A big-name chef returns to Boston this fall—at least, on a periodic basis—when James Beard Award-winner Tony Messina joins Cunard Tavern in Eastie as consulting chef and partner.
Messina will continue to be based in Los Angeles, where he moved with his now-wife, Amy Schwartz Messina, a television writer, in 2021. He plans to open his own concepts there, according to today’s announcement, and is consulting on other west coast projects in the meantime.
"For me, having a restaurant is like having a second home: a place to throw a dinner party every night for a community that becomes your family. East Boston is where I grew up, and will always be home," Messina says. "After living in LA for three years and now raising our daughter there, I also want her to have a place to call home whenever we do come back and visit Boston to help strengthen those roots so she’ll always be connected to a place that means so much to me."
Since 2012, Messina had been at Ken Oringer’s acclaimed Uni, becoming executive chef and a partner there in 2016. Messina was named Best Chef: Northeast by the James Beard Foundation in 2019. Born and raised in East Boston, Messina is a veteran of local kitchens, starting at age 14 with a catering company. He graduated top of his class from Cambridge Culinary School in 2009 and joined chef Michael Schlow as sous chef at Alta Strada. He helped to open the bygone tasting-menu innovator Menton, then followed a passion for sushi to join chef Chris Chung at AKA Bistro in Lincoln. (Chung now owns Cambridge’s Momi Nonmi.)
Messina brought his French and Japanese training to Uni when it was still just a 23-seat, industry-favorite sushi bar, and oversaw its expansion in 2016.
Cunard Tavern debuted in 2017 from restaurateur Philip Frattaroli, who is also behind the North End’s Ducali Pizzeria and Caffé, Ristorante Lucia and the Pine Bar at Boston Public Market. Situated in Jeffries Point on the site of a former cabinet-making business started by Frattaroli’s grandfather, Cunard Tavern celebrates East Boston’s history as a port of entry for many immigrants (second only to Ellis Island!) with a globally inspired menu. Think: birria nachos, a tuna tartare appetizer, steak frites, hearty seasonal salads, a lobster roll and more. It also has a roof deck.
The award-winning chef Messina is developing a new gastropub menu for Cunard Tavern, as well as weekend brunch. The new menus will launch in December. Frattaroli is a friend—and longtime fan—of the chef, he says. "I’m excited to work with him to bring Cunard Tavern to the next level.”
