Author: Siena Griffin

Newton has its first Michelin-recommended restaurant.

Thistle & Leek is among 26 Greater Boston restaurants featured in the new Michelin Guide Boston 2025. The British-inspired gastropub in Newton Centre, which opened in 2020, is the only Newton restaurant in Michelin’s first-ever Boston dining guide.

Thistle & Leek—a “true neighborhood gem” with “a kitchen that doesn’t cut corners,” says Michelin’s entry—is the effort of chef-owners Kate and Trevor Smith, who have been together for 17 years.

“It’s a long-standing, worldwide, highly respected guide, so it means a lot to be part of it,” Kate, 42, said. “We’re just hoping it keeps us nice and busy, and a place that people want to work.”

Michelin’s selection process is “very secretive,” Kate said, and the restaurant’s mention in the guide came as a surprise. Michelin inspectors dine anonymously and pay for their own meals to fly under the radar and keep their opinions independent.

A note sent to Thistle & Leek’s general information email invited Kate and Trevor to the Michelin Guide Northeast Cities Ceremony in Philadelphia on Nov. 18.

“We showed up to the ceremony not really knowing what to expect at all,” Kate said. “It was pretty amazing to be on the stage with a group of extremely talented chefs and just to be recommended by Michelin.”

Recognition from Michelin is a “huge honor,” Kate said, but accolades were never the goal for Thistle & Leek.

“We’ve never done any of what we do with the hopes of getting that recognition,” she said. “[Michelin is] looking for people who are true to themselves, who are cooking what means something to them, cooking something that is inspiring to them.”

Trevor, 43, said he thinks Michelin values unique stories and themes in the restaurants it recognizes.

“Our food definitely has a personality and a style in and of itself,” he said. “There’s a classical European theme that runs through it, and that is reflective of our travels and who we are as people and where we’ve cooked previously.”

Thistle & Leek was inspired most by the couple’s honeymoon, Trevor said. During three months traveling across Europe, they ate at a handful of neighborhood restaurants run by people who had worked previously in Michelin-starred establishments—gastropubs in England, bistros in France. 

The restaurant’s name is an ode to the couple’s ancestry. The thistle is the national flower of Scotland, where much of Kate’s ancestry is from, and the leek is a symbol of Wales, where much of Trevor’s ancestry is from, Kate said.

Thistle & Leek’s small-plates format was born from Trevor’s experience cooking at Coppa, an Italian small-plates enoteca in the South End, and Kate’s at Toro, a South End tapas restaurant. Toro also earned a recommendation in the new Boston Michelin Guide.

“Both of us have come from fine-dining backgrounds, where tasting menus were king,” Trevor said. “In a way, small plates are that tasting menu, slightly shifted.”

Kate and Trevor met working at a French fine-dining restaurant, the now-closed Craigie Street Bistro in Cambridge. Owning a restaurant together had been “a goal for a long time,” Trevor said, before they opened Thistle & Leek in Newton Centre in September 2020.

“Working together is hard,” Kate said. “We see each other all the time, but it’s also in the context of the stress of the day-to-day work. But we also can’t imagine doing anything else.”

This is the first time Michelin has recognized Boston with its own dining guide. The South End’s 311 Omakase, a Japanese restaurant, earned the city its first and only Michelin Star.

Michelin released its first North American guide in 2005 for New York and has since expanded its guides for cities and regions across the continent, including Chicago, Toronto and the American South. Its highest award is the Michelin Star, marking exceptional cuisine, but it also distinguishes restaurants as “recommended.”

The arrival of Michelin in Boston is a push for Boston-area restaurants to “up their game and make us a more recognizable city,” Trevor said. It gives restaurants a feat to aspire to and keeps those on the guide determined to return next year.

Thistle & Leek is one of three restaurants on the Boston guide not located in Boston or Cambridge. The others are Mahaniyom, a Thai restaurant in Brookline, and Nightshade Noodle Bar, a French- and Vietnamese-inspired seafood restaurant in Lynn.

Newton is a “perfect spot” between Boston and the MetroWest suburbs, Kate said.

“We have a lot of loyal regulars, faces we see all the time. It really feels like a neighborhood restaurant, and this neighborhood has been very good to us,” she said.

Thistle & Leek is already experiencing the effects of the Michelin nod. Reservations have spiked, weekends are booked until the end of the year, and a boost in applicants looking to work in a Michelin-lauded kitchen, Trevor said.

Regardless of the Michelin nod, Trevor and Kate are engaged in a “continual process of always trying to up our game,” he said. Ultimately, Thistle & Leek’s goal remains unchanged.

