Rustic Kitchen reproduces A chain with integrity
By: Louisa Kasdon Sidell

IT IS IMMEDIATELY clear to anyone who visits the construction site in Cambridge (in the former spot of Giuseppe's, Metro, etc.) that Rustic Kitchen is Jim Cafarelli's baby. One day, he's there in a natty tie and pressed slacks. The next day, clad in a tool belt, he's supervising the installation of the pasta counter and the exhaust hood for the wood-burning pizza oven. He's almost delirious with his sense that he can and will build a chain of Rustic Kitchens adding one or two a year, spread over a region manageable by his operations man, Chris Tocchio, and super chef Bill Bradley. Cafarelli sees a mini-empire of bistro/trattoria-style Italian restaurants that "have legs," and will stand the test of time and the fickle palates of the public.

This new Rustic Kitchen, in Porter Square, Cambridge, will be huge, as well as gorgeous, warm, and slightly funky. There's an oyster bar (to be called the Oysteria), a bar, and the kind of circular booths that make you want to cuddle up with friends for in-depth discussions of last night's Sopranos episode. All day, people will be baking bread and feeding pasta through a sheeter. It is the kind of food and menu that you could eat every time one of you says, "Let's get some Italian tonight."

This will be the second Rustic Kitchen that Cafarelli will create. He inherited the one in Faneuil Hall as part of the spoils of his much-chronicled business divorce from Todd English (although, according to Cafarelli, everything about Rustic Kitchen from concept to ambiance to menu was his from the get-go). Cafarelli has been involved with many restaurant ventures over the past 20 years. He started by building the ill-fated Maven's Deli for Alan Dershowitz, and quickly moved on to bigger things, including Lydia Shire's first solo venture, Biba. With then-partner Joe Thibert, Cafarelli created CAFCO Development, which quickly became the top name on the short list of outfits that could build restaurants. As of now, Cafarelli figures that he has constructed over 200 restaurants around the country.

His career took a giant step forward after he built the first House of Blues, in Cambridge, for Isaac Tigrett. He recognized Tigrett as a visionary, and Tigrett sized up Cafarelli as someone who could do a lot more for him than build one unit of a new chain in Boston. So, with the promise of a healthy partnership, Cafarelli moved his family to Los Angeles, the base from which he began building House of Blues franchises all over the country eight in all, until the concept was bought out. Suddenly, he found himself working with major venture-capital firms, Disney, Chase Manhattan, and Chicago's Platinum Group pretty heady stuff for a boy from Savin Hill. After a few years of high-flying concept and construction, he joined with Todd English, and the two built 10 restaurants together around the country.

As time went on, the cozy relationship became less so, and Cafarelli was ready to do his own thing. He moved his wife, Kathy, and his two kids back to Canton. Kathy Cafarelli who looks like a beautiful blond socialite is the company's controller. Her talent for being on top of all the details is evident upon first meeting.

The Cambridge Rustic Kitchen will open sometime in July, and a third location will open in the early fall in Hingham. While all three will share the same basic menu, each restaurant will bend to the local clientele. Cambridge will be more attuned to students and young local professionals, Faneuil Hall will continue to delight Boston's hungry tourists, and the Hingham location will cater to a more-suburban and family-oriented group of diners. Cafarelli calls it "dialing it up or down to suit each neighborhood."

Bill Bradley is the executive chef for these three and presumably any future Rustic Kitchens. And he is good. With his California sensibility of freshness, he brings a hip twist to classic Italian favorites. He's been at the Faneuil Hall spot for the past few years, and has been training a team of excellent chefs de cuisine who will take charge of the next round of Rustic Kitchens: Tom Holloway will go to Cambridge, while Jacob Aecio will stay in Boston.

At the Faneuil Hall restaurant, Bradley's food has to be especially fresh, as he doesn't have a freezer and has minimal dry-storage capacity. And while that's a function of the space in that location, it's also part of his core food philosophy: to serve whatever is fresh in the market. "Simple food, but not food for simple people," he says. So he has a shrimp spaghetti carbonara that he makes with garlic, butter, and olive oil, finished with bottarga (fish roe) but without cheese, bacon, or cream. Bradley and his able chef de cuisine make a tagliatelle with five different meats and just a hint of tomato, and baked mac-and-cheese with porcini mushrooms, fontina, and truffle oil. On a recent visit, we flipped for the lavender-and-honey-basted duck breast with a rhubarb-and-cherry agrodolce sauce, and the whole-wheat ravioli stuffed with duck confit, spinach, feta, and toasted hazelnuts. I also loved the Maine-crab-and-salt-cod-fritter appetizer. Prices are great, with most of the entrées under $20; the pizzas range from $10 to $13. Heather Macdonald is the pastry chef, and she has a long, lustrous Boston history. At Rustic Kitchen, her cannoli are flaky like phyllo dough, and filled with a ricotta that is as sweet and smooth as your favorite fantasy. Rustic Kitchen will be a welcome addition to Cambridge. This may be the recipe to make a location with a questionable track record soar.