Kathy Sidell, owner of the Metropolitan Club in Chestnut Hill and four other MET restaurants, talks about how being from Newton has shaped her career as a film producer and restaurateur.
The word metropolitan can mean “characteristic of a metropolis in accepting and combining a wide variety of people and ideas.” So it’s no wonder Kathy Sidell chose to name the restaurants in her “collection” (she prefers this term to “chain”) with variations on Metropolitan Club. The group includes the original on Route 9 in Chestnut Hill, MET Bar and Grill outposts at The Natick Collection and at Legacy Place in Dedham, MET Back Bay, and the newest member, MET on Main in Nantucket. But as diverse as the locations of the restaurants are, they all reflect Sidell’s upbringing on Baldpate Hill Road right here in Newton. “I worked extra hard at being accessible, real, earthy,” Sidell explains. “I didn’t want the fact that I came from a wealthy…
42.32039
-71.17515
Charley's
199 Boylston St, Chestnut Hill, MA
/articles/newton-native-met-with-success-in-food-and-film
2083764
/locations/8386240
Andrea Pyenson, food writer and cookbook author, talks about how she started writing about food, how even great cooks can set their ovens on fire and how Yankees can make some "wicked good" barbecue.
Food writer Andrea Pyenson is a Newtonite through and through. She went to Newton South High School, she lives in Waban – let’s face it, she’s a Yankee. So it’s not all that surprising that when she and her two co-authors first pitched a barbecue cookbook, it was rejected by several publishers. What is surprising about the rejection is that her co-authors are Andy Husbands and Chris Hart, two of the leaders of the award-winning competitive barbecue team iQue BBQ. “They basically said, ‘You’re from the Northeast. What could you possibly know about barbecue,” says Pyenson. But Pyenson and her co-authors have surpassed the stereotypes and will release their new cookbook Wicked Good Barbecue next Thursday, March 1. The trio of authors seems to…
42.314678
-71.188134
Newton South High School
140 Brandeis Rd, Newton Center, MA
/articles/newton-food-writer-knows-barbecue
765802
/locations/6443170
Wendy Schapiro
11:03 am on Friday, December 14, 2012
Factual corrections: Neither Kathy nor Todd English were involved with Pomme Frites (there was an error to that effect in an article on a tribute to her father that was held a couple of years ago). Sorry for the mistake! more ›