Newbury native David Bazirgan has been named the new executive chef at UNI Restaurant located at The Eliot Suite Hotel in Boston’s Back Bay.
Chef Bazirgan, Photo credit to Randolph Belandria
Chef Bazirgan is stepping into the shoes of James Beard Award-winning Chef, Tony Messina, who departed to relocate to Los Angeles this spring, Bazirgan brings decades of bi-coastal culinary experience and a passion for boundary-pushing ingredients and flavors from around the world. UNI’s dining room will reopen for the first time since March of 2020 on Tuesday June 1, with patio and dining suite seating still available as well. Most recently at Bambara in Cambridge, Chef Bazirgan’s Massachusetts roots trace back to his childhood in Newbury.
After graduating from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, he worked through a number of Boston-area kitchens, including Barbara Lynch’s No. 9 Park, where he helped to conceptualize the first of the restaurant’s seven and nine-course tasting menus. Bazirgan then left the East Coast for San Francisco, where he worked through the ranks before leading the kitchen team at Fifth Floor, which was later replaced by Dirty Habit. At UNI, Chef Bazirgan will infuse both local and globally-inspired plates into the restaurant’s sushi, sashimi and hot food menus, while continuing to offer a handful of UNI staples like the signature Uni Spoon and Spicy Tuna and Foie Gras Tataki.
New menu highlights include: Fried Oyster Bao Buns with ramp thousand island dressing and uni Garlic Crab Noodles with kani miso, sourdough crumbs and lemon Maine Lobster with Thai jungle curry, bamboo shoots and makrut lime Wagyu Beef Tartare with malawach and berbere Hamachi Taquitos with maguro shirodashi, orange and pickled tonburi White Snake Roll with passion fruit, unagi and tobiko Rhubarb Bombolone with sakura sugar and sake lees dulce de leche.
Photo credit to Randolph Belandria
