Wood-Fired Steaks and Roasted Seafood Towers Abound at Boston’s Newest Steakhouse

Maple & Ash’s “atrium” section of the dining room has a clear view of the open kitchen. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

You could call Maple & Ash a steakhouse, but restaurateur Danny Grant hopes you’ll see it instead as a “wood-fired restaurant that happens to serve steak,” he says. It makes sense that he’s angling for an alternate label: The fourth location of the Chicago-based restaurant, which opens April 30 in Boston’s Seaport District, will be smack-dab in the middle of out-of-town-steakhouse-chain territory. Whatever you call Grant’s import, though, it’s sure to make an impression, with fire-roasted seafood towers, massive cuts of steak, and a special-occasion, white-tablecloth ambience mixed with—dare we say—a touch of vampire aesthetic, from the elegant candelabras to the sheer black curtains that drape from ceiling to floor.

Maple & Ash. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Grant and business partner Jim Lasky opened the first Maple & Ash in Chicago in 2015, steps from the iconic steakhouse Gibsons. People questioned the strategy of opening what, on its surface, appeared to be a steakhouse so close to a classic, says Grant, who previously led the Chicago restaurant Ria to two Michelin stars in 2011 and 2012 and earned a Food & Wine Best New Chef nod in 2012. “We opened with the mindset of [operating] a restaurant geared towards foodies and women,” says Grant, something different from the “very masculine” older steakhouses where “they bring this giant meat out to your table, slap it, yell at it, and upsell you,” says Grant. “There’s a place for that; I love going to an old-school steakhouse.” But at Maple & Ash, they filter “steakhouse” through the lens of wood-fired, seasonal cooking. It must be working: They’ve since expanded to Miami; Scottsdale, Arizona; and now here. (Their company, Maple Hospitality Group, also has several other concepts, including wood-fired Italian restaurant Monarch in Dallas and the Amalfi Coast-inspired Marisella in Santa Barbara, California.)

Maple & Ash’s fire-roasted seafood tower includes king crab, oysters, scallops, and more, finished in garlic butter and chili oil. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Grant, a Long Island native, got just a bit of exposure to Boston in his early years on trips centered around “sporting events and history,” thanks to “being a kid growing up on the East Coast.” But it wasn’t until he was running Ria in Chicago that an interest in Boston started to materialize: “Half of my kitchen was [from Boston],” he says. “I hired one guy, and he brought six or seven other great Boston chefs. I was like, ‘Man, Boston people know how to cook.’”

Maple & Ash. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

At the center of Maple & Ash’s dining room, curtains surround an area called “the atrium.” / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Grant and Lasky started looking to Boston for expansion five years ago. “We always knew that it was very similar to Chicago,” says Grant. “I hate being away from home, but Boston feels like my home away from home; it feels very similar to how I do my life and business in Chicago. So, it feels like a no-brainer to come here.” After a few years searching for a place to lease, they landed on this expansive second-story space within the Seaport District’s Superette development, complete with a seasonal terrace overlooking the courtyard. “Old city, new development, kind of cool,” says Grant. “We jumped all over it.”

Maple & Ash’s wedge salad with glazed bacon, blue cheese, cherry tomatoes, and ranch dressing. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

So, what does a steakhouse-that’s-not-exactly-a-steakhouse serve? The goal is “to give people a little bit of what they expect, to gain their trust, and then show them things that are a little bit unexpected,” says Grant. Take a traditional seafood tower, for instance, but make it fire-roasted and dripping with garlic butter and chili oil. “I’ve gone to so many restaurants where there’s a phenomenal chilled seafood tower,” says Grant, “but we wanted to turn that on its head. I love how the fire evolves and introduces a new flavor to the food.” King crab legs, oysters, littleneck clams, and more compete for attention atop a tower almost as tall as Maple & Ash’s stately candelabras. Recognizable salads get amped up: sesame croutons dress a Caesar; a big hunk of glazed bacon makes the wedge irresistible. There’s also a handful of entrees, including the “pillows of love”—plump ricotta-stuffed agnolotti topped with winter truffle, on the menu since day one, says Grant—and spicy vodka-sauced lumache. (Vodka sauce is having a moment.) There’s local seafood, of course, such as bluefin tuna crudo made with fish from “right outside in the water I can see from here,” says Grant, and whole-roasted, crispy-skin Atlantic seabass.

