When it opens September 1, Grana at The Langham, Boston will instantly become one of the East Coast’s most exciting new restaurants, thanks to executive chef Stephen Bukoff’s Italian menu and to the ornate setting inside the newly renovated building that houses it.
Located in the former Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Grana takes its name from the Italian term for grain, but also from its slang term meaning money. It’s appropriately luxurious, with high ceilings and an elegant design that includes original chandeliers, a restored terrazzo floor, and commissioned artwork to fit the financial theme.
Inside the dining room at Grana at The Langham, Boston, featuring art commissioned for the hotel. Photo: Richard Mandelkorn Photography
For the menu, Bukoff tells La Cucina Italiana that he channeled his Italian grandma while adding crowd-pleasing touches and nods to New England’s culinary heritage at Grana. (He also oversees the upscale bar menu at The Fed, the hotel’s bar and lounge.) In this condensed, edited interview, the chef, who previously worked at Four Seasons hotels throughout North America, tells La Cucina Italiana about the new restaurant’s inspirations, discusses the menu’s plant-based Italian options, and shares how he felt when first seeing the stunning space.
How did it feel getting Grana open?
The Langham gave us a really beautiful room to work with. It has this piazza-like feel, almost al fresco. Utilizing the room and the décor that The Langham provided, I was able to create a cool, fun, and interesting lunch, breakfast, and brunch menu. The concept of Grana to me and then to The Langham is for it to be approachable for family and friends.
You’ve worked in luxury hotel restaurant kitchens throughout your career, but never with an Italian focus, right?
Yeah, this is definitely the first Italian restaurant. In every restaurant that I've worked in, in hotels, there has been Italian-inspired food on the menu in some way. But this is the first full-fledged Italian venture for me.
What’s your family background?
My family's very Italian, although you wouldn’t know it from my last name. We come from a little town in Southern Italy. Growing up, I had a lot of inspiration from my grandmother, spending time in her house and cooking with her side by side as a kid. That played a big role in creating the style of dishes at Grana because I would associate her food as approachable, right? The food that you'd want to invite your friends and family over and sit around the table, break bread. So that was my inspiration. And then I brought on my sous chef, who also has a very strong Italian background, so we collaborate, put our minds together, and come up with Italian-inspired dishes.
What are some of the things that you learned from your grandmother that show up on the menu?
There are a few things scattered in there, dishes that she would make with me. On the brunch menu, we have spaghetti pancakes. At home, we would have spaghetti for dinner the night before and the next morning, she would make these little pancakes out of spaghetti. At Grana, I just, you know, spruced it up a bit to present as a restaurant dish. Then there’s the minestrone, a very simple soup; the breads, the crossinis and the focaccias; and then the veal Milanese. She wouldn't call it Milanese. She just called them cutlets. But it's the same concept of pounding it out, making it super tender, marinated, and breaded, served with a little salad on the side.
How about the rest of the menu? How did you decide to include risotto, gnocchi, and the pasta dishes you serve?
I've spent 15 years at hotels and the key is to have something for everybody so that you really don't have to say no, you know what I mean? So having options on the menu for everybody, just kind of picking apart different areas of things that I like to eat and things that I like to prepare and things that other people like to eat—so just building menus like that.
What about the many local touches, like a New England lobster raviolo and pork and vegetables sourced locally, with the farms mentioned on the menu. Why is that important to you?
I've never really had the ability to source ingredients using local farmers and honestly, it's really important. I come from an agricultural family. My father is part of the Massachusetts Agricultural Board and my wife's side of the family also has farms in California. It was important for me to reach out to these local farmers and local growers to utilize their products. As for the lobster raviolo, I mean, it’s New England, right? You have lobster everywhere! I'm working with a good fish purveyor. We’re literally working with farms and asking them to grow greens for our mixed green salads year-round. We're going to be growing our own microgreens in-house using our urban cultivator. I like trying to utilize as much as I can locally and within the property.
There are a surprising number of plant-based options using Impossible products and vegetables on the menu. Why?
When all these plant-based meat products started coming out, I tried them and I was like, This is kind of weird; I don't know if this is what I want to be serving on my menu. A few years ago, I met the team from Impossible in Denver and they gave me some product to play with. I gave it to my team and I told them to make two burgers—a real one and an Impossible one. I blind tasted it and I honestly couldn't even tell the difference. I was like, Wow, if I can't tell the difference between the burgers, what else can I do with this? So my mind just started racing. Like a typical chef, you come up with all these different ideas of what you can do.
At Grana, you’ll have an Impossible-stuffed eggplant with pesto?
Yes. [Featuring dishes like these is] not something that I would have thought I would do 5-10 years ago. But having the product available gives a wide range of options for guests who eat vegetarian or vegan to come in and choose rather than going into a restaurant and getting a plate of vegetables, which was the norm. It gives everybody a feeling of welcome.
The dining room at Grana looks stunning. What was your impression when you first walked in and saw it?
Yeah, “Wow” was the feeling, even when it was under construction. The structure of the room and the columns, the stonework, it’s all amazing. Then they added the chandeliers, which are original, and it's just beautiful. It has an upscale elegance but is also very welcoming.
How do you think your grandma would react if she could walk in and have dinner at Grana?
She'd cry for sure. I mean, she knew that this is my passion. And if she were here, yeah, she would be thrilled overall.