Mooo… just turned a year old, and is a pretty, romantic, and elegant 60-seat restaurant that has swept away any memories of its more stodgy predecessor, the Federalist. It’s a destination for senators and artists, powerbrokers and locals, all of whom feel comfortable in its casual attitude and adventurous steakhouse menu items created by chef-owner Jamie Mammano.
But during one Tuesday afternoon, it was a little quiet. “Sometimes it’s packed, sometimes it’s quiet,” says bartender Dante Delucci, who moved over from Mistral to serve the afternoon crowd. “In the wintertime, it gets really busy. I think it’s because people aren’t eating lunch out on the patios then.”
Delucci tended to a lone lunch diner, who sat at the 16-seat gray marble bar that’s lined at the end closest to the door with copies of the Boston Globe, New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Mooo… is a restaurant that’s attached to a four-star hotel, XV Beacon, so it attracts an international crowd, business types, and government workers along with the locals.
Delucci likes to talk to the customers. About 25 percent of the customers who come to Mooo… are from the neighborhood. Delucci can tell the business crowd from the locals, just by what they order. Locals order the less expensive items on the menu. The other day, a customer was talking about the economy. “He’s a stockbroker. He said, ‘Remember this date. This is going to be the worst crisis in U.S. history. Please take care of your job.’”
Mooo… apparently treats its staff well, since it has kept 76 of its original 80-person crew. “They are part of our family,” says manager Diego Rivera. “We depend on them, and on their level of responsibility and professionalism.”
The staff of Mooo… has built a portfolio of rave reviews, to prove its successful move from its predecessor, the highly regarded Federalist.
“It’s a totally different feel” from its days as the Federalist, says Rivera. “The Federalist had a great start, but it didn’t seem to be doing what it was expected to do. They decided to change the concept, and brought new life to it with a fresh revitalization to the entire restaurant.”
The new restaurant’s décor is Asian inspired, with almost an entire absence of dark-wood steakhouse colors to create an airiness in the 60-seat dining room. Mammano changed the Federalist’s mostly seafood menu to Mooo…’s meat-centric lineup. “The chef definitely thinks outside of the box with cuts of steak and meat,” says Rivera.
Chef David Hutton, with 23 years of experience, five at Mistral with Mammano, was surprised to discover that he had a lot to learn about what makes a great steak. He figured out how to check for fat marbling, perfected his searing method, and experimented on how long to let it rest to maintain moisture. “I thought it would be easier than this,” says Hutton.
He researched farms and tasted more than 60 steaks before they opened the place. “My doctor told me to have salads for six months,” he jokes. Finally, he tried out his recipes for three days on family and friends until he perfected his recipe. His goal? “To knock the guests’ socks off,” he says.
Apparently, that’s what they are doing.
The best selling items are the filet mignon and beef Wellington, although Hutton recommends the $46 grass-fed prime sirloin from Painted Hills, New York, or the $49 pepper crusted prime sirloin au poivre. All of the steaks are served with roasted garlic and bone-marrow butter tucked into the bone.
Many customers go for the flight of sides, which during autumn will be whipped Yukon gold potato, creamed spinach with parmesan foam, truffled parmesan fries, and locally forested mushrooms. The top-selling salad is the arugula, lemon and parmesan. Their new seared foie gras atop butternut squash soup became popular quickly. Hutton also plans to add an appetizer of black mission figs with prosciutto and apple balsamic vinegar.
A fair number also stampede to their Kobe beef, a “true 100 percent Kobe beef from Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan,” which is $120 for six ounces. They buy two sirloin shells of Kobe a month, cut out the centers of the $78-a-pound sirloins, and sell about 50 steaks a month.
“Our prices are reasonable compared to other restaurants in the area and New York,” says Hutton. “We sear it, slice it on a plate, add no sauce, no oil. It’s $35 an ounce at some places. We don’t make any money on it. That’s okay, because we’re about providing a service for our guests. No one says the steak is too small.”
