Restaurants
The luxe London-based restaurant brand will open at the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street.
Escargot at LPM. Courtesy
A luxe London restaurant known for its French Riviera-inspired fare is coming to Boston—and, of course, there will be escargot.
LPM Restaurant & Bar (La Petite Maison) opens Sept. 24 in Back Bay’s Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street, marking the brand’s second U.S. location.
At the 80-seat restaurant—which joins the already-open Trifecta restaurant and cocktail bar and Japanese restaurant Zuma—the escargot is served in the classic French way, naturally. Snails are pan-seared, baked in butter, and roasted in the oven before arriving at the table in a special metal tray with a circular hole for each mollusk. A crusty, fresh baguette comes on the side. Diners use tongs to pick up each snail, and a small fork to dig out the meat out of the shell.
Then get ready for buttery bliss.
“It’s garlicky, it’s yummy,” Gabriela Guitron, head chef at LPM Boston, told Boston.com of the dish. “The recipe has more than 20 ingredients in the mix, so it really takes the escargot to the next level.”
Without spilling all of the snail’s secrets, the escargot sauce features French butter and tarragon among a garden of herbs. “I could tell you that’s one of the dishes that it doesn’t matter that it has butter, it’s totally worth it,” Guitron said. “You really want to dip your bread into all of [the sauce].”
It’s clear from the jump that LPM, which will open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, is a splurge. Not just in calories, but in luxe surroundings—designed by London-based Sagrada Studio—that will call to mind the stylized opulence of France’s bygone Belle Époque cultural era. (And, sure, there’s the luxe price tag.)
But saying goodbye to late summer calls for some carefree indulgence before a long Boston winter.
“Boston has a strong dining culture and access to excellent local ingredients, especially seafood,” LPM CEO, Nicolas Budzynski, told Boston.com. “We also found an ideal partner and location at Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street. It felt like the right city for LPM’s first location in the Northeast.”
The restaurant currently has 10 locations around the globe, from Dubai to Hong Kong. Boston will be the brand’s second U.S. location, joining its Miami outpost. A Las Vegas location closed earlier this year, but more locations are on the way, according to the brand.
A table of dishes, including tomatoes and bread, at LPM Restaurant & Bar, a French Riviera-inspired restaurant opening Sept. 24 at the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton.
The menus feature small plates, salads, seafood, pastas, and grilled meats using both Mediterranean ingredients and inspirations, along with local produce. “We keep it simple and really make the ingredients shine,” Guitron said. “We do everything from scratch. It’s just food that speaks to your soul.”
Listen up, then, to the offerings. For breakfast: baskets of pastries served with eggs and sides; French toast with spiced Chantilly cream; an omelet with sautéed leeks and confit Maine lobster, topped with Osietra caviar and crème fraiche. For lunch: marinated sweet peppers; yellowtail carpaccio; marinated lamb cutlets with olive, eggplant “caviar” and pine nuts.
Dinner, of course, is the main event, though there is some overlap with the lunch menu. Diners can luxuriate over caviar service with the traditional trimmings of crème fraîche, red onions, capers, and brioche as they peruse the menu. Plates include a sweet corn salad with pomegranate and herbs; wagyu tomahawk steak with potato galette and Bordelaise sauce, classic duck à l’orange (duck confit served with a sweet-savory orange sauce and grilled cabbage); salt-baked sea bass with artichokes and tomatoes. Guitron recommends the burrata salad with imported Italian cheese, served with cherry tomatoes and basil. Also the green lentil salad with sliced apple and torched, vine-ripened Hiiro cherry tomatoes. “With the acidity of the apple itself and the vinaigrette, it’s just a refreshing start to your meal,” she said.
While LPM’s menu is largely consistent across its various locations, each head chef usually works in a few city-specific plates. Guitron can’t reveal much at the moment of the Boston-exclusive menu items, but unsurprisingly, she’s been working with lots of seafood. Maybe seafood rice with prawns, a prawn tower, and saffron rice will make the menu. “[Those dishes] are in the secret space, ready to come to life,” she said.
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