s Most Influential Folks record—Lynch’s fall from grace has been sudden.
Beginning in 1998 together with her flagship restaurant No. 9 Park, serving refined French and Italian-inspired delicacies, Lynch put Boston on the map as a not-to-be-ignored eating vacation spot. Over the subsequent two-plus many years, her empire grew to embody a slew of eating places that every introduced one thing leading edge to the town’s eating scene, from Drink, the revolutionary cocktail bar the place clients might order primarily based on taste profile, to B&G Oysters, which was buzzing properly earlier than slurping uncooked bivalves and ’tinis after work was cool.
On the finish of 2023, Lynch’s restaurant group, the Barbara Lynch Collective, shuttered three places: Menton, her temple to fancy tiny plates, swanky trattoria Sportello, and Drink, all housed in the identical Fort Level constructing on Congress Avenue. Over within the South finish, Stir and The Butcher Store have additionally shut their doorways—and are apparently beneath settlement on the market. Nonetheless in enterprise are No. 9 Park; B&G Oysters; and The Rudder, her newest ode to seasonal cooking, which opened final yr.
A assertion from the restaurant group explaining the various closures cited a mix of “post-pandemic realities,” in addition to alleged mismanagement by ex-employees and the landlords at Acadia Realty Belief (the corporate behind the Fort Level constructing that housed three of her eating places), which supposedly collected a cumulative $88,000 per thirty days in lease from the chef.
Lynch took goal at Boston’s actual property scene extra broadly, claiming that impartial cooks are getting squeezed out by sky-high leases. “Boston is now not the identical place the place I opened seven eating places over the past 25 years,” Lynch mentioned within the press launch. “Properties have been flipped and flipped and the landlords simply need the rents that solely nationwide chains can maintain.” (Bon Appetit reached out to Lynch and Acadia Realty Belief for remark, and can replace this story accordingly.)