But that’s a pricy leftover, and that’s where the chef came up with the most popular item on the appetizer list, the steamed kobe dumplings with garlic and ginger soy sauce, sprinkled with micro cilantro. “You need a spoon,” says Hutton. He insisted on it, and it was well worth spooning up the sauce, which was not just a dip for the dumplings, but a rich Asian soup laced with Kobe juices and fat.
“I have really learned a lot about steak in the past year and a half,” he said. Now it’s fall, and the roof herb garden is nearly depleted, so he turns to perfecting a comfort-food menu, including the introduction of dry-aged, bone-in prime steak once he decides on a supplier. “That’s the gamut of steak,” he says.
Other fall items include a veal porterhouse with a side of gorgonzola polenta with truffle oil served bubbling in a crock. He plans to add lobster to their take on macaroni and cheese. Salads will include more seasonal ingredients, and he hopes to encourage more customers to try the mussels and chorizo soup. “People don’t get the mussels, but when they do, they rave about it,” Hutton says.
Vegetarians need not avoid Hutton’s steakhouse, because he promises to whip up off-menu items beyond the salad-and-pasta standbys, like interesting things with polenta, fall veggies, and quinoa. He became excited talking about his mushroom distributor who is bringing him fungi with names like chicken of the wood. “You’d swear it tasted like chicken,” says Hutton.
It’s this kind of excitement over ingredients that turns curious first-time diners into regulars on a first-name basis with staff, says the manager. But Rivera also says it’s the level of service that diners also have come to expect and enjoy. The waitstaff crumb the tables, change the glassware, and anticipate a customer’s needs without being overbearing. “We don’t have the ‘Is everything ok?’ question as they pass by the table,” says Rivera. “I’ve sat down with guests and had conversations with them. We want the feedback, so we can put in the right items. I want to create that bond. Creating that comfort zone with our guests is what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
As a result, Rivera says their delivery, food quality and service is five-star quality, although they currently are rated at Mobil’s four-star level, and four diamonds with AAA. “I think it’s just because we’re still new,” he says.

CAPTION: One of the many pets that is seen by Harbor Veterinarian House Calls.

If you’re in the West End, maybe you’ve seen Paula Zingarelli walking her sphynx cat, Kojak, in a kitty carriage, around Charles River Park. Well, Kojak needed a new veterinarian, when their former vet could no longer make home visits.
Zingarelli noticed that one vet also had a sphynx, so they chose Harbor Vets House Calls. “Since they are not your usual pet, a lot of vets do not know about them,” she said. “That drew me to them.”
Harbor Veterinary House Calls is run by Dr. Maija “Dr. Mik” Mikkola Curtis, 35, and Dr. Emily Neenan, 27, who launched it in April for dogs and cats around Boston and surrounding areas.
They had both worked at Johnson Veterinarian Hospital in Lawrence, when Curtis had an idea to do a house call service. Neenan described working in an animal hospital as “very removed and cold and sterile.” They wanted to work together, and since then, they’ve been building their house call service.
Zingarelli invited the two vets over for a meet-and-greet. “I thought it would be a good way of meeting them to see how they interacted with him [Kojak],” she said. The two spent a while just getting to know Kojak, then Dr. Mik asked if she could hold him. “His heart was racing and you could tell he was afraid, but within a few minutes he calmed down and she just held him in her arms and he just stayed there,” Zingarelli said. “I was very happy and impressed with them.”
Caring for pets in the home is not only a way to avoid overhead costs, but it’s also a more humane way to treat pets that are often confused and stressed at the steel counters and strange, rival animals at the vet’s office or hospital.
“It’s incredibly rewarding,” said Dr. Neenan. “We get to spend more time with customers.”
Home vet visits offer convenience for families who can keep their kids at home, their pets in a comfortable environment, and even get several pets seen at the same time, for a discounted rate. Plus, you get two doctors for the price of one, they emphasize.
