By Nancy Gaines
Photographs by Simon Simard

On a blustery midwinter afternoon in a dive bar in Revere, the patrons’ eyes never lift from the Keno numbers to take in the beachside view. Cut-price drafts, ancient pool tables, crumbling dartboards. This is where chef Brian Poe goes to ground. He’s not here to cook—he’s got at full-time gig at the Rattlesnake on Boylston Street and a new place, the Tip Tap Room, opening on Beacon Hill this spring. Rather, he’s in what he calls his “man cave.” After having traveled the hemisphere hunting for culinary inspiration, a local watering hole seems like Poe’s natural habitat.

If anyone in Boston is the exemplar of foodie sophistication bleeding into mass culture, it’s Poe. This is a man who popularized lamb osso bucco at a place that used to reach its culinary apotheosis in the nacho. But his cooking is populist, even if it might use lavender crema. And the chef, like his menu, is the sum of many parts.

He’s the product of a Southern upbringing, Southwestern resorts, chic hotels in the Northeast and, for variety, South American villages. Call it fusion, Mex-flex, all-Americasian, his style is undoubtedly individualistic. He says his food is “a collective goody bag,” as are dishes like his whiskey bacon-topped Kobe burger stuffed with lobster, foie gras and black truffles (a favorite on Internet chatboards).

Cherubic face, pressed jeans and lack of visible tats notwithstanding, Poe says, “I was a hell-raiser,” speaking with that disarming sweetness common to polite-but-crazy Southern gentlemen. Born in Georgia, schooled in Alabama, Poe has traveled through 38 states and 10 countries, exploring food scenes, cuisines and techniques. Now, at 39, with a wife and condo not far from that dive bar in Revere, Poe says his rambling days may be over.

The wanderlust started in 1995, when he took a job at Auburn University’s hotel and conference center, moving quickly up the ranks to banquet chef. “That was when I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.” Once the light bulb went on, he took off, accepting a chef-de-cuisine gig at the Hilton Atlanta Northeast during the ’96 Olympics, where he added Northern Italian dishes to his résumé. Along with the use of basil, he picked up a friendship with his boss, Gary Mlinarich, who was to become a lifelong influence.

One steamy August day, Mlinarich swung by the Hilton in a U-Haul and said to Poe, “Hey, want to go cross-country?” The ensuing trip inspired Poe to move, landing at Steamers Oyster Grill in Phoenix, Ariz. After collecting cooking awards and seafood knowledge, he trucked on to Mesa, where he learned Cajun and Pacific Rim flavors, adding andouille and coriander to his professional larder.

Meanwhile, Mlinarich, who had found a home with the Regal hotel group (now Millennium), urged Poe to get a “higher-end” position. Poe signed with the group and landed in Scottsdale, a sun-scrubbed college town stocked with rich retirees. At the posh McCormick Ranch resort, Poe helped triple food and beverage sales with an Asian, French and Southwestern menu. He also toured Napa Valley. “It was in Napa that I learned that something coming right out of the ground, like mesclun greens, could be so good,” he says.

In 2003, Poe stepped into the storied shoes of Lydia Shire, Gordon Hamersley, Jasper White and Jody Adams as executive chef at the Bostonian Hotel’s Seasons Restaurant. “I threw my résumé in the hat,” he says. “Next thing I was living in the hotel across the street from Faneuil Hall. What a blast.” One of the first voicemails he got was from Shire herself, who had opened the restaurant in 1982 with White. “I thanked her for building such a great reputation,” recalls Poe, and she said, “It’s your job to keep it up.”


Under Poe’s guidance, the $2 million operation won at least 10 awards in four years. While he enjoyed the success, restlessness kept him traveling. During his years at Seasons, Poe took trips to South America, California and Oregon, studying nearly all the West Coast wineries of two continents. He also moonlighted as a private chef, mainly for Curt Schilling’s family, whom he knew from when Schilling played for the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Poe jokes that he got traded to Boston first.) He never got to Fenway to watch Schilling pitch in the 2004 World Series, but says, “There’s nothing better than sitting in the atrium lounge of the Bostonian Hotel seeing a good friend of mine on the mound for the Red Sox, even bloodied.”

By the start of 2008, Poe’s wanderlust kicked in again. For the better part of a year, he traveled on an international quest for cuisine.

In Brazil, he learned the skill of cooking feijoada, a thick pork stew. In Chile, he mastered the grilled avocado and the art of catching, filleting and seasoning fish. “Everywhere I went, I just absorbed,” he says. The experience paid off. “Brian’s not doing tricks like molecular gastronomy,” says Andy Husbands, chef/owner of Tremont 647 and Sister Sorel in the South End. “What’s most interesting is his depth of knowledge, just beautiful, raw materials. Complex yet simple food with layers of developed flavor.”

In 2009, after a stint at the famed Siro’s in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Poe returned to Boston to an unlikely spot. During his Seasons days, when the grip of winter squeezed too hard, Poe liked to retire to the nearby Churchill’s cigar bar “as a reward.” There, he had struck up a friendship with Gordon Wilcox, owner of the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill, Parish Cafe and five other successful Boston watering holes. “I knew I wanted to work with him,” says Poe. “I liked his philosophy. I liked the fun, the challenge to take a great bar and infuse it with great food.” 

The rakish Rattlesnake had long drawn lines of margarita-swilling 20-somethings, but Wilcox had bigger plans. He wanted them to come for the cocktails, yes, but also for the New York strip. Installing a down-home dining room, Wilcox and Poe launched Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake. In three years, it’s gone from “mostly shots, DJs, chips and salsa” to Vermont quail tacos and an admiring Zagat write-up.

If there’s a downside to Poe’s eclectic background, it’s that his menus can seem, to put it bluntly, weird. Most people don’t conceive of spicy Taza chocolate as a flavoring for mac ’n’ cheese. “For a while, I think he was trying fusion too much,” says his mentor, Mlinarich, now executive chef at the exclusive Radisson Fort McDowell Resort in Scottsdale. “But he’s found himself over the past two years. Keep it simple finally sunk in.” 

While Poe says he’s “married” to the Rattlesnake, “there was room for more fun.” It’s a concept that recurs. “I want to go from fine dining to fun dining,” he says. Wilcox remains onboard with the idea of culinary hedonism. “The Rattlesnake menu is crazy and definitely coming out of Brian,” he says. “He feels not enough people are having fun with bar food.”

The result is the forthcoming Tip Tap Room, a partnership between Poe, Wilcox and Justin Dalton-ameen from the Parish Cafe, slated to open this spring on Cambridge Street. With about 140 seats, its concept is to serve tips, from steak to swordfish, with waves of craft beer. “It’ll be a different style of food and play,” says Poe. “Play” being the operative word. A theme restaurant based around the idea of bites of varied meats has a particular, Poe-ish whimsy. Building a restaurant on the ideal steak tip is no more far-fetched than serving duck confit chile relleno with foie gras.

After a few beers at BK’s Bar and Grill, Poe walks on the beach and talks about his home, the high-rise facing the ocean on the gentrified Revere Beach Strand that he shares with his Brazilian-born wife.

“When I lived in the South and the Southwest,” he says, “I had friends from Boston who’d tell me how they missed the water. I never understood. Now, I get it.”

He sounds settled. He sounds at home.