This week: Fresh Goat Cheese, Roasted Beet and Walnut Tart, from Hamersley’s Bistro in Boston, Mass.
Boston's four-star Hamersley's Bistro, located in that city's trendy South End, was created to give guests the experience of dining in a French country restaurant. Chef-owner Gordon Hamersley's recipe for Fresh Goat Cheese, Roasted Beet and Walnut Tart is a classic example of that approach. He suggests pairing this tart with greens tossed with a bright vinaigrette or a slice as a side dish to grilled lamb chops.
About the chef:
Gordon Hamersley started cooking as a student at Boston University in the early 1970s and began his culinary career at various French restaurants in the Boston area. In 1979, he moved to Los Angeles, where he trained at the famed Ma Maison under Wolfgang Puck before moving in 1982 to Nice, France. Cooking by day and dining in restaurants by night, Hamersley and his wife, Fiona, further absorbed nuances of French cuisine. A year later, they returned to Boston where Hamersley began working as sous chef to noted Boston chef Lydia Shire (Locke-Ober, Excelsior) at the Bostonian Hotel.
In 1987, the couple opened the original Hamersley's Bistro in a tiny storefront in Boston's up-and-coming South End. “We wanted our restaurant to be more like the informal, relaxed bistros in France that we felt ourselves drawn to again and again,” says Gordon. The restaurant was an instant success, and in 1993 they moved their restaurant into a larger space a few blocks down Tremont Street.
Hamersley’s has received enthusiastic attention from magazines and newspapers such as Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Food & Wine and The New York Times and is consistently rated as one of Boston’s top four restaurants for food and popularity in Zagat’s Restaurant Guide. The restaurant has received four stars from both The Boston Globe and Boston Herald and has been inducted into the Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame. Hamersley has been named one of Food & Wine’s best new chefs and has received the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef in the Northeast.
His first cookbook, “Bistro Cooking at Home,” won the International Association of Culinary Professionals 2004 Cookbook Award in the Chefs and Restaurants category.
(PLEASE NOTE: Ingredient prices are estimates and based on national averages. Amounts listed are for one portion. Increase proportionately according to number of portions desired.)
Hamersley's Bistro
553 Tremont Street
Boston, Mass., 02116
(617) 423-2700
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