It’s been just over a year since Danny Meyer, the famed New York restaurateur and hospitality legend, announced that his company, Union Square Hospitality Group, was bringing two of the group’s restaurants to Boston in 2025. Much of the details were kept under wraps at the time, but now, we’ve got names: Critically acclaimed Italian restaurant Ci Siamo and all-day cafe Daily Provisions will be opening later this year at Commonwealth Pier in the Seaport, according to the Boston Globe.
Both picks make sense for a Boston expansion. Of the 12 types of restaurants owned by Union Square Hospitality Group, Ci Siamo is the finer dining Italian spot that will likely feel familiar to many Boston diners. Run by chef Hillary Sterling, the restaurant focuses on pizzas, pasta, and meats and vegetables cooked over a live fire. While not exactly groundbreaking, it was well-executed and the restaurant turned a lot of heads in New York: It currently ranks among the New York Times’ top 100 restaurants in the city, and Sterling has been a semifinalist for the James Beard award for Best Chef: New York for the past four consecutive years.
Daily Provisions is a long-running all-day cafe in New York that is known, first and foremost, for its crullers, a deep-fried, melt-in-your-mouth pastry glazed in sugar that is basically synonymous with the city at this point.
In an interview with the Globe, Meyer name-checked a bunch of Boston restaurants that he was looking forward to visiting. His picks included grand Italian restaurant La Padrona, North End mainstay Neptune Oyster, and Ken Oringer’s Italian spot on Newbury Street, Faccia a Faccia. (In return, La Padrona chef and owner Jody Adams posted a welcome-to-Boston video for Meyer on Instagram.)
This isn’t the first time that Union Square Hospitality Group has expanded outside of New York, but it hasn’t found success yet in other markets. The group first went into D.C. in 2020 with Maialino Mare, a seafood-focused Roman trattoria, plus rooftop bar Anchovy Social, but closed both within two years.
Boston has been the landing pad for New York groups looking to take their Italian restaurants on the road before, too. Major Food Group runs Contessa in the Newbury Hotel and Parm at Copley Place; while disgraced chef Mario Batali operated a version of Babbo in Boston from 2015 to 2019.
Correction: March 6, 10:10 a.m. This article was corrected to show that Sterling was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: New York for four consecutive years, not two.
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