Restaurant of the Year - Boston Globe

Restaurant of the year: Comfort Kitchen

In Uphams Corner, there is a restaurant that expresses with depth and deliciousness what food can mean to us: It can nourish and delight. It can tell a story. It can create community. At Comfort Kitchen, both food and drink menus are built around the concept of diaspora, tracing and connecting ingredients and dishes dispersed by slavery, trade, immigration. Cafe by day and restaurant by night, it serves its neighborhood at a range of price points. A Black-, immigrant-, and woman-owned business, it invites everyone in with warmth and welcome. And in a city where culinary creativity and the stretching of boundaries can be stifled by exorbitantly expensive liquor licenses, high rents, and other hurdles, it is thriving, independent and one-of-a-kind. In other words, it is proof of concept. This is the kind of restaurant Boston wants and needs.

Jerk roasted duck at Comfort Kitchen in Uphams Corner.LANE TURNER/GLOBE STAFF