Scampo at The Liberty Hotel

12/21/08

Great for out-of-town-guests

by RyanRose at Citysearch

For the most part, I'm digging the latest addition to Lydia Shire's empire. Hidden on the ground floor of the fabulous Liberty Hotel, the airy space, marked off by exposed brick walls and arranged around a spotless open kitchen, is a great place to bring out of town guests for a bit of Boston ambiance and history (the Liberty was an old jail). And compared with Locke-Ober, it's a far less stuffy, masculine and meat-centric place to sample the cuisine of Lydia Shire, who is herself a piece of Boston history. You can catch her here during the week too, flitting from table to kitchen, and her touch is obvious in the adventurous, clever and substantial foods on the menu.

However, there are a few parts of the restaurant that aren't quite worthy of Shire. The cocktail menu appears to be a thrown-together affair, with silly names and awkward drinks. Boston's currently in the midst of a torrid love affair with old-fashioned cocktails and deft young bartenders, and Scampo's not cashing in on this. The wine recommendation that I received was good though, and with an Italian menu this is more important. The prices are also a bit high for what you get -- I'm not asking for an Olive Garden-esque trough of food here, but $8 for the Elephant Ear Walking, a signature dish, is a lotta bread for, well, a piece of bread. It's clear though that the target customer of Scampo, like that of the Liberty Hotel overall is someone for whom money is no object, and to whom appearances and big names sometimes matter more than substance, and so perhaps Scampo is succeeding -- just not with my kind of customer.

Anyway, I'll still certainly bring friends back here and would recommend it for a special occasion where splurging is ok -- it's beautiful and festive-feeling inside, there's something on the menu for everyone, the servers are attentive and the location is very convenient. And it's still somewhat new -- so I'm hoping that the kinks will eventually smooth themselves out.

• Pros: Great ambiance, open kitchen, Liberty Hotel location
• Cons: High prices, staff could be more knowledgeable