‘I’m kind of a monster, and it’s been pointed out to me that I don’t feel pain.’
The Boston restaurant scene continues to change, but Dorchester’s Jody Adams, 65, is a constant. She comes from a different generation of Boston chefs: Todd English. Gordon Hamersley. Lydia Shire. Adams, who’s from Providence, arrived in Boston in the 1980s, working at restaurants such as Michela’s and Hamersley’s before opening Rialto in the Charles Hotel in 1994; it closed in 2016.
Harvard Square is also a changed place (more on that later), and her focus has changed, too. Now Adams runs Porto in the Back Bay; Trade in the Financial District; and a growing web of counter-service Greek restaurants, Saloniki, with locations in Harvard Square, Central Square, and the Fenway. Two new branches will open this month, one on Newbury Street and another on Beacon Hill.
“We’re incredibly proud of our spatchcock chicken,” says Adams, who loves Mediterranean food, because “it feels like home.”
