Wednesday, September 19, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

Chances are, when you think of the Boston Harbor, you don’t think fine cuisine. After all, what might be the Harbor’s most famous "sauce" was an unappetizing combination of tea and brackish water. These days however, the Harbor is more picturesque than political, and most of its visitors would rather gaze at the ships and boats sailing by than board them and protest unfair taxation. An integral part of the Harbor’s elegant and refined dining experience is the cuisine of chef Daniel Bruce. In the 14 years that he has been the executive chef of the AAA Four-Diamond, Mobil Four-Star Boston Harbor Hotel, Bruce has made the hotel’s three restaurants—the Rowes Wharf Restaurant, Intrigue Café, and Rowes Wharf Bar—destinations for history-loving tourists and locals alike. One local resident in particular, Julia Child, is known to be a fan of Bruce’s cooking, and has often been seen dining at the hotel, close to her home in Cambridge.

Bruce’s fans are drawn to his self-described "foraged" cuisine. When profiled in Food & Wine by Mat Schaffer, Bruce recalled that he had been farming, fishing, and gathering wild berries, herbs, even pussy-willow shoots for his table since he was a boy growing up in the backwoods of Maine. What art is made from these treasured found objects? Local wild mushroom tart with leeks and asparagus, or herb-crusted Atlantic halibut with roasted artichokes, wild mushrooms, and spinach ragoût. It was dishes like this that led Zagat to call Bruce a "remarkable" chef who produces "fabulous" food. Bruce’s talents are also shown to best advantage at the Boston Wine Festival, which offers participants cooking demonstrations, wine seminars, and a series of over 40 dinners featuring wineries from all over the world. For each of the 12 years he has headed the event, Bruce has created 160 or more perfectly matched dishes for all the wines, which are then served to a crowd of 4,500.

A graduate of Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island, Bruce moved to Europe to cook at restaurants in Milan, Venice, and Paris. One of his employers connected him to Sirio Maccioni, and when Bruce returned to the U.S., he began working at Le Cirque under Alain Sailhac. After following Sailhac to the ‘21’ Club, Bruce was made executive chef at age 27. One year later he moved to the Boston Harbor Hotel, where he started to make his own history—the delicious kind.