Maple & Ash’s “pillows of love,” ricotta agnolotti with winter truffle. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

As for the steaks: “Our beef program is something we take really seriously,” says Grant. “We’re getting primal cuts and cutting them, dry-aging them in-house. The more of the process we control, the better the consistency.” (Plus, he notes, the trimmings allow Maple & Ash to make “the world’s best meatballs and the world’s best burger.” The latter is available in the bar and lounge area, alongside a few other bar specials, such as oysters Rockefeller and chicken Milanese, and the full dinner menu.) Steak options include the expected—filet mignon, bone-in ribeye, and such—and some showstoppers like a massive porterhouse, dry-aged for 45 days, dubbed the Eisenhower. It’s an ode to President Eisenhower’s preferred method of cooking steak over hot coals, says Grant.

“The Eisenhower” at Maple & Ash, a 45-day dry-aged porterhouse. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

It’s practically required to end a meal with the ice cream sundae, “an absolute nod to my mother,” says Grant. “Growing up, we always joked that she never saw a movie to completion because midway through, she’d get up and start toasting coconut. I’d hear her smacking things in the kitchen, breaking Butterfingers and peanut butter cups, nuking peanut butter and hot fudge. I probably gained 10 more friends in school because they’d all want to sleep over, and she’d make these sundaes.” The Maple & Ash reinvention is “a beautiful tower of accoutrements” with a bowl of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream.

Maple & Ash. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Maple & Ash’s white cosmo, with vodka, white cranberry, citrus water, and orange zest foam. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

The beverage program is “top-notch,” says Grant, meant to “check all the boxes” of “classic cocktails with high-end, beautiful booze, perfectly balanced,” and updated interpretations of classics. “There’s sometimes a little show that goes along with [the drinks], whether it’s smoke or fire. Fire is part of our DNA.” (Alas—or thankfully—not on the drink menu: Chicago’s infamous Malört. “I wouldn’t do that to the Boston people, at least the ones I like,” says Grant with a laugh.)

Maple & Ash. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Whether it’s a drink being set ablaze, or the glimmer of one of Maple & Ash’s countless candles, or the tableside flambéing of bananas Foster, the fiery theme gets a luxurious backdrop of comfortable leather seats, plush banquettes, and sexy photography featuring, among other subjects, glammed-up women in restaurants. Each Maple & Ash is “cut from a similar cloth” design-wise, although not identical, says Grant, each centering around a part of the dining room called the “atrium” with a clear view of the open kitchen. “Wood fire is the soul of this restaurant, and you can see the flickering lights, the golden glow throughout,” he says. Each atrium has a grand light fixture as the focal point, inspired by different jewelry. The curved gold bands at the Boston location “feel a bit old-world,” he says, a counterpoint to the space’s more modern-feeling textured black wallpaper and uniquely geometric sconces.

Maple & Ash’s wagyu beef carpaccio with king crab, truffle, kaluga caviar, and brown butter brioche. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

So, maybe Boston doesn’t need another steakhouse, but with our newest entries to the genre trying something a little different, perhaps we want another steakhouse (or three). London-based Hawksmoor arrives in Fort Point later this year with a distinctly British point of view (and Sunday roasts); the Zebra Room just opened downtown with a tiny, intimate space and 1970s vibes. And Maple & Ash? Candlelit dinners of roasted seafood towers, dry-aged steaks, and nostalgic ice cream sundaes sound pretty swell.

The Maple & Ash kitchen centers around wood-fired cooking. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

131 Seaport Blvd., Seaport District, Boston, 617-362-8881, mapleandash.com/boston.