Darling brings Chinese-inspired cocktails to Massachusetts
Brian Callahan and Zimu Chen have opened Darling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, serving daily rotating, hyper-seasonal cocktails and dim sum.
Callahan’s restaurant experience includes stints at Massachusetts restaurant Tiger Mama, Orfano, and Row 34. Originally from Nanjing, China, Chen has worked at Boston venues including Eastern Standard, Coquette, and Mariel.
Darling opened in Cambridge’s Central Square last week (18 July), in the former site of Mary Chung’s.
The venue features a 40-seat lounge and a 16-seat walnut bar, with ambient lighting, distressed accents, original exposed brick walls and a hand-painted mural by Julia Purinton of Medusa Studios.
The bar takes its name from the phrase ‘kill your darlings’, which reflects the ‘driving ethos of focus, seasonality, and continuous innovation’.
The menus
The cocktail menu will change daily, using both local and Chinese ingredients. Drinks use advanced techniques such as clarification, fermentation and milk-washing.
The team say: “Cocktails play with texture, temperature, and aroma – crafting drinks that are emotionally evocative and sensory-rich. Every cocktail is a layered narrative, driven by experimentation with structure and flavour, methodically made, yet still playful and approachable.”
Highlights include the Common Trope, made with milk-washed vodka steeped with jasmine tea, acidified lychee, black rice sake and cucumber.
Meanwhile, the Sweep The Leg is a low-ABV cocktail that employs the ‘switching’ method, wherein Valdespino Fino Inocente Sherry is frozen and its alcohol replaced with housemade tomato water. This is combined with Dolin Dry vermouth, which is infused with Chinese celery, passionfruit liqueur and Holmes Cay Reunion Island Rum Grand Arome, and garnished with a soy-cured tomato.
A riff on a Gibson, called the Holy Trinity, features ginger, garlic and spring onions – the three most important aromatics in Chinese cuisine. Roku Japanese Gin is fat-washed with these aromatics and green chilli oil, before being blended with shochu, Manzanilla Sherry and Junmai Genshu sake.
HK French Toast is a ‘creamy, nutty’ flip-style cocktail inspired by Hong Kong-style French toast. It features PF 1840 Cognac and a compound condensed milk made with coconut milk, peanut butter, toasted brioche, egg yolk and shio koji.
Executive chef Mark O’Leary has created the dim sum menu, which blends ‘nostalgic’ American dishes with Chinese dishes beloved by the Darling team. For instance, the Filet O Fish Bao features salt cod inside a housemade bao bun with American cheese, pickled mustard and tartare sauce. Meanwhile, the venue’s pork ribs are braised in Dr Pepper with crispy taro and sesame seeds.
Other recent US bar openings include The Radicle in Chicago, Foolproof in Brooklyn, and El Sid in Washington.
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