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January 17, 2025

Medium Rare’s prix fixe menu offers a single dinner: steak frites

There is one entree at the new Arsenal Yards spot. You only have to decide if you want it rare or well-done or something in between.

Where to: Medium Rare restaurant in Watertown’s lively Arsenal Yards, part of an expanding chain that offers only steak frites in a prix fixe menu (unless you’re vegetarian or vegan, in which case you get a grilled portobello mushroom).

Why: Small and large chains keep opening at the Arsenal. It’s a busy place where once very little was happening. The new restaurant makes ordering a breeze. You’re getting steak, French fries, salad, and bread ($34.95). You only need to decide how you want your meat cooked. Watching this fast-casual model in action is fascinating: Every diner at every table in an 80+ seat space is getting the same thing.

The back story: A single, set-price menu is common around the world in small eateries. The server writes your order right on the paper that covers the table. Co-owners Mark Bucher and Tom Gregg opened the first Medium Rare in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in 2011. They’ve expanded in the Washington metro area, and now they’re in nine cities, including New York, Dallas, and New Orleans. Bucher also started the nonprofit Feed the Fridge organization in the D.C. area, which offers prepared meals to people in need. The organization pays local restaurants to stock refrigerators with ready-to-eat food.

What to eat: Thick slabs of freshly baked bread with butter; green salad; steak, however you want it cooked with a secret sauce that Bucher describes as a cross between au poivre and Diane; skinny fries. The cut of beef is a culotte, relatively unknown outside the industry, naturally tender. Fries are quite crisp, and the bread (you can see giant loaves stacked in the open kitchen) is a surprise: so crusty that shards scatter all over your table, with a tender porous crumb. The recipe comes from a baker who worked for the celebrated late chef Jean-Louis Palladin in D.C. in the 1980s. Breads are par-baked at one location and shipped to Medium Rare kitchens to finish baking. Dinner portions seem right (some might say on the small side), but you can get seconds when waiters come around with big skillets filled with more steak and frites. An ice cream sundae, with an avalanche of whipped cream and confetti sprinkles, is practically tall enough to be at diners’ eye-level. “We’re in the happiness business,” says Bucher about the outsized dessert.

What to drink: Half a dozen cocktails are listed on a blackboard, but you can order others. There are three Massachusetts craft beers and one from Belgium. How we wish the wine list wasn’t limited to a handful of cliché varietals of little distinction.

The takeaway: The $34.95 price tag seems like a good value. But let’s compare it to Branch Line, the popular neighborhood spot on the other side of the Arsenal, far from the hubbub. Here, on a menu with many other items, you find bavette steak frites (bavette is French for another little-known cut), with Béarnaise butter, herb fries, and pickled onions ($32); it doesn’t come with salad, which you can order separately ($6.25). It’s a very sophisticated version of the French classic. In the world of steak frites, Medium Rare is a streamlined and satisfying option that will draw crowds with its one-choice concept. Think of Medium Rare as a kind of J. Crew for dining spots: stylish, affordable, and extremely appealing. 107 Bond Square, Arsenal Yards, Watertown, 617-744-5309, mediumrarerestaurant.com

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