A Walk Down Tory Row
Tory Row
3 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 876-8769
No Reservations
“Why are they called Tory Row if they’re not serving anything British?” asked one astute member of Jill Lepore’s seminar on the American Revolutionary War. Despite the witty name which referred to Brattle St. in the 1770s, the latest addition to the Square’s dining landscape, Tory Row, has little to do with anything British or frankly, revolutionary.
This shout-out to the gastro-pub craze is the latest addition to Chris Lutes and Matthew Curtis’s restaurant mini-Empire. Tory Row is definitely reminiscent of the owners’ other well-trodden establishment, Cambridge 1, but the joint’s self-proclaimed “Euro-American food and traditional drink” means way more than pizza.
The increasingly fleshed-out menu is quite satisfying with a few highlights. They make a mean burger on ciabatta (avoid the potato roti on the side, which one diner dubbed a “weird rubbery situation.”) The duck confit salad strewn with shredded duck confit, plump dried cranberries, and pickled shallots, is delicious and a good deal as an entrée. Most things are shareable, including an array of grilled flatbreads and local littleneck clams, both done in the restaurant’s snazzy stainless-steel woodfire oven.
In true pub form, the bar is cocktail-free, but excellent draft and bottle beers, and well-priced European wines abound. The huge storefront windows onto the heart of the Square give the dimly-lit room an inside/outside feel (as if you’re actually part of some scene). While the grey slate tables and metal barstools work well with the overall minimalist aesthetic, comfortable is not the adjective that immediately comes to mind—the banquettes against one wall are so rigid they’d cure scoliosis.
With a younger, self-consciously cool crowd and sleek, provocative décor, this bar-restaurant hybrid gestures strongly towards urban chic. “I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of Harvard Square,” described one diner, dreaming of life in the real world.