Post 390 Opens with Fireplaces and Flatbread in Back Bay

When word first got out that this place was opening with “reasonably priced comfort food,” Bostonist immediately thought: “But I can already get that at Delux, just down the street.” And it’s interesting to compare the two. Where Post 390 has a chef with a luxury brand pedigree to rival that of Yangtze River Number Two, Delux was opened with the help of uber-sincere Didi Emmons, who wrote Veggie Planet’s scrappy cookbook and now runs a kitchen in Roxbury, where she teaches local kids. Where Post 390 has a chic design that’s largely devoid of a sense of place or personality—it could be in Aspen, in New York City, in Seattle—Delux has local Tremont Ale on tap and Elvis records on the walls. Where Post 390 has leather banquettes and freshly-printed menus, Delux has grease-encrusted, handwritten specials and chairs that seem ready to topple. Post 390 is decidedly unhipster; Delux’s indie cred is unquestioned.

But Post 390 has two things Delux doesn’t have: space and time. More specifically, it has a far greater capacity, making it possible to grab a table in front of the blazing fireplace in what one hopes will be minutes, rather than hours—no small thing as Boston’s winter months approach. And it has far more staff members—there seemed to be dozens of hands on deck for its opening party on Friday—which equals far more time per customer to actually discuss the niceties of the menu. On opening night, chef Brennan himself took the time to chat with Bostonist about his background (which also includes stints at Aujourd’hui and Harvest, as well as various luxury hotels and Boston's Excelsior) and about how excited he is to be once again running a large restaurant that will allow him to feed hundreds of people per night at semi-reasonable prices. It was clear that this background has prepared him perfectly for the task at hand: serving dozens of discerning media types and VIPs on the first official night of its opening, Brennan hadn’t yet cracked a sweat, even as he pulled piping-hot pizzas from the oven of his sparkling open kitchen. This ease most certainly trickled down to his staff, who were equally attentive and confident: at least three bartenders downstairs asked to fill my glass within five minutes, and they knew the wine list inside and out. One recommended a stellar "un-oaky" French Chardonnay (Joseph Faiveley 2006) to pair with the perfectly-crisp crab rolls and flatbread pizzas circulating the room. And it all tasted—well, very comforting. Fantastic, in fact.

And so the bottom line is that there’s a time and a place for both kinds of restaurants: the corporate and the independent, the big and the small. While much ad budget money seems to have gone into envisioning the “Post 390 customer,” the truth is, the average Bostonian will likely be a customer of both kinds of restaurants in the months to come. And while Post 390 may never be the kind of place where everyone knows your name, it will likely come to be known as the kind of place where you can always find a seat at the bar and curl up next to the fire.