Eleven months after Eastern Standard restaurateur Garrett Harker and his team shut down ES’s short-lived seafood sibling, All That Fish & Oyster, they are debuting another restaurant in its spot. Standard Italian is, you guessed it, another Italian restaurant in Boston where diners can sip classic cocktails and gather around comforting bowls of pasta.
Inside, All That’s raw bar has been swapped for a charcuterie station, and white half-curtains were added to evoke a more homey, intimate vibe in the high-ceilinged space. The 85-seat restaurant has a slower, more laid-back feel than its cavernous 160-seat sibling.
Spearheaded by Eastern Standard’s new culinary director Brian Rae, the menu focuses primarily on pasta — both with and without gluten — and stuzzichini, or little snacks served during apertivo hour, like grilled mortadella skewers with pistachio and black olives. A handful of hot and cold antipasti are also available, as well as a few larger entrees. The rye campanelle with roasted Brussels sprouts, brown butter breadcrumbs, and crème fraiche has been an early hit, according to Rae. Standard Italian’s menu is printed daily and Rae says he’s already playing around with specials.
Standard Italian’s dining room. Rebecca Nottonson/Standard Italian
“I grew up in a half-Italian household, my mother is Italian,” says Rae, who joined the team in August after stints at high-profile restaurants including Rialto, Les Sablons, Coppa, and Faccia a Faccia. “Saturday mornings, I would make pancakes with my father and then my mom used to let me mix the meatballs. Those are some of my first cooking memories.”
The pasta and bread are made in-house at Eastern Standard’s bakery across the plaza, located at the base of the Bower luxury residential building on Beacon Street. A separate bakery is expected to open in Spring or Summer 2025, Harker says.
Behind the bar, Eastern Standard legend Jackson Cannon is overseeing a classic martini program, from a dirty option with blue cheese olives to the Standard Oil with olive oil-washed gin, vermouth, basil tincture, and orange bitters. Cannon says the larger format of the martini has opened up the ability to play with proportions without being so tied to a strict liquor-acid-sweetness ratio as he is at the aptly named Equal Measure, Cannon’s cocktail bar tucked behind Eastern Standard. There are a number of other cocktails and apertivos available, as well as an all-Italian wine menu.
The Pink Vesper martini with a pickled grape garnish. Rebecca Nottonson
All That, under the direction of former culinary director Nemo Bolin, was only open for four months before shuttering. Harker attributes the sudden closure to poor timing.
“In retrospect, I would have opened Eastern Standard first, because when it opened it just sucked the air out of the room in a way that I’d never anticipated. It was such a sort of frenzy,” says Harker. “[All That] was feeling unnecessarily complex, when it was meant to be sort of free-spirited and big flavors and fun.”
Now that the hubbub around Eastern Standard’s reopening has cooled, Harker says diners seem more receptive to a new concept. Standard Italian will channel the same focus on quality as its counterparts. Harker jokes that the only thing they don’t make in-house are spirits.
The Fenway culinary scene is a hard one to crack. Douglass Williams’ recent concept D.W. French closed after just 10 months and became a fourth location of MIDA, his Italian mainstay. Row 34, a popular local seafood spot, is trying its hand in the former space of Pescador, a restaurant that closed after just 18 months. Even Tiffani Faison’s Boylston Street empire has been whittled down to just Sweet Cheeks and Fool’s Errand.
Looking ahead at business and residential development to come in the neighborhood, Harker hopes to be the one to decipher and conquer the new Fenway dining scene, just as he did with the original Eastern Standard.
Standard Italian is located at 771 Beacon Street. It is open from 5 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and 5 to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Reservations are available here.