Cunard Tavern

A sashimi hand at a pub pass

A cut learned at a sashimi station still matters when Tony Messina, chef-partner at Cunard Tavern in East Boston, works the pass. His present station sits inside a gastropub, but the discipline behind it runs through Cambridge Culinary School, Menton, AKA Bistro, and Uni. At Menton in Boston, Messina worked as Chef de Partie from 2010 to 2011, a role built around repetition and composure. At AKA Bistro, from 2011, he moved into raw-fish work as Sashimi Assistant and Assistant Sashimi Chef, where a blade shows every hesitation. Until 2021 he was chef and co-owner at Uni, carrying that exactness into a larger position of command. Since 2021, he has been chef-partner here, a title that puts kitchen judgment and restaurant oversight in the same pair of hands. The James Beard Foundation named him Best Chef: Northeast in 2019, recognition earned before this post but part of the working history he brings to it. At Cunard Tavern, that history does not read as a fine-dining transfer. It reads as control applied to a louder, looser form: pub classics, immigrant-city references, and a menu willing to let several traditions share the same plate.

Pub bones, global seasoning

The kitchen works in the language of a la carte plates and smaller dishes, with fusion as the stated method rather than a garnish added at the end. Lobster poutine gives a pub form a local shellfish center. Fried-mortadella steamed buns put an Italian deli note into a soft Asian frame. Grilled swordfish with chermoula keeps the fish direct, then lets the herb, spice, and oil do the carrying. Those dishes make sense for East Boston, where immigrant history is not decoration but one of the neighborhood’s daily materials. Messina’s earlier sashimi work matters here because this kind of menu can go slack without restraint. The plate has to know when to stop. The beverage side follows the same mixed register: craft beer for the pub spine, tiki cocktails for the brighter edge, and a curated wine program for the table that wants a quieter line through dinner.

The room keeps the harbor close

The room carries nautical cues without turning the work into theater. Mastheads, illuminated signs, and historic shipyard elements put the harbor into the walls; the rooftop gives that history a present tense, with East Boston’s water and skyline near enough to affect the meal. Service runs upscale casual, conversational rather than hushed, and the room can hold liveliness without making the pass disappear. That matters for a chef-partner whose work has moved through precise Boston kitchens into a place built for a broader appetite. The counterpoint is the craft itself: mortadella in the steamer, swordfish on the grill, lobster worked into poutine, tiki glassware moving past beer taps and wine stems. Messina’s next move here is not named as a release or opening. For now, the useful close is the plate in front of the room: grilled swordfish with chermoula at Cunard Tavern.