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The Basics: Olives restaurant information

Olives

10 City Square
Charlestown, MA 02129
617-242-1999

Olives restaurant information
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Located in the heart of Charlestown overlooking City Square Park, this award-winning restaurant (Esquire Magazine – Top Ten Restaurants, Gourmet – Best Food, Zagat Survey - #1 Restaurant) has a rustic setting filled with a mix of new and antique pieces, rich fabrics in warm earth tones, and a theatrical open kitchen from which chef-owner Todd English launched his luminous culinary career.

With an inviting private dining room and customized menus, Olives can accommodate just about any group for just about any occassion.

News and Events at Olives restaurant

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On Wednesday, December 9th join Curt and Shonda Schilling as they host the 3rd annual Bubbles and Bites event to ...

Todd English

Chef at Olives

Chef Todd English at Olives

Olives' Chef-Owner Todd English was fifteen when he first entered the doors of a professional kitchen. At twenty, he attended the Culinary Institute of America, graduating with honors in 1982. He continued to hone his craft with Jean Jacques Rachou at New York's La Cote Basque and then in Italy, where he apprenticed at the well-established Dal Pescatore in Canto Sull O'lio and Paraccuchi in Locando D'Angello.

Returning to the United States at age twenty-five, he opened the award-winning northern Italian restaurant Michela's in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as executive chef there for three years.

In spring of 1991, English caught the culinary world's eye when the James Beard Foundation named him the nation's "Rising Star Chef," and in 1994 named him "Best Chef: Northeast," He was also the first recipient of the Robert Mondavi Award for Culinary Excellence and appeared on the companion public television cooking series, America's Rising Star Chefs. He was named one of the "Top Fifty Tastemakers" by Nation's Restaurant News.

In May of 1989, English opened Olives in Charlestown, Massachusetts, a fifty-seat storefront restaurant. The restaurant drew national and international applause for English's interpretive rustic Mediterranean cuisine, and became so successful that it soon moved to a larger space just down the street from its original location.

In recent years English has opened several other Olives locations including branches in New York City's W Hotel, at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, in the heart of Washington, DC, at the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen, Colorado and in Tokyo, Japan.

Among English's other restaurants are Tuscany at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, which serves Italian inspired foods and pays homage to his Italian roots; Bonfire, a steakhouse in Boston's Park Plaza Hotel  that is a celebration of ranch cooking around the world; and KingFish Hall, English's first seafood concept, in Boston's Historic Faneuil Hall. His second seafood concept, Fish Club, at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront opened in the spring of 2003.

In early 2004, English added two more locations to his repertoire: the Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 welcomed the restaurant Todd English, and Orlando hosts BlueZoo at the Walt Disney World Resort's Dolphin Hotel. English's first addition for 2005 is another New York establishment called English is Italian in Manhattan, a prix fixed, menu-less concept where diners can sample an array of Italian cuisine for one price.

Some of English's television credits include the national public television series, Cooking Under Fire, produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, Public Television's Cooking In With Todd English, Iron Chef USA, Martha Stewart Living, Food Network's Opening Soon, Bobby Flay's Food Nation, and The Main Ingredient, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Live with Regis and Kelly, The Today Show, Discovery Channel's Party Planners, Great Chefs of the Northeast, and Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends. English has authored the critically acclaimed cookbooks, The Olives Table, The Figs Table and The Olives Dessert Table published by Simon & Schuster.

English is very involved with several local and national charities including: Big Brother, the Anthony Spinazzola Foundation, Community Servings, Share Our Strength, the Boys and Girls Clubs, and City Year.

English has three children - Oliver, Isabelle and Simon - who can sometimes be spotted on his cooking show, helping their dad whip up something marvelous in the kitchen.

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Dictionary
 
Aïoli
1. noun A blend of ail (garlic) and oli (oil) in the parlance of the Provence region of southern France. Around here, we'd call it a garlic mayonnaise.
Bouillabaisse
1. noun A Provençal stew of fish, shellfish, onions, tomatoes, white wine, olive oil, garlic, saffron and herbs.
Carpaccio
1. noun Wafer-thin slices of raw beef served cold; named after the Renaissance Venetian painter.
Chorizo
1. noun Crumbly, spiced pork sausage.
Confit
1. noun Meat (usually goose, duck or pork) that is slowly cooked in its own fat and preserved with the fat packed around it as a seal.
Couscous
1. noun Granular semolina popular in North Africa.
Foie gras
1. noun Expensive, silk-textured goose or duck liver that has been enlarged by a process you don't want to read about if you're going to eat this dish.
Gremolata
1. noun Minced parsley, lemon peel and garlic.
Jus
1. noun French for juice, jus also refers to the unthickened juices from a piece of roasted meat.
Mâche
1. noun Dark, tangy greens used most often in salads.
Pesto
1. noun An Italian sauce traditionally made with basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and Romano and Parmesan cheeses.
Ragu
1. noun Tomato and meat sauce from Bologna.
Rouille
1. noun The French word for "rust" describes the color of this spicy sauce made of hot chiles, garlic, breadcrumbs and olive oil and generally diluted with fish stock.
Tartare
1. noun Ground or finely chopped, seasoned raw meat (traditionally beef). May or may not come mounded, and with a raw egg.
Za'atar
1. noun An herb, or spice blend of sesame seeds, sumac, and herb za'atar that is used in Middle Eastern cooking, sprinkled on bread or on grilled meat.