On New Year’s Eve Boston’s iconic Back Bay restaurant, L’Espalier will close its doors after forty years. My husband casually mentioned this as we were eating dinner tonight much to my utter disappointment as I had hoped that we would return to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary this summer.

Ten years ago this coming August we eloped with a wedding ceremony in the public gardens and ate the most gorgeous dinner while seated at the Chef’s table in the kitchen of L’Espalier. Course after course arrived paired with unbelievable wines. There was mushroom ice-cream and foams at the time foams were not everywhere. The bill, not kidding, was more than our mortgage payment at the time…and it was worth every penny.

While we have photos to remember the food, what we really took away was the hospitality that was offered to us that night. The congratulations and kindness. The encouragement to take photos to capture this short moment in time that seems like it was just yesterday. I’m sorry we didn’t make it back. We were waiting for number ten.