by Marc Hurwitz
An award-winning Cambridge restaurant known in part for its French-influenced dishes--while also making the news over its wood-fired grill--is shutting down.
According to a source within the Friends of Boston's Hidden Restaurants Facebook group page, Shepard is closing its doors on December 31, with a post within the bostonchefs.com site confirming this as well. Both our source and bostonchefs.com indicate that a new restaurant will be opening in the Shepard Street space in January, and diners who have a Shepard gift card will be able to use them at the upcoming spot.
Shepard first opened in the spring of 2015, taking over the space between Porter Square and Harvard Square where Chez Henri had been. The eatery, which made it to Bon Appetit's list of top 50 new restaurants in 2016 along with Juliet in Somerville's Union Square, became embroiled in a controversy over its wood grill, with the Cambridge Health Department forcing the restaurant to switch over to gas cooking last year because of complaints from neighbors over smoke.
The address for Shepard is 2 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138.
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