The first time I visited Nine, the Beacon Hill restaurant that was formerly, famously No. 9 Park, it was late August 2025, a week and a half after the restaurant opened. I would return four more times over the next nine months, the amount of time it takes to gestate a full human, and possibly a restaurant. During that period, I unwittingly became an actor in this review. I won’t say unwillingly, because that wouldn’t be entirely true. Sometimes life happens and one goes along for the ride.
But first, some backstory.
When No. 9 Park opened in 1998, it was part of a fertile and growing landscape of independent, chef-run restaurants in Boston. Chef Barbara Lynch made the property at 9 Park Street Place the fine dining restaurant in this city, and it stayed open for nearly 30 years, until Lynch closed the last of her properties in 2024.
Last year, restaurateur Allan Rodriguez took over the space, reopening it as Nine. The restaurant faced some tricky questions, as embodied by its name: How to acknowledge the legacy while forging its own identity? How to navigate the ways Boston dining has changed since 1998? Big restaurant groups now dominate the scene, opening new spots with a splash, camera-ready decor, and viral buzz stoked by influencers.
Nine’s answer to all this, at first, seemed to be “business as usual, but better.” Much of No. 9 Park’s staff stayed on. The menu still focused on French-inspired fine dining, with tasting menus and a la carte dishes straight out of the old playbook. The restaurant got a needed, if subtle, makeover, brighter and more modern. Rodriguez had previously focused on restaurants — El Centro, La Neta, Sabina Mezcaleria — showcasing the cuisine of his native Mexico. Nine was his moon shot: Beacon Hill fine dining. It was a cool move, and a risky one.
On my first visit to Nine, I sat at the bar, my preferred spot when this was No. 9 Park. I ate tuna crudo, and pappardelle with carrot-top pesto and ricotta salata. The food was lackluster; the place was nearly empty. I’d had fresher tuna crudo in my life. I ordered a side of cacio e pepe butter beans that were wildly undercooked. But the bartender was so funny that I suspected she had a background in comedy (correct). And bar and wine manager AJ Maroney recommended a lovely white Burgundy. He also mentioned he had relocated from New Orleans, where I was heading soon, for the first time in years. “What’s good these days?” I asked.
“Hang on,” he said. He returned a few minutes later with two Nine postcards. On the first was a wonderfully detailed list of suggestions for where and what to eat and drink in New Orleans. On the second was a message, pithy and amusing. He handed it to me and said, “If, and only if, you find yourself near Jackson Square, would you consider delivering this to my friend at Fives? He’s a bartender there.”
Of course I would.
I showed up at Fives at closing time. The staff looked like they had had a night. I delivered the postcard. Total mood shift. They were suddenly ebullient, so happy to hear from Maroney. They offered me wine, but I had to go. They insisted we take a selfie.
OK, replied the theoretically anonymous restaurant critic from Boston. OK to this terrible idea, at odds with my photo-free professional existence. But how could I interfere with this fun? I was in New Orleans. Besides, Maroney wouldn’t remember me, right?
A few months later, I returned to Nine to prepare for a review. I sat in the dining room. The dishes were lackluster, again. Flavors leaned too sweet, pasta was undercooked, I couldn’t taste the celeriac that was supposedly in one of the dishes. Good lord, first world problems. “Wine great! Smart pairings,” read my notes. Then, later in the meal: “Too much wine.” Can generosity be a failing? Yes, when your customers had to be cajoled into the wine pairing with a promise to keep it school night-friendly. The heart might want what it wants, but the metabolism is what it is.
Still, the attentive, interactive service was the most memorable thing about the night, even if by the end of the wine pairing we were covering our glasses and begging the gentleman doing the pouring to stop.
Just as I sat down to write my review, Nine announced it had a new chef. Kevin Girshman had previously worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago. For a restaurant slightly off the trodden path in Beacon Hill, at a time when fewer people were going to the office and hype-beast restaurants were opening all over town, some new energy didn’t seem like the worst idea.
I went back in March. Still the meal didn’t land. Luxurious, eggy spaghetti carbonara with confit pork belly, rosy duck breast with parsnip-apple puree — well and good. But the steak was dry, and a pricey lobster tail arrived undercooked and overwhelmed by heavy, spicy sauces and accompaniments. If the food didn’t make the right impression, Girshman did, visiting each table in the dining room. He was incredibly nice and sincere.
