AQ Restaurant & Bar

• Hours: Sun 10am-2pm, Daily 5:30pm-11pm
  Price: $$, $$$
  Payment Types: All Major Credit Cards
• Attire: Casual
  Serving: Brunch, Dinner
  Alcohol: Full bar
• Parking: Street

Description

AQ's conceit is that it reinvents itself every solstice and equinox. The space presents a gorgeous frame for its seasonal metamorphoses, its walls covered in bricks hauled in the ballasts of 19th-century ships, and the dinner menus, specialty cocktails, and waiters' outfits change every season. But the food is perennially beautiful. In details like the inordinately smooth texture of a purée, or the papery crispness of the skin on a tender pan-roasted fish, chef Mark Liberman's haute cuisine training is evident. His fondness for dehydrators and gelling agents also puts him in the same school as restaurants like Commonwealth and Sons + Daughters. It's intricate food (sometimes too intricate), and priced much more reasonably than its polish would suggest.