Massachusetts is home to one of the best new restaurants in America, report says

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Massachusetts is home to one of the best new restaurants in America, according to a new list.

Esquire on Tuesday posted its 2023 “Best New Restaurants in America” list, which is comprised of 50 places that the publication’s food editors “couldn’t stop dreaming about.”

Kevin Sintumuang, Jeff Gordinier, Joshua David Stein, and Omar Mamoon traveled across the nation over the past year sampling two hundred new dining establishments that serve an array of cuisines.

“After a series of spirited debates, we settled on fifty restaurants that stood out from the rest,” the editors wrote in the 41st edition of Espquire’s Best New Restaurants report.

Lehrhaus at 425 Washington Street in Somerville represented Massachusetts on Esquire’s list. Stein wrote a glowing review of the eatery.

I’ve been to thousands of restaurants in the past couple of years, but I hadn’t truly felt at home until I walked into Lehrhaus, a Jewish tavern and house of learning. Maybe it was the Lactaid dispenser. Maybe it was the mural of Leonard Cohen above the hand dryer in the men’s room. Or the conversation at the bar: Henry James on one side, refundability of plane tickets to Miami on the other. Could have been the Samsonian bartender’s “Nazi Lives Don’t Matter” T-shirt or the mensch-seeks-mensch meetup in the library. More than likely it was the food—chef Alex Artinian’s and chef Noah Clickstein’s celebration of Jewish diasporic cuisine. Both Ashkenazim and Sephardim are represented. Deviled eggs, haminados-style, are aged in coffee and topped with pickled mustard seeds. A herring tartine comes with the bright spice of pickled peppers alongside the silvery fish. A golden fish-and-chips made with day-boat-caught pollack and accompanied by amba vinegar, a s’chug aioli, and Old Bay seasoning seems secular. But as the Talmudic menu informs, Old Bay was invented by Gustav Brunn, a Jewish German refugee, in 1939. It is both delicious and a revelation.

—  Joshua David Stein

The Gift Horse in Providence, Rhode Island, was the only other New England restaurant that landed on the list.

To view all 50 restaurants that earned praise from Esquire, click here.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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