The Fireplace

When I was still back on winter break in January, my mom took me out for dinner at The Fireplace located in Washington Square in Brookline. The Fireplace opened a couple of years ago, and we had passed it a number of times traveling on Beacon St. commuting to and from the city. Some of my relatives had dined there a few times, but my family hadn’t so we decided to give it a try.

The Fireplace serves New American cuisine with a decidedly New England flare. The menu emphasizes wood-smoked and rotisserie dishes that incorporate ingredients from the local area. This translates into offerings like seafood chowder, spit-roasted chicken, and grilled meats.

The Fireplace is a moderately sized restaurant. It’s not tiny but it’s not large either, which is probably what the restaurant is aiming for. Anything too big would deprive the restaurant of that intimate, warm feeling that you associate with a New England home on a cold winter night. The thing is, you’re not eating at home at this restaurant. The Fireplace clearly positions itself as a more upscale place with white tablecloths and linens. My mom found it odd that the waiters were dressed in jeans, but I suppose it goes along with the restaurant’s whole concept of serving more upscale cuisine while maintaining a homey, warm atmosphere.

Roasted duck leg and pan-seared duck sausage with tagliatelle & tomato cream sauce

My cousin Amanda apparently liked this dish a lot when she visited The Fireplace, so I decided to give it a try. I was happy with my choice, and I could see why she enjoyed it. The duck was presented two ways – one way as a leg and the other in sausage form. Both were quite tasty and rich and paired nicely with the soft tagliatelle. From the description of the dish, I was expecting more of a tomato cream sauce but it turned out to be a little on the top of the dish, used more for design. The actual sauce was a dark brown broth, presumably made from pan drippings after searing and roasting the duck. Though light, it was quite flavorful and soaked into and enriched the pasta.

TheFireplace signature spit-roasted half chicken with mashed potatoes & sage brown butter

My mom ordered this dish, and she didn’t seem very pleased with it. It was touted as one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, so it seemed like a sure-fire, can’t-miss dish. Well, my mom found it pretty plain and ordinary. In fact, the Cheesecake Factory serves a similar dish that’s a lot tastier, larger, and for less money. She let me try some, and it did seem pretty bland. She also got pretty angry because the dish didn’t include the chicken wing, which is her favorite part. We complained but according to the waitress, that’s how the restaurant serves the dish. Perhaps not enough patrons like the wing, so they just exclude it. My mom’s theory is that the kitchen might roast individual chicken parts on slow nights rather than roasting whole chickens to cut costs. The optimist in me wants to think otherwise, but the businessman and cynic in me wants to agree with her…

Despite some of the weaknesses, the restaurant was pretty good and seems to be pretty successful. There’s an interesting story behind The Fireplace and how it came to be, and as a business major with a strangely passionate interest in food, I could perhaps learn a thing or two from the restaurant’s creator. Jim Solomon, chef/owner of The Fireplace, actually began his career in financial services, working for Citibank and Goldman Sachs. He left Wall Street to pursue his interest in food, eventually venturing into the management side of the restaurant industry as a Pizzeria Uno’s franchisee. He left Uno’s to then pursue his MBA followed by a degree from the Culinary Institute of America. He worked under a number of chefs like Todd English, Thomas Keller, and Paul Prudhomme before finally opening his own restaurant, The Fireplace.

I’ve always been interested in food, and I think it would pretty cool to own my own restaurant someday (even though there are tons of better ways to make money than in the restaurant industry). However, as a senior in college about to graduate in just over month with a finance degree, a career in the restaurant industry seems unlikely. However, if there’s anything to learn from Solomon’s story, it’s never too late to change course, chase a dream, and make it happen – successfully.