Urban Hearth Inman Square Opens Tonight at the Former Bukowski’s Cambridge Location

Urban Hearth Inman Square officially opened its doors tonight, and if you’ve been sleeping on this restaurant, tonight is your wake-up call.

Chef-owner Erin Miller has moved her Michelin-recommended restaurant from its original North Cambridge home to 1281 Cambridge Street — the address that housed Bukowski Tavern‘s Cambridge location before it closed in 2020. (The original Bukowski’s on Dalton Street in Boston is still very much alive.) The Urban Hearth Inman Square opening marks one of the most anticipated restaurant moves Greater Boston has seen this year.

What Urban Hearth Inman Square Actually Looks Like

The new space seats 60 people total, a significant upgrade from what Miller was working with in North Cambridge. There’s a six-seat chef’s counter, 10 bar seats, and a lounge-y “salon” section that gives the room a bit of breathing space between the main dining area and the bar.

Cambridge design studio Superette handled the interior. They pulled inspiration from New England’s forests and fields — walnut, granite, commissioned artwork from local artists, and a custom glass installation suspended above the bar. It sounds precious but in practice it lands as warm and considered rather than try-hard.

The previous Urban Hearth did not have a full bar. Urban Hearth Inman Square does. That is a meaningful change that opens up the experience considerably.

Why Erin Miller Is Worth Paying Attention To

Miller is a James Beard Award finalist, which alone puts her in rare company in the Boston restaurant world. What makes her cooking distinct is the locavore commitment — she works directly with local farms and builds menus around what’s actually available and in season rather than reverse-engineering dishes around ingredient orders.

The result is food that tastes like it came from somewhere specific. Not farm-to-table as a marketing concept, but farm-to-table as a genuine operating principle. That’s harder than it sounds and she does it consistently.

The North Cambridge original built a loyal following among people who discovered it, but the tight quarters kept it from reaching the audience it deserved. Urban Hearth has been Michelin-recommended for multiple years running. The new space is built to match that reputation.

The Old Bukowski’s Address

1281 Cambridge Street is worth noting. Bukowski Tavern’s Cambridge location was a beloved dive bar that occupied that corner for years before closing in 2020. It sat empty for a while. Watching that space become something like Urban Hearth Inman Square is the kind of neighborhood evolution that doesn’t feel like a loss — it feels like an upgrade with respect for what was there before.

Inman Square has quietly become one of the stronger food neighborhoods in Cambridge. It doesn’t get the press of Harvard or Central Square but the dining scene there is legitimate. Urban Hearth fits in naturally.

Getting a Reservation

Reservations are available now on OpenTable. Dinner service runs Tuesday through Sunday from 5pm to 10pm. This is not a walk-in situation, especially for the first few weeks. The chef’s counter will be the hardest seats to lock down.

If you’ve been meaning to try Urban Hearth since it was in North Cambridge and kept putting it off, this is the moment. The new space is the best version of what Miller has been building for years.

Go eat there. Book first.

Have you been to Urban Hearth before? Tell us what you think of the new space in the comments.