“The fact that they, out of the blue, recognized us for doing what we do every day, I think that’s it,” Trevor said. “We just keep doing what we do every day to be included next year.”

This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

The Newtonville MBTA station will undergo long-awaited renovations in the spring, but people who rely on the rail are still waiting to hear how the work will affect their commutes.

The MBTA announced in November 2024 that it would spend $50 million to renovate the Newtonville commuter rail station. The timeline called for the design to be finalized by late 2025, with construction to begin early in 2026.

The project website was updated last week to say that early construction work will start in spring 2026, after the Newton Beacon began inquiring into the progress. The most recent event listed on the site is from April 2024.

The transit authority hasn’t figured out whether it can keep the station open during construction, according to an MBTA spokesperson. The project schedule is still in development, so it’s not clear how long construction will take.

Meanwhile, the MBTA has scheduled a public meeting about the project at Newton City Hall on Dec. 11 at 6 p.m.

Some commuters have questions in the meantime.

“How long is the construction going to take, and does that mean that the station is going to be closed?” asked Jeff Pagliano, 50. “Or is it going to be something [like] we’re going to have to go to West Newton in order to access it?”

Pagliano commutes from the Newtonville station to the Back Bay station twice a week to attend a graduate program at Emerson College. Pagliano—“a big believer in public transportation”—said he relies heavily on the commuter rail to get to Boston. 

“If the train wasn’t here, I simply wouldn’t be able to do it,” he said.

Erin Green, 17, is at the station almost every weekday to get to Boston Day and Evening Academy in Roxbury. The station definitely needs an update, she said, but it’s “confusing” to not have dates for the construction.

“Right now, this is my only way to school,” she said. “If they are doing renovation, they should tell us when they’re doing it, so we can know how we’re getting back and forth.” 

Upgrades to the Newtonville station have been decades in the making, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said in an interview, and the renovation will be a “game-changer for the city of Newton.” 

Fuller said it’s too early to know the exact construction management plan, but the MTBA is “very serious” about providing buses when train service is impacted.

“We’ll stay on top of that the next few years and make sure that people can continue to use the service, even if the station requires it to be shut down during the construction,” Fuller said. 

The station has two tracks and one low-level, single-side platform, which can be accessed only by a steep set of stairs. The renovation will make the station fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“As somebody who lives in Newtonville, I’ve always been just shocked by the stairs that you have to take to get down to the platform,” said Jonathan Yeo, chief operating officer of the city of Newton. “Even for the most fit, enabled person, there is a challenge, and it is something that is years and years overdue.”

The renovation will add two accessible, high-level platforms and elevators to reach the station, among other features including benches, canopies, bicycle racks and dedicated pick-up and drop-off areas. 

“All three of the stations in Newton are inaccessible and have infrequent service because they only have single platforms,” Fuller said. A second platform will allow for “regular, two-way transit, so that people can get in and out of Newton in either direction, all day, every day.” 

Better service is what commuters most want to see from the renovations.

Moira Orr-Mullane, 27, lives near the station and commutes from Newtonville to South Station two to three times a week to her job in human resources at a software company.

“If the commuter rail ran more frequently, that would be amazing,” Orr-Mullane said. “If you miss one, you have to wait, like, an hour. You have to plan it out really well.”

On weekdays, outbound and inbound trains stop at the Newtonville station 14 times a day—half as frequently as South Station, which sees 28 trains a day. The same is true of Newton’s other commuter rail stations, Auburndale and West Newton.

More popular stations like South and Back Bay are bound to have more service, but Newtonville sees two-thirds the service of stations in other Boston suburbs. By comparison, the train runs inbound from Natick Center and from Wellesley’s three stations 21 times a day, as of the 2025 fall and winter schedule. 

Alexis Armstrong, 27, said for the last few months, the train has consistently been at least 10 to 15 minutes late when she commutes to South Station to get to her job at a nonprofit. 

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, the scheduled 8:48 a.m. inbound train arrived in Newtonville about 15 minutes late. 

Armstrong said she’s in favor of service improvements but worries disruptions to service that might result from construction would impact her already-difficult commute.

“This is my only way to get to work,” said Armstrong, who lives in Watertown. “It’s already difficult, the schedules with the commuter line, and so any impact to the schedules would definitely impact my daily commute.”

Olivier Bouissou, 44, moved to Newton Highlands from Paris a year ago. Compared to the Paris Metro, he said Boston’s transit is “very bad.” He said he welcomes renovations to improve the service and comfort of the Newtonville station. 

