224 BOSTON
224 Boston St.
Boston
(617) 265-1217

Restaurant reviewed 04/15/99 by Alison Arnett

224 BOSTON Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 5:30-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5:30-11 p.m.; Sun. 5:30-9 p.m. Reservations accepted for parties of five or more. Smoking in bar area only. Conversation difficult when restaurant is crowded. Good Choices: Boston fishcakes; mesclun salad with pears; lobster tortelli; monkfish with basil gnocchi, mussels and tomatoes; grilled salmon with balsamic beets, greens, and roasted potatoes; lobster tortelli; rack of veal with pureed peas and mashed potatoes. Prices: Appetizers $3.50-$11; pizzas, sandwiches $7.50-$12.50; entrees $12.50-$17.50; desserts $4.50. Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diner's. Access: Fully accessible.

If any restaurant could be the symbolic poster child for Boston's diversity, it would be 224 Boston. For more than 10 years, this small restaurant a few blocks off busy Columbia Road in Dorchester has been a neighborhood gathering place, a little oasis of calm urbanity in what can be a tumultuous part of the city. Walking in on any weeknight gives hope for Dorchester and the city's social future.

African-Americans chat at the bar and at tables in the dining room. There are several mixed race families; multigenerational families pass a baby from mother to grandfather and to father; there are older couples and young couples. Twosomes of women talk over the day's events and so do twosomes of men. A family with teenage boys speak together in a Slavic language.

The decor may be of scattered lineage - no two lamps or wall sconces match and neither does much of the tableware. But the wait staff couldn't be sweeter, and a feeling of camaraderie floats in the air.

But as stalwart as 224 Boston has been as a comfortable neighborhood place, the food over the years was often pedestrian. Late last summer, though, Raymond Gillespie, formerly the chef at Mamma Maria in the North End, became the chef here. With him came a new way of looking at neighborhood fare, and the quality shot up dramatically.

Gillespie espouses simplicity with not too much on the plate so that the elemental flavors come through. In a phone interview, he says he loves to cook what he loves to eat - namely, fish. That comes through clearly in a dish of roast saddle of monkfish with basil gnocchi, mussels, and charred tomatoes. There's just enough tomato-flecked sauce - composed of a little wine and fish and mussel juice - to buttress the taste of the monkfish but not interfere with its almost-meaty goodness. The basil gnocchi are nicely balanced grace notes.

Another fish, a grilled salmon, also is treated with care and respect. Served with beets splashed with balsamic vinegar and beet greens, the salmon makes a handsome contrast of pink against the red and green. The only flaw is that the sauce falls a little too heavily on the vinegar side, obscuring somewhat the sweetness of the beets. However, a whimsical stack of roast potatoes, each disk perfectly crisp-edged and soft within, counteracted the tartness and draws a smile as well.

Some of the menu has remained the same for years, and Gillespie says he's happy to follow the wishes of the owners, brothers Kevin and Gregory Tyo. And tradition's a happy thing when one tastes Boston Street fishcakes, plump and moist with a slightly crunchy crust accompanied by a great homemade tartar sauce. Even the homely meatloaf gets an update here with lots of herbs and a deeply savory red wine and tomato sauce.

The menu caters to children with hamburgers and pizza, and to those with lighter appetites with sandwiches and bowls of pasta. Lobster tortelli, the pasta shaped into big loose curls that showcase the rich lobster stuffing, is especially good.

Many of Gillespie's dishes match the sensibilities of plusher restaurants in town. An appetizer of big grilled shrimp is dressed in a fine vinaigrette and topped with asparagus, a pristinely fresh arrangement. The salads - from a mesclun mix with slivers of pear and a spritely vinaigrette to another of spinach tossed with goat cheese and roasted red peppers - are beautiful and bountiful. A rack of veal, the little chops interspersed with grilled asparagus, is cooked stylishly rare and underpinned with excellent mashed potatoes and a brightly colored mash of peas.

A peach and rosemary sauce cuts the richness of grilled duck nicely, adding a little sweetness that wasn't cloying. Zucchini, which so often is woefully limp and unattractive, is cut into sticks and sauteed just barely tender, making it a pleasure rather than a penance as vegetable of the evening. Only the fact that the duck needs more trimming of fat mars the dish.

The wine list is short but reasonably priced, with enough variety in the wines by the glass to accommodate those who want just one. The favorite drink around the room, though, seems to be martinis in various hues and flavors.

The major shortcomings of an otherwise strong menu are the desserts. An apple crisp is sweet but insipid; chocolate creme brulee is gluey and without distinction in taste. Chocolate, yes, but not very good chocolate. But the one that takes the cake (no pun) is a tropical coconut cookie with chocolate; it's a thick, stiff coconut mixture dotted with chocolate chips spread over a graham cracker-like crust. The coconut mixture tastes sort of like a Mounds candy bar, the chocolate chips stale and the chocolate sauce around it like Hershey's syrup. A little boy, probably a regular customer, went to the kitchen one evening I was there and chose fixings for his own sundae. As I pushed the remnants of the coconut cookie extravaganza around the plate, I wished I'd done that too.

That dissatisfaction didn't ruin the 224 experience, though. Gillespie says that he "almost had stage fright" in the beginning since the kitchen and the chefs working there are in full view of the dining room. But he's gotten used to it, and to the people who come up to say they liked what they ate and ask how it was made. "I kind of feel like I'm cooking for my neighbors," he says. That ambience, that feeling, gives 224 Boston its charm, a beacon for any neighborhood.