Two of RODE's restaurant projects, Southern Proper and Buttonwood, have been featured in Boston.com's "New Restaurants Local Chefs Are Excited About." Southern Proper features an open kitchen, swathed in reclaimed light pine wood, filled with personally curated tchotchkes, and contains lots of character-filled touches — like a bar-front wrapped in tin from an antique movie theater. Besides the vaulted ceiling, there are lots of large windows letting in plenty of sunlight for a bright, airy atmosphere. At Buttonwood, in the dining room, one wall is covered in wood paneling, the banquettes in dark blue pleather. Its gleaming wood floor gives way to black and white tiles on at the larger bar a
Southern Proper’s chef and proprietor Jason Cheek wants his restaurant to be a haven, a place where people can come after work and feel comfortable — a place where people can take a deep breath and relax. “The best way I knew how to do that was to use a lot of raw woods and to incorporate a lot of plant life,” said Cheek, an alum of Toro and the defunct KO Prime. “Relaxation is about getting away from the metal and glass. Smell the pine, smell the flowers, smell the smoke in the air.” The irony, of course, is that Southern Proper is housed in the Girard building (50 Malden St.), one of those new South End structures that’s not short on metal or glass. But cross the threshold from the concret
