If you’d never heard it before, you might think Hungry Mother was an obscure Allman Brothers album—the name just sings 1970s Southern-rock badass-ness. Even better, Hungry Mother actually serves Southern food. And while chef/co-owner Barry Maiden gets huge points for naming the restaurant (after a state park near his birthplace), he gets truly serious cred for baring his Southern culinary soul in Yankee Doodle town—something he does with style and refinement.
Like Thomas Jefferson, whose portrait hangs in the cozy, simply decorated dining room, Maiden is a Virginian well versed in French cuisine. Despite the fact that he honed his craft in two of Boston’s most highly praised fine-dining French kitchens (L’Espalier and Lumière), though, Maiden’s food at Hungry Mother is very affordable, very honest, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Familiar and comforting Southern foodstuffs (boiled peanuts, fried catfish, hoppin’ john, shrimp and grits) are executed with precision, reverently composed and dressed up just enough. Other options range from the Lynyrd Skynyrd end of the spectrum (bourbon-braised Berkshire pork shoulder and creamy grits topped with one perfectly barbecued rib) to refined and presidential (a crispy cornmeal-coated fried green tomato served with a slender shot glass of tomato-chervil water and a chutney-topped Lilliputian toast). Dessert ditches the fancy-pants stuff and turns up the honky-tonk—the warm pecan sticky bun, dripping with sorghum ice cream, rips like a bluesy guitar solo that had me pumping my fist in the air for more.
But greatness does not solely emit from the kitchen at Hungry Mother. The bar bucks the current fad of serving up long-forgotten, esoteric, mediocre cocktails just because, and instead offers an intelligent list with simple, tasty drinks like the No. 10, a mix of bourbon, sweet tea, and limoncello.
Hungry Mother 233 Cardinal Medeiros Ave., Cambridge, MA (617-499-0090)
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