Great Bay, Icarus, Aujourd'hui Close Their Doors

Many observers of the food industry have accepted this explanation quietly, understanding that while there's truth to it, it's also a face-saving measure. Yes, the economy is hitting the industry hard, but it is not hitting all restaurants in the same way—nor are they all fighting back in uniform fashion. And while economies will always fluctuate, no one can deny that the food landscape in Boston (and in America as a whole) has changed dramatically in recent years, influenced by everything from the Obama's new herb garden to the ubiquitous popularity of shows like Iron Chef. What ties these three restaurants together is the fact that, despite their apparently formidable strength and size, they were unable to adapt to the rapidly-changing conditions around them in time.

In the press release that went out about Icarus' closing (subject line: "SUN TOO HOT ! WAX WINGS MELTED"), chef Chris Douglass was quoted as saying, “Eating out now is more about the basics. Sure, diners will always want good food, but with the proliferation of food magazines and TV shows, people no longer look to chefs to teach them about it. They just want a place to hang out.”

For better or worse, these restaurants were not "places to hang out." These were restaurants designed for special occasions and expense accounts, for people with enough money to buy food that served a symbolic purpose. At Great Bay, it was about impressing people with the look and pedigree of the food—not necessarily the taste. At Aujourd'hui, it was about celebrating, about consumption on a Gatsby-esque scale—a scale that now seems too large for our times. At Icarus, it was about presenting the classics (made-to-order chocolate souffles, good wine) to a neighborhood previously bereft of such things—and partly because of Icarus' trail-blazing presence, the South End is bereft no longer.

Today's food scene is one in which expense accounts are a thing of the past, in which celebratory dinners are as much about celebrating good food and good company as they are about good news (another rarity in these times), and one in which, as Douglass notes, the chef no longer plays the role of cultural missionary. Kenmore Square no longer needs an upscale meeting place; it has plenty to go around (while Boston food blog Food Monkey quotes the restaurant's rep, Tonie Snyder, as saying the location was part of Great Bay's problem, Eastern Standard, its next door neighbor, has been packed to capacity almost every night this week). The South End that Icarus Built has been supplanted by other intriguing neighborhoods—Kendall Square, Fort Point, Union Square—and Boston's educated diners are flocking to them.

That's not to say that these restaurants didn't try to adapt. Great Bay debuted a Sand Dollar Menu program at the bar, allowing cash-strapped hedonists to order $1 tater tots and Velveeta-and-brioche sandwiches to go along with their pricey cocktails. The restaurant lost money on the deal, and it debuted too late in the game to forestall closure. (In fact many industry insiders, along with Snyder, believe that it never had much of a chance. Great Bay debuted amidst construction; it never received the full attention of chef Michael Schlow, who went on to open Alta Strada in Wellesley soon after; it focused on seafood at a time when mercury poisoning and overfishing were becoming major concerns for the coastal food scene, all factors which may have set it up for failure.) But this last-ditch effort showed that middle-income diners were willing to take a chance on a place like Great Bay if it was willing to take a chance on them. Here's hoping sister restaurants Radius and Via Matta take a page from their ill-starred sibling's playbook. New England's nouveau gourmets hold the future of the food industry in their unmanicured hands.

Aujourd'hui responded with passion to the growing locavore movement in Boston. Its chef de cuisine, William Kovel, is an engaged member of Chef's Collaborative, an organization that aims to train and position chefs as advocates for sustainable, local cuisine. While other uber-upscale joints continue to sell Japanese beef and veal by the pound, as if sizzling steaks and imported luxuries were still the only thing discerning diners deigned to eat, Kovel's restaurant currently offers a vegetarian tasting menu, a rotating array of "New England specialties," and a weekly bubbly tasting with free food on Fridays.

The problems at this restaurant did not seem to lie with a lack of imagination or conscience in the kitchen. Part of the problem, in fact, might have been the strong luxury brand of the Four Seasons itself. The kinds of diners who might have appreciated Kovel's earthy approach—wealthy Cantabridgians, young, upwardly mobile idealists, food industry folks—were the ones least likely to walk through the Four Seasons lobby to encounter it. When Kovel and crew land, we hope it's in less ostentatious surroundings.

Chris Douglass, the chef behind Icarus, seems happiest in the role of frontiersman, clearing brush and setting up homesteads in ungentrified areas of the city. Icarus, with its dark wood paneling and static menu, never felt hip in that post-millenial, minimalist way that now dominates South End restaurant design (see: Banq, Stella). But Ashmont Grill and Tavolo blend seamlessly into the new Dorcester, where Douglass is currently a resident. Ashmont Grill has a fenced-in patio and a glittering bar, but it also has homemade carrot cake and mac 'n' cheese on the menu. Tavolo's food may taste like a direct homage to Alice Waters, but it's served under the watchful eyes of cartoons scrawled in chalk on the colorful walls, in the glow of bright globular lamps and Southie-accented conversation. Both places appear to be actively, almost aggressively welcoming and unpretentious—as is Douglass himself. We predict he'll enjoy focusing on these new properties, even as Icarus falls into the sea.

The death of the dinosaurs made way for the rise of the mammals, and these closings do not spell doom for Boston's restaurant scene, or even its upscale subset. They simply signal a changing of the guard, and these continued closings will be sure to free up resources and space for future innovation.

In the meantime, there are plenty of places that will likely survive this recession despite all that they have in common with these doomed three. Examples include Rialto (which, like Aujourd'hui, sits inside an unavoidably upscale hotel, this one in Harvard Square), Hungry Mother (which, like Icarus, sits on the front lines of a neighborhood revolution, this one in Kendall Square), and Toro (which, like Great Bay, is a celeb chef side project, this one for Ken Oringer versus Michael Schlow).

These restaurants share a certain approachability. And a strong drink program. These are places where one can go and sit at the bar and not order a multi-course meal or even to wear a tie. Where one can have an informed give-and-take with a talented mixologist to create something new and exciting. Most importantly, these are places where one can comfortably get completely wasted on Heering, rye, and absinthe, where a generation before one might have gotten drunk in a dive on Jack Daniels. We are still in a recession, and that is what newly-educated diners want to do these days, even if it means eating cereal at home beforehand in order to afford the habit. Any restaurant that doesn't understand that may go the way of the dinosaurs. But shit happens. And life will go on.

This month, savvy diners should hoof it to Aujourd'hui and Icarus while they can. The former offers the aforementioned Bubbly Bar series on Fridays from 5-7pm, presumably through the end of the month, and Icarus will be serving a selection of "signature dishes" from the last 31 years as a $31 prix fixe meal until they close on July 1. There will also be "an assortment of events and commemorations - like a kitchen alum night and a jazz night", with details to come at www.icarusrestaurant.com. So if you've ever had a well-made cocktail in the clean, sparkling South End, now's the time to tip your hat to the OG resto where this revolution began.