While the pace of new openings has slowed somewhat over the past year, Boston already has several exciting new venues on tap for spring. Here are seven of the most highly anticipated new venues set to open in coming months.
1. Hotel Veritas
The only new hotel scheduled for Boston this season, this 30-room boutique property in Harvard Square is scheduled to open late April or early May. The small hotel's homey layout—the building was originally a private home built in the 1880s—does not provide much meeting space, but does include two one-bedroom suites that seat six, and staff can help book additional meeting space at the nearby Harvard Faculty Club. The hotel’s lounge, Simple Truth, will feature a fireplace and 13-foot-high windows.
2. Russell House Tavern
Also coming to Harvard Square in April is this new American tavern, which will take over the space formerly occupied by the restaurant Z Square. Russell House will serve a seasonal menu, craft beers, and cocktails. A 40-seat private dining room can be divided into two smaller spaces. Amenities for meetings-over-meals include free Wi-Fi, audiovisual setup, and valet parking for events.
3. Menton
In the last week of March or the first week of April, chef-owner Barbara Lynch is set to add this long-awaited Provençal-style fine dining restaurant to her collection of Fort Point Channel hot spots, which already includes Drink and Sportello. The 60-seat main dining room will feature hardwood floors and a color scheme of gray, taupe, and green. The restaurant will also include two private rooms—an intimate 10-seat space with an open view of the kitchen and a private dining room for 50.
4. Basho
This sizable Japanese brasserie from the owner of Back Bay's popular Douzo sushi restaurant is set to open in the Fenway neighborhood in April, serving fresh sushi and sashimi flown in daily from around the world. In addition to a main dining room, grill bar, sushi bar, and raw bar, Basho will have three or four private dining rooms that seat between 10 and 40 each, as well as a large patio.
5. Towne
In May, chef Jasper White will debut this 10,000-square-foot restaurant inside the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. Part of a $21 million renovation that includes new lighting and repainting and refurbishment throughout the center, Towne will be the first of two new upscale restaurants intended to reposition the trade-show-heavy Hynes as an option for private parties and meetings.
6. Anthem
The Briar Group, the team behind popular neighborhood eateries City Table and the Green Briar, will open a new version of its downtown comfort food restaurant that closed in 2007. The bilevel space inside Faneuil Hall Marketplace will seat several hundred in a bright, greenhouse-like setting and feature a menu of sandwiches, flatbread pizzas, and heavier entrees. Anthem's opening is slated for early May.
7. Bliss Spa
After introducing Bostonians to the W hotel chain last fall, the W Boston will debut the first local branch of its popular Bliss Spa concept in May. The spa will include a retail beauty boutique, two manicure and two pedicure stations, six treatment rooms, and men's and women's lounges, as well as Bliss’s signature brownie bar.
