Belly Kitchen and Bar is the first restaurant from Instrumental Hospitality Group (Michael Babcock, Wayne Coats, Robert Cissell, and Paul Waxman), and its planned-for March 2020 opening was highly anticipated due to the following Coats and Babcock grew at Garfield favorite Welcome Diner. The pandemic extended that anticipation. Belly ended up opening in November, with Babcock, who heads up the kitchen, having bent his menu to the needs of takeout. This month, though, he plans to swing back to a menu more tailored to dine-in. Most of the dishes I tried, he confirmed, are scheduled to stay.
The restaurant is located in a Melrose space built like a shoebox on its side. Inside, music bumps and the heavy dimness is thinly starred with tabletop candles. It’s a buzzy den of inventive cocktails, surreal art, and dishes that cherrypick mostly from Southeast Asia. Broadly, Belly braids a loose mesh of flavors linked with that region, such as ginger, basil, lemongrass, coconut milk, chiles,