Lunch time in the Innovation District brings the unusual sight of diners at MC Spiedo picking rustic Italian dishes from rolling carts pushed by waiters in the service style of Cantonese dim sum. After work, the assembled crowds at Gather can pair a tasting flight of craft beers with char-grilled octopus or duck tacos with apple kimchee.

What you won’t see is a group sharing a Bloomin’ Onion at Outback Steakhhouse, or baby back ribs at Chili’s. In Boston’s most rapidly evolving neighborhood, a creative, adventurous food scene is also fast emerging, in which restaurant owners feel compelled to be as singular and inventive as the young technology entrepreneurs who define the Innovation District.
“There’s a lot of entrepreneurial folks, a lot of foodies, a lot of techies,” said Ed Kane, who traveled to Shanghai and Hong Kong in search of authentic furniture and décor for his Empire Asian Restaurant and Lounge on Northern Ave. “It’s kind of artsy and cool, and it’s no coincidence that all these restaurants are opening up.”

There is no rule against large chains in the Innovation District. Legal Sea Foods was among the early arrivals three years ago, shortly after former Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino bestowed the Innovation District moniker to signal a new era for the expanse of parking lots and old rail yards. Starbucks will soon join Strega Waterfront and the ICA Water Cafe in the Fan Pier complex of office towers and luxury condominiums.

With his tenants’ coffee fix to be sated this summer, developer Joseph Fallon said he mostly hears requests for dining spots that deliver the unexpected or the unfamiliar.
“Different works in this neighborhood,” said Fallon

The new lineup is a far cry from the few restaurants that dominated the old Seaport district for decades. Indeed, during their heyday Anthony’s Pier 4 and Jimmy’s Harborside reigned as standard-bearers for an era of fine dining that valued classic plates over unorthodox tastes. But as the American palette evolved and became more adventurous, both Anthony’s and Jimmy’s were unable to find a new foothold in the neighborhood changing around them and closed in recent years.

Where Jimmy’s Harborside once served baked stuffed lobster stands Liberty Wharf, a complex of restaurants where these days diners use iPads at Temazcal Tequila Cantina to order lobster ceviche in a spicy coconut and citrus marinade, with mango salsa and red chile oil.

Many of the Innovation District’s new restaurants are not so different from clever establishments elsewhere. What distinguishes the neighborhood is that different is actually the norm. Instead of scattered foodie beacons in a sea of Applebees’ and Cheesecake Factories, there is a gastropub tideswell.

And it’s not that every new restaurant here has to be a candidate for the Bizarre Foods TV show. But a certain style is appreciated: natural food, industrial chic, and casual attire. Most importantly, the menu and atmosphere must be carefully calibrated to appeal to the young and fairly affluent professionals who like to feel they are experiencing something new.

Blade Kotelly, who developed a video editing business, Storytelling Machines, at the MassChallenge program on Fan Pier, said workers in the district are particular about their food and drink.

“They don’t have a tolerance for the same old thing,” Kotelly said.

Experienced restaurateurs said they could not simply replicate in the Innovation District what has worked at their other businesses.

Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier own a pair of farm-to-table restaurants in Maine, where the service style is traditional: Waiters seat the guests, distribute the menus, and take the orders. But in opening MC Spiedo inside the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in February, the duo veered “totally out of our comfort zone,” said Gaier.

Source: http://www.bostonglobe.com/