“Some pets get motion sickness on the car ride. That’s not the best way to start a visit,” said Neenan. “They aren’t stressed out. If there are behavior issues, like the cats are destroying things or going outside the litter box, it’s easier to decipher what’s wrong.”
She added, “We have the kind of services we’d want with our own pets.”
"Dr. Mik" has two cats, Bella and Dante, and two dogs, Charlie and Dodger. Neenan has two dogs, Lily and Finch, and a cat named Monk.
The two make about one to five visits a day, which means fewer patients but more patience with pets. “We have more time to see them,” she said. “It’s a totally different mentality. It’s incredibly flexible for everyone involved.”
Services include nail trims and shots, ear cleanings and de-wormings, and new kitten and new puppy packages. The prices are comparable to vet office visits, because the vets have no overhead or administrative staff, but they do charge a travel fee also. They come by with the car stocked with supplies, a prescription pad, and if the problem is more serious, usually they’ll do triage on the phone before they visit, and send the family to a nearby pet hospital, such as Angel Memorial. In the worst case, they are equipped to put the pet to sleep in the home.
“Most people that we see are grateful for the extra time and effort we put toward their pets, the convenience of our service and the time we take with them to be as complete as possible,” said Neenan. “We help them understand what is going on with their pets- from managing chronic diseases to preventing them from occurring in the first place.”
Zayna Gold, program director at Newbury Street’s Boston Body Pilates, is a self-described “Brangelina of the animal world,” who recently adopted two cockapoos, Cookie and Brownie, and two Siberian cats, Mischa and Cinda. Soon after, she called up Harbor Vets for some education and “handholding”. “Emily has been so patient with our new animal kingdom,” said Gold. “The first month, I was paranoid about any little thing, and she came over and treated them with so much knowledge, and she did not make me feel ridiculous at all.”

CAPTION: Gary Drug’s new sign is by Maggie Holtzberg.

There’s a new hand-carved wooden sign outside of Gary Drug, the Charles Street independent pharmacy established in 1939. The sign was created by Boston artist Gneal Widett of Artistic Sign & Carving Company.
Another of Widett’s handcrafted signs is currently featured in Keepers of Tradition: Art and Folk Heritage In Massachusetts, an exhibition running through February 8 at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington. Drawing on eight years of fieldwork by folklorists at the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), the exhibition features more than 100 works by 70 Massachusetts artists who preserve and revitalize deeply rooted traditions. Reflecting the populace of Massachusetts, their art takes many expressive forms—from Native American basketry to Yankee wooden boats, Armenian lace, Chinese seals, Puerto Rican santos, and Irish music and dance. More information is available at www.massfolkarts.org.
Widett has been making hand-carved signs for local businesses since the 1970s. Some of the best-known landmark signs of Boston are his creations. These imaginative signs evoke the colonial era, when merchants advertised their wares and services with pictures or three-dimensional representations outside their shops, enticing a populace of limited literacy. Widett works with his wife, Janet Lomartire, who does the painting and gilding while he designs and carves signs.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council is a state agency that promotes excellence, access, education and diversity in the arts, humanities and interpretive sciences, in order to improve the quality of life for all Massachusetts residents and contribute to the economic vitality of our communities.

CAPTION: Students pick up some foreign language skills by browsing the library at the Torit Montessori School on Bromfield Street.

The newly-licensed Torit Montessori School on Bromfield Street has opened its doors this month, adding desperately needed new daycare and preschool slots for parents and their little pumpkins.
So far, the school has 11 children, including several from the area, and most are parents who work downtown. The low numbers ensure an enviable low teacher-to-student ratio. What makes the school unique, however, is its focus on teaching their students foreign languages and music concepts to give them an edge in learning.
Kristen Mansharamani, executive director of the school, has a Yale degree in ethics, politics and economics, with a focus on Chinese language and international relations, and a Harvard law degree. She worked as a consultant in public finance, and as an attorney at Ropes and Gray until 2006.
