A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

Last week I was invited to check out the newly renovated Hyatt Regency Boston, conveniently located in Downtown Crossing.The area is definitely changing with recent additions such as Roche Brothers, Ogawa Coffee, Caffe Nero, Legal Crossing and the Boston Public Market. I drove my car, but the hotel is located near the T station – the silver line provides easy access to and from the airport, the red and orange line (Downtown Crossing/Park Street) are just steps away from the hotel, allowing you to explore the city and the green line is a couple of blocks away as well. The hotel offers valet parking and self parking options.

We head up to our room to settle in before we head down for dinner. The view from our room overlooks the hotel’s patio (where we will have dessert later in the evening) and showcases Boston’s skyline.

Every part of the hotel has been renovated, the only thing left to be completed are the elevators and the parking garage. The rooms are beautiful – spacious and comfortable (oh that bed!!). The rooms have a comfortable couch/sitting area and has a fridge if you want to bring leftovers back to your room!

We were greeted in our room with fresh fruit and perrier, a lovely touch for this (weary?) traveler!

We headed downstairs to the meeting/function rooms for cocktails and dinner. The appetizers were delicious, lobster with a corn salsa, cheese with lavender and cocoa and pate.

We were in luck that the Hyatt’s two resident pups were in the house and they came down and made a special visit. Meet Rocky, a two year old Boston Terrier, Remi’s brother. The pair couldn’t have been more adorable!

And this is Remington, “Remi” as his friends like to call him. He is the Canine Executive Officer (CEO) here at the hotel, a four month old Boston Terrier. He was named one of Boston Business Journal’s “Hardest Working Dogs in Boston” and is a Freedom Trail Foundation’s Tourism Ambassador. If you want to send him an email – he can be reached at remi@hyattboston.com (this dog has his own business card!) and you can follow his adventures by checking out his hashtag: #remiboston.

We headed into the Adrienne Salon for dinner, an oval shaped room next to the grand ballroom. The room is beautiful and would be perfect for a cocktail hour before a wedding. The other rooms have capacity for anywhere from 12 to 700 guests and they are named after Massachusetts towns: Duxbury, Dedham, Plymouth, Lexington, Concord etc.

Meet Executive Chef Kelly Armetta. He was in and out of dinner, explaining the dishes and threw in a few fishing stories here and there!

Dinner was served family style. The evening was casual, like you were at Chef Armetta’s house, guests cut bread, served salad and poured wine. Starting at the top left and moving clockwise: Cucumber Bulger Salad with micro cilantro and pickled vegetables; Local Feta with organic olive oil, red pepper flakes and grilled lemon; Roasted Beets with goat’s milk ranch dressing; green and white asparagus; Guinea Hen with fava bean and a sherry vinegar essence.

The dinner showcased the freshest ingredients of the summer. All the items were savory and approachable. Not pictured (but delicious) was the Roasted Atlantic Halibut with garlic leek ragout. It was perfectly cooked!

Meet Terry Dunbar, the Hyatt’s General Manager. Terry had a great sense of humor and rolled up his sleeves to carve the enormous Tomahawk Chops.

The chops had a Tunisian spice and were served with an heirloom tomato salsa, a perfect pairing.

The obligatory photo, someone had to do it. Thanks Dan!

After dinner I was completely stuffed! We rolled out to the beautiful outdoor private patio for dessert. Again, a great space for cocktails or dessert on a summer evening.

There was a wonderful selection of desserts, and for “research” I felt the need to have a little taste of everything…you know, to let you all know what you were missing! (You’re welcome!) There was a blueberry cobbler (far left), a molten chocolate cake that was served warm in mugs (and if you added some of that fresh whipped cream you would be in heaven), Ricotta cookies – Chef Armetta’s mother’s recipe, that were light as air with just a touch of sweetness, blackberry pudding cake with fresh berries picked from Chef Armetta’s garden. and honey roasted nectarines with fresh whipped cream. It was a delightful evening, the food was delicious and the company was even better, it was nice to get the chance to get to know some of the staff!

The next morning we headed down to breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant,

Avenue One. If you don’t have time for a sit down breakfast there is an Avenue One Express where you can grab a cup of coffee and grab a breakfast item to go! The restaurant has a full hot buffet that looked delicious.

I had the caramelized onions and roasted portobello omelet ($15) that had Grafton cheddar and came with a slice of delicious cranberry pecan toast, potatoes and seasonal berries.

We went with the steel cut oatmeal ($9) that comes topped with roasted bananas and strawberry, honey, almond granola and brown sugar. The dish is a Hyatt Stay Fit option. Hyatt’s Stay Fit program is designed for fitness conscious guests. In addition to offering healthy meal options, there is a fitness center and pool located in the hotel.

The fitness center has all new equipment by Life Fitness and is open to guests 24 hours a day. There are chilled towels, a sauna, a eucalyptus steam room and much more. The salt water pool was just heavenly, who doesn’t love a heated pool!

Disclaimer: Hyatt Regency invited me to be their guest and provided me with a room and all my meals. All opinions are my own.

Hyatt Regency Boston

1 Avenue de Lafayette, Boston, MA

http://regencyboston.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html

Tags: downtown crossing, events