By Dan Murphy
Beacon Hill will bid farewell to a beloved, longstanding restaurant on Aug. 21, the last night of service for Grotto after 22 years in business at 37 Bowdoin St.
Owner Scott Herritt opened the cozy subterranean Italian restaurant on July 6, 2003 – several months shy of his 40th birthday.
Herritt had relocated from his home state of Oklahoma in 1992 to pursue cooking. He was already pretty well acquainted with Beacon Hill before opening Grotto, having previously lived in the neighborhood for around five years.
“I thought Beacon Hill would be a good location for a small, Italian restaurant,” Herritt told this reporter.
Prior to opening Grotto, Herritt, who said he has “always been cooking Italian style,” was working in the North End.
At this time, the vast majority of Italian restaurants in Boston were concentrated around the North End, said Herritt, adding that “North End-style Italian is an island unto itself.”
Instead of serving this same style of Italian cuisine, however, Herritt said, “A lot of the dishes I made were ‘Northern Italian,’ although I don’t know if that term is used anymore.”
Homemade pasta, including cavatelli; and a dish comprising short ribs, mushrooms, gorgonzola, and house-rolled short-rib gnocchi in a red wine sauce are among the enduring staples on Grotto’s menu.
“The core concept of the menu, I would say, is still pretty much intact,” said Herritt, “but some dishes I’ve added over time, like chicken parmesan, which you can’t find in Italy.”
Like any other new establishment, Grotto admittedly faced the immediate challenge of getting a foothold in Boston’s restaurant landscape upon opening.
“I paid my dues for the first year or so,” said Herritt.
Before the proliferation of social media, new restaurants were usually discovered via would-be diners reading a review in a local newspaper, or by hearing of new establishments through word of mouth, so Grotto’s ascent was a somewhat gradual process, Herritt recalled.
Grotto advertised in the now-defunct Improper Bostonian and sometimes even through advertising inserts in The Beacon Hill Times, a sister publication of the Sun.
“People always seem to find the restaurant, but we didn’t design it that way,” said Herritt of the space, which can accommodate a capacity of 40 patrons seated at tables.
With its exposed brick, the space had previously been home to an Indian restaurant and received little more than a quick makeover before reopening as Grotto. But this apparent lack of pretension also lent Grotto its cozy ambience – something not lost on Zagat, which named it one of Boston’s most romantic restaurants.
Moreover, Grotto had continuing success with its theme nights featuring a menu drawn from the 1996 film, ‘Big Night.’
Set on the Jersey Shore in the 1950s, ‘Big Night’ tells the story of two Italian immigrant brothers who stage a massive, elaborate feast at their struggling restaurant in a last-ditch effort to compete with a rival Italian restaurant located across the street.
Timpano, the dish the brothers serve, comprises a heaping pile of pasta, which combined together with meatballs, egg and salami, is swathed in a rich ragu, and then, it’s all enveloped in a delicate dough.
Grotto offered its Big Night feats about twice a year until the pandemic struck, said Herritt.
With Grotto’s lease up in September, Herritt wasn’t eager to commit to continue running the restaurant beyond then.
“Our lease was about to run out, and I didn’t want to commit to another two or three years,” he said.
Merritt is now pondering his next move, but he knows it won’t entail opening another restaurant.
“I need a little time just to think about what I’m going to do next,” he said.
Through Aug. 21, Grotto is still open nightly from 5 to 9 p.m. Visit grottorestaurant.com for more information.