Award-winning chef Jody Adams ramps up for new challenge, mentors next generation

BOSTON - Award-winning chef Jody Adams is savoring the moment. Four years after COVID crippled the restaurant industry, she, and her partners in A Street Hospitality-Eric Papachristos and Jon Mendez--are getting ready to open a new restaurant at Raffles Boston in the Back Bay.

Although the two-story La Padrona space looks like a typical construction site right now, renderings promise a gorgeous, meticulously planned restaurant from the first-floor bar to the dining room upstairs. On a tour of the space, Eric describes the design elements and themes. The bar on the ground floor will evoke an Italian villa. Comfortable and welcoming, the space will include vintage furniture and warm white walls. After ascending a stunning "floating" staircase, guests will experience a second-floor dining room inspired by Italian cinema-plush, dark, and textural. There's great anticipation ahead of the mid-to-late April opening.

"This is the engine of the restaurant," Eric explains moving toward the kitchen. Jody Adams stands in that "engine," grateful for the luxury of focusing on the dishes that will be created here and the people who will make them. "I'm part of the whole thing but I don't have to worry whether the pipe is in the wrong place in the new building under construction. That's not what I'm paying attention to right now," Adams said. "I'm paying attention to whether the kitchen line is the way we want it to be and whether the breadsticks are turning out the way we want them to."