A few weeks later, I ate a burger at the bar, where I ran into Maroney. “Were you here a few months ago, headed to New Orleans?” he asked as soon as he saw me. So much for not remembering. I tried out the bar’s extensive gin selection, choosing from a list of more than 50 and adding one of the nearly dozen tonics; this program should make the bar a summer destination. Girshman made the rounds again, still incredibly nice and sincere. The burger was wagyu, served on a black sesame bun, with sake caramelized onions, ponzu aioli, endive, and American cheese. It was incredibly rich, but it was well executed, and it made a statement. For dessert, strawberry-rhubarb vacherin was pure eye candy.
I felt I was seeing a chef’s vision come into focus. Girshman had thoroughly, ambitiously rewritten the menu, with each dish reflecting a destination from around the world: a scallop appetizer with Meyer lemon orzo and olive powder (Thessaloniki); chicken roulade with Cajun stuffing, sweet potato and coffee gnocchi, and braised okra (New Orleans). It now told a more personal story.
At the end of March, I received a message from Nine, asking me to come try the new chef’s food. It sounded as though the team was proud of its hard work, wanting the restaurant to succeed, and indeed running headlong into the expected challenges. I went for one more meal.
It was the meal I’d been hoping to have since I first visited Nine nine months earlier.
Dinner began with an amuse-bouche of salmon sashimi with diced cucumber, in a swoony mauve sauce of coconut milk and acai. There were slices of house-made Japanese milk bread swirled with seaweed. Medregal — the Mexican name for hiramasa, our server explained — was served in a passion fruit-kissed ceviche (a nod to Tulum), interspersed with slices of radish, avocado mousse, and crisp bites of black tostada and dehydrated mango. It was spicy, fresh, and flavorful.
Kombu dumplings (Tokyo) were heavier and less pretty, the thick dumpling skins more Eastern European than Asian. But the flavors were fully realized: a filling of confit pork belly and apple, dark miso and carrot puree, and nori “caviar,” the spheres providing a Jello-esque chew. The richness was balanced by the acid in the sauce; there was lemongrass in the mix, and smokiness, and citrus.
Then came two gorgeous, very different entrees. There was a half-rack of lamb (Istanbul) served over ajvar, a sauce made from roasted peppers and eggplant, with potatoes and confit eggplant. As much as we enjoyed the flavors, the lamb could have been served plain, it was so tender, so delicious, so exactly what one wants from rack of lamb.
Tiger prawns (Manila) arrived, two of them, nearly as big as lobsters, fried tempura-style and dotted with black garlic gel. Their sauce was loosely inspired by the Filipino soup sinigang, with tamarind and lemongrass, long beans, Chinese broccoli, and lotus root alongside. The prawns were sweet and succulent. We ate every last morsel.
For dessert, there was green tea souffle, warming and gently flavored. And the wine pours (served with an array of dad jokes and riddles) were a little more moderate: a splash of Champagne, a half-glass of Gruner Veltliner and another of red Burgundy, a taste of Sauternes. Oh, and try these other two dessert wines, while you’re here. Generosity is a hard impulse to rein in, and who could fault it, in the end?
Nine is still arriving. But the time to go is now. Because there is a new chef trying new things. (He just introduced a new tasting menu.) Because the restaurant is fighting the good fight for smaller, chef-driven businesses in a city increasingly dominated by larger groups. Because the people who work there make the experience worthwhile.
I don’t like to center myself in a review. But I do so here for a reason. Over the course of many months, and more than the usual number of meals, I got to know the staff at Nine, a little. They became part of my life, a little. And this is the real experience of frequenting restaurants: to know and be known. This is how we are supposed to utilize these spaces. Not as one-and-done hit-and-runs. As places we return to, and with which we form relationships.
NINE ★★★
9 Park Street Place, Beacon Hill, Boston, 617-936-3440, www.ninerg.com.
Wheelchair accessible.
Prices Appetizers $20-$33. Entrees $29-$95. Desserts $12-$25. Nine-course chef’s tasting menu $160.
Hours Tue-Sat 5-9 p.m.
Noise level Conversation easy.
★★★★★ Extraordinary | ★★★★ Excellent | ★★★ Very good | ★★ Good | ★ Fair | (No stars) Poor
Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram @devra_first.