The Boston Globe

West Roxbury spot puts panache into play

By Amy Graves and Wesley Morris, July 09, 2004

The gentleman at the table to our right isn't letting his reliance on a nasal respirator keep him from enjoying pan-seared haddock. Amid the foursomes of middle-age couples to our left is a man who could pass for Mayor Thomas Menino. A 10-year-old redhead at dinner with her family seems unimpressed with her burger, but the grown-ups are having a good time.

Throughout West on Centre, the sparkling new restaurant and bar that replaces Buck Mulligan's on Centre Street in West Roxbury, there's a din, a liveliness that we don't necessarily associate with this part of town.

Open a scant three weeks, this out-of-the-way place has been found, from the looks of it, by the neighorhood types for whom this isn't exactly out of the way. Of course, to the Saucier from East Cambridge, this is the other side of the moon, but then that end of the Sauce equation doesn't even know the Red Sox are playing tonight at Fenway.

The game is the main event on the pair of plasma-screen TVs in the gleaming bar, a horseshoe-shaped affair cast in the amber glow of arty-looking pendant lights.

The transformation of the dark, 40-seat pub into a multiroom, 80-seat restaurant on this busy corner was a happening: Drivers on Centre Street would slow down to check on the progress, and now the gawking has moved indoors. The owners, Joe Green and Michael Conlan, also have a stake in Peking Tom's Longtang Lounge, the ironic Cantonese boite downtown. The same restaurant group also owns the Paramount, the Blarney Stone, and the 21st Amendment. West on Centre, with its olive-green walls, exposed brick, and phalanx of waitresses dressed in matching brown three-quarter-sleeve shirts, jeans, and Saucony sneakers, has a certain panache but lacks the cheekiness we love at Peking Tom's. The open kitchen faces a high chef's table lined with bar-level seats, which are full when we arrive. We arrive sans reservation, which is probably not something we'll try again with five hungry people on a Friday night. Yet somehow, magically, there's a table for five waiting.

Wherever we dine lately, we are more taken with the appetizers than anything that follows, and West isn't an exception. But then it would be hard to outdo a deep dish of baked macaroni and cheese with hunks of ham, carrots, and peas under a layer of toasted garlic breadcrumbs. A plate of roasted beets comes with a sauce of whipped garlic that makes a great counterpunch to the sweet beets. A somewhat bland chopped salad is forgiven because the iceberg seems so crisp and the green goddess dressing so fresh.

Not that we have any problem with the roast chicken, which boasts a perfectly moist interior and a robust pan sauce, or the light, nutty-tasting roasted swordfish. Served with a ragout of pea tendrils and mushrooms, and with crisp carrots standing in for parsnips, this is a plate we find hard to share with the friend who ordered a generous hunk of veal that overwhelmed her.

What really disappoints us is the unevenness of the pub menu. Bland, unsalted fish and chips in a tempura-like batter comes with soggy fries, which also accompany a bacon cheeseburger. The redheaded girl was right about the burger; ours is cooked past medium-rare, and all the cheddar, bacon, and caramelized onions in the world can't mask a mealy texture. Luckily, the dining-room menu never exceeds $20 and is also available at the bar.

"We just want to be a local neighborhood restaurant," Green says later. "We want to be the casual place where you can have a burger and watch the game."

If they can fix the burger, that sounds like a plan.