The June Hit List: Faccia Bruta, Celeste, Sarma, and More

La Royal may have just opened in West Cambridge, but chef Maria Rondeau continues to hold it down in the kitchen of its older sibling restaurant Celeste. The fare here remains simple, fresh, and unabashedly Peruvian: consider the widely celebrated ceviche mixed seafood with blue cod, shrimp, and squid, or a hearty Incan stew accompanied by potato, chicken, pork, and peanuts.

It’s been six long years since dynamic dining duo Jamie Bissonnette and Ken Oringer last opened a restaurant together (Cambridge’s Little Donkey), so the pair are making up for lost time by opening a twofer on Newbury Street. Faccia Bruta serves “coastal Italian” with an emphasis on the cuisines of Liguria, Sicily, and Sardinia with fresh pastas and crudos aplenty, while downstairs Bar Pallino serves as its in-house natural wine bar buttressed by Italian spirits and Bissonnette’s personal vinyl collection. Rock on.

South Boston has enjoyed something of a neighborhood food renaissance over these last five years, but it’s Karen Akunowicz who put it on the map, first with Fox & The Knife and followed by Bar Volpe. Fortunately, Volpe has avoided the sophomore slump with a thoughtful menu of Southern Italian-inspired dishes like grilled octopus with chickpea stew and rose harissa, fresh casarecce pasta with squid ink and lobster, and a large-format Sardinian paella with fregola, artichokes, shellfish, and ‘njuda.

Lenox Sophia is a new prix-fixe restaurant from chef-owner Shi Mei, who earned his stripes at The French Laundry and Bouchon before working locally at asta, Mida, and Café du Pays. To call the restaurant “intimate” would be an understatement: its dining room is little more than an open kitchen with a handful of seats, where diners enjoy five-course menus populated by such fare as king trumpet mushrooms with honey-fermented garlic and dried plum, dry-aged Rohan duck with wild ramps, and flan de leche with almond lace and passionfruit. A vegetarian menu also is served each night, providing non-carnivores with additional options like tagliatelle with sunchoke, cremini mushroom, and Comté cheese.

Night Shift’s Charles River-adjacent beer garden is back for another season of outdoor suds. And this year, the draft lines — which already include such fan favorites as Whirlpool pale ale and Fluffy New England IPA — will be joined by a seasonally appropriate Day Lite wheat lager that features Cara Cara orange peels and an afternoon-friendly 4% ABV.

Walk-ins only.

Black Lamb is giving diners an offer it can’t refuse with The Scrodfather, a fresh addition to the lunch menu that places a crispy fried fish filet on toasted brioche with pickles, lettuce, and a ramp-based tartar sauce. While it’s only available during the afternoon, other recent menu additions — including pomegranate sumac-glazed chicken wings or roasted lamb chops with green garlic harissa —  should warrant another trip to the neighborhood bistro.

Chef Cassie Piuma continues to helm the Ana Sortun restaurant, which trades in the cuisine of a Turkish meyhane, aka tavern. And while liberal inspiration is taken from the Middle East, its focus is by no means a limitation. For instance: while the region-hopping menu offers shakshuka with creamed greens or lamb kofte sliders with sumac onions, you’ll also discover lentil nachos with radish tzatziki and Hawaiian pizza borek with smoked ham, pineapple, and pickled ramps.

The Tel Aviv-based street food purveyor has touched down in the Seaport and has brought plenty of pita with it. The quick lunch (or dinner) options here include a “fish’n chips” pita with fried branzino, potato aioli, and vinegar; a “folded cheeseburger” with cheddar, garlic aioli, pickles, and sour cream; and a spicy wild mushroom pita with scallions and sour cream. Non-folded offerings include plates like the “run over potato” with sour cream and garlic, or a whole roasted bay cauliflower.

Walk-ins only.

The longtime Irish restaurant and pub, which closed in March 2020, has returned from its two-year Covid hiatus. It’s in a new space in the square — its third since originally opening in 1996 — and its freshened look includes a rustic timber-beamed ceiling, a whiskey-stocked library lounge with tufted leather sofas, and a horseshoe-shaped bar made from dark oak at the center of it all. At any of these possible seating situations, prepare to encounter salt cod fritters with chorizo aioli, duck egg carbonara with housemade spaghetti, or fish and chips with lemon-caper tartar sauce and black kale slaw. We shouldn’t have to mention that you’ll be sipping a frothy Guinness.

Call 617-714-5954 for reservations.

Tiffani Faison has been on something of a tear lately, opening a trio of new concepts inside High Street Place on the heels of re-opening Orfano with a new red sauce-Italian focus. So, maybe now is a good time to remember where it all began: Sweet Cheeks, and in particular, the Texan-style barbecue joint’s justly famous buttermilk biscuits. However, try not to fill up on the honey butter-slathered carbs, as doing so might negate your appetite for trays of Texas-style hot links or oversized smoked beef short ribs.