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 The Harvard Faculty Club has special plans for this special New Year's Eve. Photograph by Stu Rosner |
With big bangs and bursts of colors, First Night Boston will welcome the new year into town. But the customary midnight fireworks over Boston Harbor (and the special 7 p.m. fireworks salute on Boston Common)--along with the laser-light displays designed to transform familiar cityscapes; the towering ice sculptures; and the music and dance performances by more than 1,200 artists--will be just part of the festivities welcoming in (arguably) a new century and a new millennium.
The three-day festival, which runs from December 31 through January 2, will be Boston's twenty-fourth First Night, an arts-oriented citywide fete that has been replicated around the world. With many events free to the public, and all accessible with the purchase of a $20 First Night button sold at locations throughout the city, this is the biggest party in the region. But not the only one. Whether you believe the millennium begins on January 1, 2000, or a year later at the launch of 2001, this New Year's Eve will be one to celebrate, and chefs and hoteliers across the city have been frenetically busy putting together dream menus and parties for the big night.
"This is geared up to be the celebration," says chef K.C. O'Hara of the Harvard Faculty Club, which is opening its doors to the public for a special New Year's Eve dinner ($149 per person, including late-night reception) and 9 p.m. buffet reception ($99).
To ring in January 1 with style, O'Hara and his staff have designed a menu of "old favorites" (as he warmly describes the club's rack of lamb) and special new items. Both the dinner and the later reception will focus on New England seafood, with smoked beef tenderloin accompanied by various preparations of lobster and crab, which O'Hara proudly calls "the best in the world."
The planning, says the club's general manager, Heinrich Lutjens, began almost 18 months ago. The late-night reception that follows the dinner was envisioned as a sort of midnight breakfast to welcome in the new year. Although plans were still being finalized in early September, an air of celebration is already apparent. "It's very exciting," says Lutjens. "We have several teams working on the table decorations alone."
Around the corner, in Harvard Square's Up Stairs at the Pudding, owner Mary-Catherine Deibel is planning a "lovely, unrushed evening" that makes full use of the grand old Hasty Pudding Club's high-ceilinged elegance. To set the stage for a special New Year's Eve dinner (price to be determined), the restaurant's eighteenth, Deibel is calling in painter Katherine Bell, who created the room's decorative screens, to design commemorative plates which guests will be invited to take home as souvenirs. These works of art will, of course, first hold some of the restaurant's favorite dishes--such as the veal chop with Roman artichokes--and festive specials, such as caviar blinis. Uncommon touches throughout the evening, such as custom-made fortune cookies gilded with edible gold, will further mark the night as a once-in-a-lifetime event.
 Faculty Club chef K.C. O'Hara is building his festive menu around old favorites, such as rack of lamb, and special new items. Photograph by Stu Rosner |
The evening will end, as New Year's Eve regulars know, with the restaurant's traditional dance in front of the bar's grand fireplace. "It's a very theatrical and celebratory room," says Deibel. "And this year especially we are very grateful and in a celebratory mood."
Across the river, Boston hotels and restaurants are also offering celebratory evenings and weekend packages, many taking advantage of the citywide First Night activities. The Bay Tower, for example, will make full use of its panoramic harbor view, inviting New Year's Eve guests to enjoy the midnight fireworks from the warmth of the restaurant and its lounge. Music by jazz pianist David Crohan and his combo, Bay Tower regulars, will complete the mood.
"It's such a special event, I wanted to make a menu with the best of everything," says Bay Tower's executive chef, Kim Lambrechts. Each course, he promises, will offer a bit of innovation, whether the golden beets that will grace the terrine of foie gras or the foie gras and morel mousse that will accompany the roasted guinea fowl. "I want to make sure people remember the night," says the European-trained chef. Dinner guests are invited for either of two seatings, at 6 and 9 p.m., with diners from the early seating entitled to a reserved table in the lounge for the rest of the evening. Both groups ($300 per person for the early seating, $475 for the later, which includes parking fee, gratuities, and tax) will enjoy a five-course meal, champagne toast, and commemorative gift.
The Boston Harbor Hotel has come up with a range of festive options to accommodate both late-night partygoers and those who choose to end their Boston celebration with more sedate choices. In the hotel's Rowes Wharf Restaurant, guests who favor formality may opt for a black-tie gala dinner, which includes a six-course meal and peaks with a Dom Pérignon champagne toast to the new year ($500 per person). Those who prefer to kick up their heels between visits to the entrée station and the famous Viennese dessert table at the hotel's international buffet ($65) can choose to dance to the John Payne band at the hotel's café, Intrigue.
Two-night packages at a variety of prices offer willing revelers the option of extending their party at the hotel through the weekend. Guests can choose among packages that start at $2,000; the most luxurious is the three-night, $25,000 Presidential Luxury-Millennium Ensemble for four. In addition to the two-bedroom Presidential Suite, the ensemble provides breakfast, plush terry robes and hourlong full-body massages, chauffeur services, and other prime pamperings, including a private reception and dinner for eight.
Not to be outdone, Le Meridien also promises to ring in the new year with a host of possibilities for celebrants in Boston. Its two-night packages range from $999 on up, with such options as a "Swing Thing" to the music of Boston's acclaimed White Heat Orchestra or a Club Margaux evening with a gourmet meal followed by a night of dancing hosted by a video DJ. To one lucky couple, Le Meridien is offering the complete indulgence of the Ultimus package. The $50,000 extravaganza begins with a top-of-the-line stay in Boston over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day that includes a personal valet, spa treatments, and a New Year's Eve dinner for eight in the presidential suite, then tops that off with two nights in Le Méridien ƒtoile in Paris, first-class airfare and a dinner at Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower included. For those who are a bit wary of Parisians, a French tutor is available as part of the Boston weekend.
"We're trying to come up with something out of the ordinary, something that people will remember for the rest of their lives," says Le Meridien's general manager, Serge Denis. "The turn of a millennium, after all, happens only once in a lifetime."
For more information
First Night Boston 2000: www.firstnight.org
Harvard Faculty Club: www.hfc.harvard.edu/millennium.html
Up Stairs at the Pudding: www.upstairsatthepudding.com
Bay Tower: www.baytower.com/events.htm
Boston Harbor Hotel: www.bhh.com
Le Meridien: www.lemeridienboston.com
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