Savviest reinvention: Rialto

by Ruth Tobias, 09-24-2007

Thanks to Jody Adams's exuberant brand of cookery - a Mediterranean-influenced merger of the homey and the exotic - Rialto (Charles Hotel, One Bennett Street, Cambridge, 617.661.5050) has long been Cambridge's premier go-to. And yet, truth be told, we rarely made it past the bar, its plush comforts so inviting compared with the crisply businesslike demeanor of the dining room. But in its new incarnation, Rialto has finally become for us no mere go-to but a linger-in, through and through. Lighter, breezier, filled with harvest-toned, curvilinear nooks, the entire interior evokes the sunlit hills of Italy, smack in the middle of Harvard Square. Of course, it also speaks to Adams's revised, more streamlined repertoire, whose fresh, healthy emphasis on produce and seafood now makes Rialto not only a go-to and linger-in, but a frequent return-for as well.