Monday, March 10, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

Laura Brennan named her restaurant Caffè Umbra ("shadow" in Italian) because it sits in the shadow of Boston's Holy Cross Cathedral. But local food writers can't help noting that the name is particularly apt for this talented chef, who has long toiled in relative obscurity. Despite the name, at Caffè Umbra, Brennan has finally stepped out from the shadows, and gourmets everywhere are rejoicing. As Annie Copps wrote in Boston Magazine, "Caffè Umbra is a delight. Simple, thoughtful, flavorful, rustic French and Italian classics are prepared with care and skill by a chef who has done her time and is having fun cooking dishes that showcase her own signature style."

Brennan has ties with just about everybody who's anybody in Boston's lively cooking scene. After earning a degree in food and nutrition sciences from the University of Rhode Island, Brennan went on to get a diploma from Madeleine Kamman's Modern Gourmet Cooking School in Newton Center, Massachusetts. Over the years, she worked as a caterer and food consultant, and she cooked at such notable Beantown restaurants as Mercury Bar (where she was executive chef), Michela's (under Jody Adams and Michela Larson), and Blue Room (with Steve Johnson). Her credits also include a stint under Moncef Meddeb, the original owner of L'Espalier.

At Caffè Umbra, Brennan is making thoughtful, down-to-earth, balanced dishes she describes as "French bourgeois with Italian rustic." It's a mix that works. Bon Appétit noted that "diners relish the soulful country French and Italian cuisine of 30-year veteran chef Laura Brennan." And Boston Magazine named the restaurant among its Best picks thus far this year. "Her delicious old-school French dishes-chicken-liver terrine, scallops vol-au-vent, seafood pot-au-feu-are the kinds of simple and confident dishes that can only come from a well-trained chef," the magazine noted. Agreed Alison Arnett in The Boston Globe: "The menu is full of dishes you want to try and some are amazingly good when you do." She especially liked a lettuce soup "which is both ethereal and satisfying...it's an evocation of the season, a hot soup that nevertheless is cooling."

What culinary treasures from Boston await? Only the Shadow knows.