The unflappable Patricia Yeo tells Grub Street that she’s going to be a partner at soon-to-come Moksa in Central Square (as well as chef, as we mentioned earlier) along with her current team at OM. Which means she isn’t heading back to New York City any time soon.
We’ve been wondering when she’d settle down, and a recent less-than-stellar Globe review of OM further piqued our curiosity. But it’s all good.
“I’ll have a partnership in the business and it’s always a really tough call. You’re always nervous. It’s like dating somebody for the first time. You go out on a first few dates and then you’re asked to move in with them, and it’s a completely different animal,” she explained to us. “But I’ve been at OM for four months and we work very well together. It’s a good thing.”
She’s also talking about rebranding OM with her business partners, but that’s down the road. For now, Yeo told us that she and her team plan to open up the Central Square space (now owned by MIT and “completely raw”) by summer’s end. “It’ll be nice to come in from scratch and put my stamp on it,” she said.
She envisions an extremely casual izakaya, similar to her favorite spot in New York City’s Times Square, Sake Bar Hagi. “It’ll be a lot more casual than Ginger Park,” she said, referencing the short-lived, grandiose South End restaurant that was previously called Banq. “Here, you can come in and spend about $30 for seven or so dishes.”
“I’m over fine dining, all that fuss,” she said. “Moksa will be small plates, really fresh, fun ingredients and dishes. I don’t want to say it will be Ginger Park on steroids, but it’s sort of going to be Ginger Park on steroids.” Which sounds pretty tasty to us.
