2 Winter Place (Downtown Crossing)
Those of you who follow our imbibement-motivated wanderings through our delicious city and its surrounds may have wondered what happened to the December BCC meeting. Well, we were simply waiting to finally get a reservation at our most recent destination.
Yes, it takes a month. Well, for normal folk. And you kind of get why when you get there. Down a dark alley near Downtown Crossing, there glows a beacon: A dayglo sign with sexy script emerges from the wall high above, illuminating the crowd of expensive coats and unbelievably smooth hair below. They’ve made the play for that feel of exclusivity fairly well, opting for a doored lobby over a velvet rope. But the hosts number many and you can only hope that on your very best days in your hottest of hot pants you are maybe-sort-of-almost as attractive as they are.
The interior of Yvonne’s is a mashup of snobbish blue-blood wood paneling, dazzling candelabra, tawdry wall art, and visually appealing staff in snug white shirts and suspenders. You immediately feel like being naughty. And the cocktails encourage the instinct—the 1989 (yes, shoutout to TS) provided champagne infused with vodka, which sounds like a terrible idea if you think long enough about it. But Yvonne’s is a place where they try to make sure you DON’T think. At least not for too long, or for too hard.
The music is loud and clubby. Paired with the cocktails, you immediately get that buzzy happy feeling and really don’t mind that you can’t hear anything. The host who seated us had to ask thrice. But he was delightfully patient. Our waitress gave us a smiley 10-minute chat of which we only heard “takes 45 minutes” and then spent the time we might have been perusing our menus trying to decipher what that could have meant. The bar was backed up? The apps would be slow? The burlesque show that was most certainly going to begin on the big table next to us any moment now?
We ordered Yvonne’s “sharing plates” (aka Tapas/small plates) and honest-to-goodness they were freaking fantastic. The buttermilk hush puppies and crispy tater cubes vied for our attention, each delighting in their own way. The Kentucky prosciutto toast was generous with the carnivore in mind with a hidden spread of beer cheese and pickled onion that altogether made us go “OH!” We opted for a stone-fired pita upon recommendation of the waitress (or so we think), and the KFC (Korean fried chicken, kimchee, gruyere) was a fantastic combo with perfect balance—a feat not often accomplished on anything that resembles “personal pan land.” And oh god, the seared brussel sprouts! Our table believes that brussel sprouts get a bad rap, but in their Yvonne’s outfit, they had to be cute enough for the hatiest of haters. Pepper sauce, garlic walnuts, and feta were like pasties and panties that made the dish just delish. The only share we might not reshare were the chicken and quinoa meatballs. They drove us to our water glasses with their salty innards (a theme in this column, it would seem).
Our meal was well matched in our beverage selections, with a fabulous Gruner Veltliner and Bantam Rojo cider winning the raves. So why, you may ask in the midst of all this ra-ra-ra, doesn’t Yvonne’s get 5 Cocks, our much-sought-after prize that has not yet been awarded in all of our booze-soaked foodie adventures?
You’d think in a place so sexy and decadent the desserts would seal the deal, but ours were a bust. We ordered one of each of their Tasty Treats (full disclosure, the small fare, not the main desserts) and found them all very pretty but when it came down to getting down…disappointing—lingerie full of ice cream. And they don’t have decaf.
It wasn’t just the shallow sweeties, really…the “scene” is intoxicating, indeed, but the tables are too close (even when the Secretary of State is sitting in one nearby), and it is like eating in the middle of a dance floor. You’re surrounded by beautiful people, and one might even kiss you or grab you on the bottom, and that feels great in the moment, but in the morning, you’ll likely wake up and realize you never DID catch his name. Do you go back to that dance floor and look for that happy place again? Sure you do. It will always be effing fun…but not quite the perfect night.
The Boston Cocktail Club 