SpiceLines

I snagged the last seat for a class at Stir on my way back from Maine last month. There, to my surprise, was Barbara Lynch herself, pale and serenely composed, skinning a pristine 7-pound side of halibut. “Always start at the tail end,” the chef advised, deftly peeling away the silvery layer in one piece.

I squeezed onto a stool next to a lawyer who never stopped shooting photos with his iPhone and thanked the stars for my good fortune.

Stir is the miniscule demo kitchen and cookbook library for Barbara Lynch Gruppo, a burgeoning Boston culinary empire that includes four establishments on a single block of Waltham Street—besides Stir, there’s B & G Oysters, The Butcher Shop and Plum Produce. As well, there’s the elegant No 9 Park in Beacon Hill, and in Fort Point, Lynch’s latest offspring: Sportello, a sleek “interpretation” of a lunch counter, and Drink, a downstairs bar “dedicated to the craft of the cocktail.”

In the April 2009 Saveur (“12 Restaurants That Matter,”) Corby Kummer described Barbara Lynch as “Boston’s cross between Martha Stewart and Robert Moses…a cook with superb taste, both gustatory and visual…an urban visionary who’s always looking around the next corner….” A local girl, she honed her cooking skills with Todd English, moved for a time to Italy, then returned to Boston’s Galleria Italiana where she was chosen one of Food & Wine’s 10 Best New Chefs. Her first restaurant—No. 9 Park—was named one of the Top 25 New Restaurants by Bon Appetit in 1998. The applause has swelled with each new venture.

Part of Lynch’s talent is imagining what you want, even if you haven’t quite articulated it. Her restaurants serve deliciously fresh, locally sourced food that is often homey and upscale at the same time—say a bowl of corn risotto with chanterelles and pancetta (Sportello), or moules frites with vermouth and saffron crème fraiche (B & G Oysters). But she also offers savvy extras that make you want to hurry back. That could mean the refrigerated meat case at The Butcher Shop, where you can buy a couple of prime veal chops to cook at home, or the intentional lack of a menu at Drink where mixologists will invent a cocktail to suit your mood of the moment.

Oddly enough—or maybe by design—all these venues are small and intimate, which means there’s a happy buzz when they’re full.

Lynch usually doesn’t teach the classes at Stir, but tonight the featured cookbook is one of her favorites: A16 Food + Wine by Nate Appleman and Shelley Lindgren. She and executive sous chef Molly Lovedale are making three recipes from the 2009 IACP award-winner: Neapolitan-style Pizza Romana, Braised Halibut with Pistachios, Preserved Meyer Lemon and Capers, and Chocolate Budino Tartlets with Sea Salt and Olive Oil.

[Note: Appleman has decamped for New York where he’ll be chef and partner at Keith McNally’s new establishment, Pulino’s Bar and Pizzeria, opening late in 2009.]

“I love Nate’s food,” says Lynch as she cuts the halibut precisely in half and then into individual pieces, each two inches thick. “It’s rustic, simple, very seasonal. His pizza dough is so beautiful—it’s soft and silky and it responds so well to kneading. “

Actually each of these deceptively simple recipes has an unusual twist—fish that is salted for one to four hours before cooking, pizza dough that ferments for 24 to 48 hours in the refrigerator, tartlets filled with a dark chocolate custard first baked in a water bath—and it helps to watch experienced chefs go through the paces, especially from a vantage point of about 24 inches.

Lynch is not exactly chatty. She’s quiet, perhaps even a little shy as eleven of us pepper her with questions and flash our cameras, though she’s generous with advice—notably to an 11-year old gourmand who’s considering a career in food.

Lynch sprinkles the halibut with kosher salt about an hour before cooking. As Appleman writes in his cookbook, "salting early is the easiest way to improve the flavor of your food without meddling too much with its integrity."