“The station is freezing cold in the winter, and the trains are often late,” he said. “The more they can do, the better.”

Bouissou commutes from Newtonville Station to South Station four days a week to his job in the Seaport District. His alternative would be to take the Green Line from Newton Centre, adding a half hour to his commute. He said it’s important to know what the train’s service will be during construction. 

“If we could have that information by the end of the year or a couple of months before they start the real construction, that will be very helpful,” he said. 

Anticipating a lapse in funding for the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, Newton’s food pantries are bracing for a surge in residents seeking help.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps, provides monthly food benefits to low-income individuals and families across the U.S. The Trump administration said it would not replenish SNAP benefits for November if the federal government shutdown, which began Oct. 1, didn’t end before Saturday.

“The well has run dry,” reads a message on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website.

While the shutdown continues, two federal judges ruled Friday that the Trump administration must keep SNAP funds flowing. Trump posted on social media later Friday that he needs clarity from the courts on how to do that and indicated that there would nevertheless be delays in providing benefits. The Trump administration has not said whether it will appeal Friday’s ruling.

Given the uncertainty, it is unclear whether and when benefits will be cut off and when November’s SNAP funding might come.

Meanwhile, Gov. Maura Healey announced Thursday that Massachusetts will double the aid it provides to local food pantries and food banks, bringing that funding to $8 million.

In Newton, Centre Street Food Pantry is preparing for a 35% surge in household visits to the pantry in November, whether that’s registered households visiting more often or new ones signing up.

“Without SNAP as their lifeline, they are going to need more food,” said Rose Saia, executive director of Centre Street Food Pantry. 

More than 40 million low-income people in the U.S. rely on SNAP, according to the USDA. One million of them reside in Massachusetts.

Leran Minc, director of public policy at Project Bread, a Massachusetts food security organization, said he’s concerned that smaller local organizations will be “overrun” if SNAP benefits lapse.

“If the pantry is experiencing higher than usual demand, they’re going to have to either turn people away and say, ‘We don’t have any food,’ or ‘We’re going to have to give everybody a lot less food,’” Minc said.

In Newton, about 4,200 residents rely on SNAP, said Jeff Lemberg, executive director of Newton Food Pantry, an independent, nonprofit food bank based in Newton Centre. 

“That is a lot of people who are going to need additional assistance to put healthy food on their tables,” he said.

Through walk-ins, appointments and deliveries, Newton Food Pantry serves more than 2,500 people across 1,000 households in Newton. It supplied 85,500 bags of groceries to them last year.

“We’re seeing more and more people coming to us for help,” he said. “Now, given the end of SNAP benefits for the month of November at least, we need to step up, and we are stepping up to help as many people as we can.”

Newton Food Pantry, established in 1983, has seen a “sizable number” of residents registering for assistance this year, Lemberg said. Over the past couple of weeks, about two dozen new people signed up.

The pantry purchases all the food it stocks, so Lemberg said it will have to ramp up November spending to address SNAP’s absence. They’re dipping into savings and seeking financial and food donations to make that possible.

Meanwhile, Centre Street Food Pantry has a monthly food budget of about $20,000, with which it serves 4,400 people across 1,100 households in Brookline, Needham, Newton, Waltham, Watertown and Wellesley, Saia said. Centre Street is adapting to meet the anticipated increase in demand for its services.

Centre Street will extend its Tuesday and Saturday hours for the month of November. It is also reaching out to community groups, such as Family Access of Newton and Boys & Girls Clubs, to develop distribution partnerships to get more food to the community, Saia said.

With Thanksgiving approaching, the need for well-stocked, functioning food pantries is especially great.

Lemberg and Saia said their food pantries are busier in November due to the holiday. The holiday season combined with the loss of SNAP benefits means the pantries will require a larger food stock and more volunteers.

“Everybody wants to be sure, both those who give to us and those who come to us, that everybody has a good Thanksgiving meal,” Saia said.

Centre Street will purchase whole turkeys to give to large families with five or more people this year. Saia said it is also sourcing chickens, pies and cranberry sauce, and encouraging the community to hold food drives for traditional Thanksgiving foods.

“We’re going to try and send everybody home with something extra for the holidays,” Saia said.

For food pantries, absorbing the impact of political and economic circumstances isn’t new.

Because of previous U.S. Department of Agriculture funding cuts, Saia said, Centre Street lost much of the free proteins and dairy it used to receive. Without USDA supplies, Centre Street shifted to rely more on its own budget, free items from the Greater Boston Food Bank, wholesale and donation relationships, and the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program.

“That’s what we do. We fill the gap,” Saia said. “And now there’s a new gap.”