How did that career path lead to early childhood education? She wished to instill her vision of a base Montessori curriculum with foreign language and music exposure. “I am not teaching, but, rather, am putting together fabulous teams of teachers and independent advisers,” she says.
The school teaches Spanish, Chinese and Arabic, languages that the director says she hopes “will be open doors to many types of work opportunities that may present themselves to our children 20 years from now.”
The Music Together program encourages children to play instruments, sing songs, and encourages parents to help with a songbook, CD and guidebook. Laura Sabini, who studied with the Center for Music and Young Children in Princeton, directs the music program, Groovy Baby Music, which offers Music Together Preschool classes at the Torit School. "We seek to create a community of music-makers by providing excellent teachers, materials and classroom resources in a developmentally appropriate, engaging and fun, participatory environment that supports and nurtures music development in young children," says Sabini.
According to research, language and music skills at early ages may improve multi-tasking abilities, abstract thinking skills that help science and math aptitude, verbal performance on measures like SATs, and even increased gray matter, says Mansharamani.
“Our goal is to expose children to the sounds and syntax of these languages that may be far from their everyday. What we know is that hearing a language at an early age aids the later ability to speak the language as a native speaker. . .even if vocabulary is forgotten and relearned later.”
Dr. Suzanne Flynn, a long-standing faculty member of the MIT Department of Linguistics, is a member of the school’s advisory board. Says Dr. Flynn, "[One] of the greatest gifts that a parent can give a child is the opportunity to become multilingual. The benefits last a lifetime."
Rod Wagner, who works downtown at Bank of America, lives in Fort Point Channel with his wife and son, Jack, who is 2 ½. When they were looking for schools, they knew one of the teachers at Torit, and looked into that school and others in the area.
“I love it there,” he says. “She has a very good concept. “They’ve taken a lot of good parts from other schools and created this. We did look at other schools … after a few meetings with the teachers, we were very happy.”
Plus, he says, the school provides lunch, which he says is huge.
Because of limited preschool slots in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill area, many area schools have an extensive application process to accept new students. Torit is a first-come, first accepted kind of school.
“I know that all of the area schools regret that it has been a difficult process for parents,” says the director. “We are happy to take them if they’re obviously interested. We want to be part of the solution for working parents.”
The school has three full-time staff members who either have or are in the process of obtaining master's degrees, with another full-time and part-time teacher to be hired. Four independent language and music teachers will come there for one hour a day.
“We do not employ teaching assistants at this point, so every child is with a wonderfully educated and experienced teacher,” says the director.
The Montessori style of education on the Pre-K and earlier level is designed to introduce concepts often reserved for early elementary. Concepts are introduced intuitively through materials that invite the children to manipulation and discovery.
The program is designed to meet the needs of working parents, with hours of operation from 7:30 a.m. – 6 p.m., for infants through Pre-K. Children may come for two-three days a week, or full-time. Parents are invited to stop in during the day to nurse or participate in music or language classes.
Tuition at the pre-school level ranges from $1,250 per month for three days a week to $2,400 a month for full-day, five days a week. Tuition at other age levels differs slightly.
“We are a very small program at the moment, meaning lots of personal attention to the children as we get started,” said the director. “We have 11 families enrolled, some of them part-time. We are still accepting enrollments, both for immediate enrollment and for a January start date.”

When J. Kevin Sheehan was invited back to his prep school alma mater to address the upper school students, the theme of his speech was that the principles you learn in your youth that are transcendent and powerful - in which you create teachers and leaders and value - lead you your entire life.
Those principles of leadership, scholarship, and character formed the foundation for Sheehan’s extraordinary experiences in his life, which has been filled with superior academic achievement and distinction in the retail, real estate, and nonprofit arenas.
Sheehan, who graduated from Yale and holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School, has written a book on leadership: “A Leader Becomes A Leader: Stories of Inspiration Leadership for a New Generation”. The book, which has received rave reviews, is available in Barnes and Nobles and other stores. Sheehan will be signing copies of the book Thursday, October 16, at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge.