But a Zen-like shift occurs when she begins to cook. She pauses silently, then moves effortlessly into each task—salting the halibut, toasting pistachios—but with such focused intensity and respect for the ingredients that the connection between chef and food is almost palpable. I find myself watching her hands. They’re strong, almost chiseled, and she uses them constantly in ways that show they’re as important a tool as her chef’s knife.

There are lots of little trucs that you pick up when you’re sitting at the elbow of an inspired chef.

Secrets of a superb Pizza Romana: A blistering hot oven, salt-packed anchovies, tangy black olives and a "sturdy, flavorful crust."

Want to make that blackened, thin-crusted pizza at home? “Your oven needs to be super hot,” says Lynch. “500 degrees would be great. I have this oven cranked up to 575 and it takes just 5 minutes to cook. You could also use a pizza stone in the fireplace, but you have to get the fire ripping hot.”

I’m frankly a little confused about the dough that sits around for 48 hours, but Lynch emphasizes how forgiving it is. “The long fermentation deepens the flavor, so you need only ¼ teaspoon of yeast for 4 cups of flour—don’t bother with 00 flour, all-purpose is fine—because it sits for such a long time. But if you want to use it the same day, go right ahead.” What if the dough doesn’t rise? She grins: “It’s not the end of the world. You roll it out, toss it on the grill and make fabulous flatbread.”

Lynch is making four kinds of pizza--Marinara, Margherita, Romana and Bianca-- from the same batch of dough. Watching her contemplate the naked pizza base is like watching a painter view an empty canvas. As she ladles a little San Marzano tomato sauce (“less is definitely more”) over the dough, positions a basil leaf here, a sliver of garlic there, you see her restrained aesthetic in action—the same aesthetic, incidentally, that infuses the look of her restaurants.

The braising liquid, reduced by half and enriched with olive oil, is ladled over the halibut just before serving--a small step that dramatically heightens its flavor.

Disaster. The oven dies before the halibut can be braised, but Lynch and Lovedale don’t miss a beat. A quick call and a chef from B & G Oyster comes over to pick up the fish. “It helps when you own the whole block,” quips one of the other students.

The halibut, when it returns, is unbelievably succulent beneath its topping of toasted pistachios, preserved lemon and parsley. It is delicious, not only because the ingredients are beautifully fresh and it is perfectly cooked (“Eight minutes in this oven, ten minutes at home.”) but—and this is key—because just before serving, she ladles the lemony braising liquid over the fish. Beforehand, she has reduced the broth by at least half and whisked in a little olive oil to enrich it—vital instructions not included in the cookbook.

Olive oil again, this time drizzled around A16's dark chocolate custard tarts. A sprinkle of unrefined gray sea salt intensifies the flavor of the chocolate.

We finish with A16’s Chocolate Budino Tartlets, possibly the richest dessert I’ve had in the last decade. “This is really dangerous,” jokes Loveday, dipping her finger into the dark, creamy custard. With the tartlets we’re drinking an exceptional wine: a 2007 Cascina Garitina Brachetto d’Acqui “Niades.” It’s a bubbly, fruity red from the Piedmont that’s amazing with chocolate and I lust for a bottle of my own. “Sorry,” says Lynch. “That’s one of a few special wines we get because we buy so much for the restaurants.”

As I leave Stir—Lynch gives me easy walking directions back to the Harvard Club—I momentarily consider moving to Boston. Maybe for three months? A closet somewhere near Waltham Street?

I wouldn’t even need a kitchen. I know just where to eat and drink.

Stir, 102 Waltham Street, Boston, MA 02118. Phone: 617-423-STIR. Web: stirboston.com

Here’s the complete A16 Food + Wine menu with wines from the class I attended:

Pizza Romana (Page 120)
2006 Monastero Suore Cistercensi “Coenobium”

Braised Halibut with Pistachios, Preserved Meyer Lemon, Capers (Page 175)
2008 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Rosato

Chocolate Budino Tartlets with Sea Salt, Olive Oil (Page 249)
2007 Cascina Garitina Brachetto d’Acqui "Niades”