Chef Marc Sheehan, one quarter of the team of industry pros behind forthcoming East Cambridge restaurant Loyal Nine, took a moment out of his busy, getting-down-to-the-wire schedule to chat about the project: from the name, to the eats, to the bar
and the café (which will debut a little down the line).
Named for a group of Revolution-era small businessmen in Boston who rioted from under the thumb of Great Britain, Loyal Nine is made up of four: Sheehan who cut his teeth at Menton, Brasstacks and Bondir; Daniel Myers of Hand Taste Collective; Rebecca Theris of Hungry Mother and Hand Taste Collective; and David Beller of Puritan & Company.
This group won’t be dumping tea into Boston Harbor but they will be taking their culinary cues from the founding fathers. Loyal Nine’s menu will take a page from centuries-old cookbooks and serve up fresh takes on New England flavor profiles. “The word revival is very purposeful. We’re trying to reinvigorate and re-popularize something that may have fallen out of favor but for hundreds of years here, was just a way of life. That’s the style of food that we’ll be attempting to cook” say Sheehan. And the team has done their research, poring over 18th century recipe collections to discover the day-to-day diets of colonial New Englanders (which were way more herbaceous than you might have thought, thanks to the cultivation of herb gardens).
Like their namesakes, Loyal Nine shows a dedication to small business with their food and drink, and even their décor. Sheehan’s tasty seasonal dishes will be complemented by a well-rounded beverage program that includes small batch artisanal spirits and a three-tiered wine list that emphasizes grower-producers. As for the actual space, it’s been all hands on deck. Theris’ brother built the tables and she made much of the restaurant’s plateware herself. Sheehan muses, “Hopefully in years to come if we do well, we can look back at a table and say, ‘I remember building that or I remember hanging that shelf or I remember sanding that wall to help get us open.’”
The labor of love extends to the adjoined café, which has been a dream of Myers’ for a long time. What was once a loading dock will soon become a space for locals to pick up a coffee, tea, pastry or breakfast sandwich on their way to work. “The opportunity to open our doors all day to the people in East Cambridge is definitely part of the appeal.”
Everything from the café menu to the handmade décor to the drink menu to the dinner service will evoke the vibrancy of the ever-changing New England coastline, steeped in historic upheaval spurred by the underdogs, so keep an eye out for opening signs to get in on the culinary revolution.
