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Here’s a look inside the dishes at James Beard award-winning chef Karen Akunowicz’s new restaurant

By Dana Hatic

Karen Akunowicz, who took home a James Beard award in 2018 after years as executive chef and partner at Myers + Chang, says her first solo restaurant Fox & the Knife (28 W. Broadway, South Boston) “has always been something inside of me.” She went from conceptualizing to opening it within a year and a month, and to it she brings the same heart and dedication guests will recognize from her time at Myers + Chang.

An Italian neighborhood joint, Fox & the Knife is a return to familiar territory for Akunowicz, who spent a year learning pasta-making in Modena, Italy, and later worked at Michael Schlow’s now-closed Via Matta, an Italian restaurant that operated in Boston’s Back Bay. Dishes at Fox & the Knife — from breads cooked in cast-iron to hand-rolled pastas — reflect not just Akunowicz’s time living in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, but also traveling across the country. The varied regional influences are tinged with Akunowicz’s thoughtful approach to food and dining.

Here, Eater dives into the specifics of several standout dishes from the current menu. Bear in mind that items may change slightly (including pasta shapes) from week to week, and look out for weekend brunch coming soon.

Aperitivo: Fox & the Knife is open for dinner daily at 5:30 p.m., but starting at 4 p.m., it offers a light menu of snacks and cocktails. The selections are available a la carte, priced between $1 and $7, so with some mixing and matching, it is more than enough to tide visitors over until dinner.

Pictured is an Aperol spritz, a classic pre-dinner cocktail made with Aperol, Prosecco, and a splash of soda, served with a twist of orange. Aperitivo options include marinated olives, prosciutto, fried chickpeas (served warm with an airy quality reminiscent of mini beignets), or house-made ricotta with grilled bread. One of the special touches is the tigelle — a disc-shaped bread typical of Modena, Italy, which Akunowicz describes as a cross between a crumpet and an English muffin. The tigelle are made on the stove, seven at a time, and served warm with butter.

“We have a tigelle iron that I brought back from Italy 10 years ago,” Akunowicz says. “It looks like a stovetop waffle iron. You can get electric ones, but that’s what we have — that’s our whole thing, we take what we have and we do our very best with it.”

The bread options don’t stop with tigelle: Akunowicz and her team also prepare a house-made focaccia drizzled in oil and stuffed with oozing melted taleggio.