The last of the dormant Darwin’s Ltd. cafes has finally been recycled and rebooted. The Smoot Standard replaces the old Darwin’s outpost on Massachusetts Avenue in the MIT area (joining the Luxor Cafe, which took over the original Darwin’s in Harvard Square; the Circus Cooperative Cafe on Putnam Avenue; and Asaro Bakery & Cafe on Cambridge Street, just across from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School). The name’s a play on 1960s MIT student Oliver Smoot, whose body length became renowned for a geek fraternity shenanigan when it was used to measure the Harvard Bridge in “smoots” – the length of Smoot’s body, 5 feet, 7 inches and 364 smoots across the expanse.
Much about the space hasn’t changed, including the cool loft lounge, an aerie tucked away in the back that has the effect of hovering over the spacious main cafe area. The green soapstone tables remain, and there’s a small bar in the front where you can get beer and other spirited beverages. The Darwin’s also served beer and wine, but The Smoot Standard has bigger ambitions beyond just being a cafe with a bit of a bang to it. It is that, to be sure, but it serves breakfast, lunch and dinner – three rotating menus, a lot to juggle.
The breakfast slate is simple: an egg sandwich, lemon yogurt parfait, bagels and bakery offerings (with a mini raspberry strudel that makes for a nice finish to a cup of tea). The dinner menu whispers of hearty nouvelle with a smoked pork-belly, dry-aged steak tartare, halibut ceviche, spaghetti and tuna steak with olives – and may demand exploration another day, in another column. But my ventures to Smoot were lunch based.
Of the sandwiches, the smoked turkey; grilled chicken BLT; and a Cubano check boxes, but don’t miss out on the fried green tomato; smoked beef brisket and Swiss melt; and tuna nicoise. The melt’s a good stick-to-your-ribs choice for these frigid days, but the tuna scored the most with its airy Pain D’Avignon ciabatta, lean and moist tuna (not your typical chicken-of-the-sea out of a can) and combo of sweet roasted red peppers and tapenade that gave the sandwich zest and zing. The lunch menu also has salads and a grain bowl to cover the culinary bases.
Smoot Standard is the creation of the team that owns Naco Taco just down the way and Lily P’s by the CambridgeSide mall, and a welcomed comfort-zone addition to an academic and tech-hub area that’s forever in need of gathering spots for working-lunch haunts, after-work team-building venues or a place to sit down and crank out pages of your dissertation as your imbibes morph from coffee to tea to wine, with good, rotating eats to fuel along the way.
The Smoot Standard, 313 Massachusetts Ave. The Port, Cambridge
Cambridge writer Tom Meek’s reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in WBUR’s The ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
A stronger
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