But food banks and anti-hunger organizations can only do so much to fill the gap in the plan to address hunger. For every one meal that the anti-hunger nonprofit Feeding America provides, SNAP provides nine.

“SNAP was a big part of that plan,” Saia said. “And it’s going to be gone, and that’s going to leave a crater in its place.”

This article was originally published on November 2.

“No questions. No judgment. Just support,” reads a flyer taped to a rack of challah and sandwich loaves outside Blacker’s Bakeshop in Newton Centre. Next to it is a table whose spread includes apricot babka, orange cranberry loaves, pita and frozen soup.

The community table at Blacker’s Bakeshop, located at 543 Commonwealth Ave., offers fresh bread and other baked goods that didn’t sell that day for anyone to take, free of charge and no questions asked, on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons. The table started Nov. 2 after the federal government shutdown caused a lapse in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative, which supports 42 million Americans and 1 million in Massachusetts. 

“As soon as we heard that the current administration was canceling SNAP benefits and other food assistance programs for people in need, it really just triggered basically everything we stand for,” said Rebecca Blacker, manager of Blacker’s Bakeshop, a family-owned bakery established in 2008.

Amid a weeks-long legal battle over SNAP funding, Gov. Maura Healey said Monday that Massachusetts has restored benefits to recipients. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is appealing to the Supreme Court to keep SNAP funding frozen, as the federal government shutdown continues. The shutdown is over, though, after the Senate voted Monday night to reopen the government and the House passed that deal on Wednesday night.

Blacker’s Bakeshop, which is nut-free, dairy-free and kosher pareve, sets up the table outside its storefront after close, on Sundays from 2 to 3:30 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

With food banks likely to see an increase in need this month, Blacker said the bakeshop aims to be another location for food assistance.

“We’re not just a place to purchase baked goods. We really know our customers, and we have known them for a very long time,” Blacker said. “You mess with our customers, you mess with us, and it just felt like a natural thing to be able to do for them.”

To bolster the spread of leftover goods from that day’s bake, anyone can also donate $5 to “Sponsor a Challah,” which adds a fresh loaf of challah to an upcoming table.

“People will just hand us, you know, $100 like, ‘However many challahs this will do, go for it,’” Blacker said.

Blacker estimated dozens of people stopped by the table to take goods in its first two sessions Nov. 2 and 5. Whatever is left on the community table is donated to local food banks or Jewish Family Services, she said.

When the Blackers asked if Inna’s Kitchen, the bakeshop’s next-door neighbor, wanted to participate in the community table, owner Alex Khitrik’s answer was “absolutely.”

Inna’s Kitchen donates some of its frozen soups, gluten-free bread and prepared foods — food that’s still good but wasn’t sold that day — to the community table, in addition to Blacker’s Bakeshop’s baked goods.

“Every dollar makes a difference when you’re just trying to make ends meet,” Khitrik said.

Inna’s Kitchen, which opened in 2011, is entirely kosher pareve and gluten-, dairy- and nut-free. Khitrik said he takes pride in providing food that people with allergies and dietary restrictions can enjoy.

“These types of foods also tend to be more expensive, whether it’s gluten free, whether it’s kosher, vegan, so it feels even more important to sort of help people who have those requirements,” he said.

Inna’s Kitchen frequently donates items to the Newton Community Freedge on Watertown Street, Khitrik said. In November, the store will donate 18% of its gift card sales to Newton Food Pantry. Lots of local stores donate 15%, he added, but in Judaism 18 represents good luck, and it’s common to donate or give gifts in multiples of 18.

Laura Bradford, who has worked at Blacker’s Bakeshop for 14 years, said the community table initiative is “such a beautiful thing.”

“It makes me so proud to be here and do this,” said Bradford, who works at the bakeshop in addition to teaching at a school in Brookline. “The community has been so generous.”

Bradford said some people assume SNAP cuts don’t impact people in Newton, where the median household income is nearly double the state median.

“You think, because it’s Newton, that there aren’t going to be people who are hungry, but there’s people hungry all over,” she said.

Blacker said the response from the community has been “so positive and so supportive.”

“I think it feels overwhelming for a lot of people to know that they want to do something and [are] not really sure what to do,” she said. “To be able to help an organization execute a program like this, they really appreciate it as well.”

Regardless of what happens with SNAP in the future, Blacker said the bakeshop plans to continue running the table. She also said other local restaurants have reached out about contributing food to the Community Table.

“It’s a simple thing that we can offer,” she said. “We’re happy to keep doing it for as long as people need.”

This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.