What qualities must a restaurant have to be deemed “legendary?”
For Taste Atlas, a website with reviews of thousands of restaurants and “global flavors,” the legendary eateries are ones “that have remained relevant and highly regarded in an ever-changing culinary landscape.”
Union Oyster House, the longstanding Boston restaurant, was named by Taste Atlas as the 43rd most legendary establishment globally. That’s out of the group’s list of 150. The restaurant’s storied past, owner Joe Milano told the Herald, plays a vital role in its legendary status.
“I’m speechless,” Milano said about the top 50 ranking. “I think it’s wonderful and I know we’re iconic…One thing I would also say is that we are the only restaurant that is a national historic landmark.”
The eatery, formally established in 1826, is the oldest restaurant with continuous service in the United States. To put that near-200-year-old date into perspective, no municipal records of the building’s construction have been found.
Milano, a global traveler who has ventured to a handful of restaurants on the Taste Atlas list, said others ranked by the company have their historic importance as well, but Union Oyster House is the only one with an official, national designation.
Since beginning his tenure with the restaurant in 1970, Milano said, the restaurant has doubled in size. The restaurant’s notoriety was one of the key elements in the city’s renaissance period during the 1970’s, according to Milano.
“Boston was on no one’s radar in the country,” he said. “Basically, the city came alive in the 70’s and what people did was invest in their own equity.”
Milano compared his experience with the restaurant to that of a museum curator, with plenty of people coming to take in an integral piece of the city’s storied past. He also discussed some ways he and his staff allow the restaurant to continue thriving down the line.
“It tends to be very much that way with people taking pictures inside and outside of the building,” he said. “But in staying up to date, I have a full-time maintenance person and keep everything in good order.”
Surviving the pandemic, he said, was another challenge Union Oyster House tackled, with Milano saying the business being in better shape than before COVID.
“I think we have the best team I’ve ever had,” he said. “I’ve never seen people happier. And that’s beyond my feelings, but my expression that I observed with the staff and the help. We really are legendary in every sense of the word.”