In the author’s introduction of his book, Sheehan writes: “We have all been moved at some point in our lives by great leadership. It is as organic a part of the human landscape as a sudden waterfall or the deep mystery of a majestic canyon in its nature. You often don’t know it’s coming. You will never forget its impact.”
Sheehan believes Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” essays changed the minds and philosophies of the most consequential leaders of the 20th century such as Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela.
“What Thoreau found in nature were transcendent, civilizing, and universal principles about beauty, peace, truth, and justice, and what I found in writing the book is that it’s an adherence to those principles, making those principles the core of a leader’s lifework. Those that we remember as the transcendent great leaders make these civilizing human principles the core of their work and the core of their daily life.”
Sheehan writes in individual chapters about the virtues of leadership of 70 internationally known leaders, extolling, for example, the perseverance of Abraham Lincoln, the instincts of Winston Churchill, the genius of Albert Einstein, the imagination of Walt Disney, and work ethic of Michael Jordan.
Sheehan has had wide-ranging experiences in business following his graduation from Yale, where he recalls taking a drama class with internationally known actress and alumna Jodie Foster.
After Yale, he was a producer and musician (he plays the guitar and is a singer) and worked at Walt Disney Studios in California. At the age of 27, he began his studies at Harvard Business School (HBS).
It was while he was at Harvard that Sheehan and a classmate wrote a business plan designed to bring music to the baby boom generation. One of their HBS professors, Dr. Len Schlesinger, became the business plan’s overseer.
Sheehan thus became the founder of Starbucks Hear Music, the “Sound of Starbucks” and features the work of such legendary artists as Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, and Joni Mitchell in more than 15,000 retail stores.
“It was a good success and it’s a consumer brand that’s lasted 18-plus years,” said Sheehan.
Since 2000, Sheehan has built an award-winning residential real estate brokerage practice in partnership with Coldwell Banker. He is a member of Coldwell Banker’s prestigious International President’s Circle and has closed over $54 million in real estate transactions in the Cambridge-Belmont-Arlington area.
Why the transition from the music and entertainment industry to real estate?
“I wanted to have a meditative, quiet life so I could write the book, and a local business presence that would allow me to do that,” said Sheehan.
Sheehan has been very active in the nonprofit sector, drawing commendation for his volunteerism and generosity. He created a tutoring and mentoring program for juveniles in the Boston youth prison system. He serves as the executive director for the Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund, an organization that successfully transitions 200 families and individuals from homeless shelters to permanent housing every year.
Sheehan has also served on the board of directors of the Passims Cultural Center in Cambridge, an arts institution dedicated to the cultivation and preservation of folk music.
Sheehan’s book on leadership is seen as a validation of his success in business, commitment to excellence in all aspects of his career, determination to reach goals, and his wanting to inspire others.
“The book was six-and-a-half years in the making,” said Sheehan. “I think the book touches a lot of the core issues of leadership that we’re now beginning to evolve to – which are how do you lead authentically, selflessly, and get beyond politics and parochialism and make a difference. This book is about the spirit of leadership.”
Sheehan is excited about the response the book has generated thus far.
“The book has spoken to a pretty broad audience, and I’m really thrilled with what the book is. I think the book connects to the best in people and brings out their emotion and their hope for a better world and a better future,” he said.
Sheehan’s favorite quote in the book is from Brazil’s legendary soccer star, Pele.
“Pele said people come to him wanting to know how to be a great soccer player. Pele says, ‘I want to teach them how to be a great man.’’’
Sheehan dedicates his book to his wife, Kathy, chief advancement officer of Boys and Girls Club of Boston, “a woman of grace, generosity, wisdom, and kindness,” he said; their son, Dillon, a third-grader, “who is my source and my guide;” and to his parents, Jean and Jack, “whose collective heart and soul informed the making of this book.”