Standing on Bolton Street, while waiting for CookHouse to open on a spring night, my husband and I eagerly studied the menu as the bartender, Gabriel Valladares, with his smiley-face nail design, taped the night’s offerings to the window. Moments later, as we stepped inside the sun-dappled space with its velvet teal banquettes, mirrored backlit bar, and watermark-style wallpaper, we smiled, too. We had come full circle.

Almost two years since our first visit in mid-March, we had returned to the same spot. At the time, I had set out to review the Bolton Hill restaurant on the site of the former B Bistro. The spectacular space had been years in the making. Co-owner-chef George Dailey, who bought the 19th-century building, a former pharmacy, and his wife, realtor Jessica Dailey, had poured their heart and soul—and a ton of sweat equity—into the historic building, transforming every inch of it down to the last detail. When the restaurant finally opened in February 2020, the timing couldn’t have been worse. As we dined on Dover sole that day in March, Dailey went from table to table, and we naively told him we were looking forward to a return visit. “That’s if we’re still here,” he said, his voice catching.

It would be my last restaurant meal for the foreseeable future—and the last one that CookHouse would serve for months to come. Forty-eight hours later, the heartbroken chef, who also owns and operates On the Hill cafe, laid off his entire staff and shuttered in accordance with a city regulation banning indoor dining. Of the hundreds of meals I’ve eaten as a reviewer, that’s one I’ll always remember.

So here we were, back at CookHouse—so named because a century ago kitchens were set apart from the house in case of fire. The place looked the same. But of course, nothing was the same. Dailey was no longer wandering around the dining room with his head in his hands, but hard at work back in the kitchen. Long gone was the delicate dish of Dover sole, in favor of fare that was more casual, more comforting. We were changed, too—wiser, less critical about the small stuff, more moved by what mattered, like sitting in such a convivial space with such a diverse community of diners, all of whom were clearly happy to be there. The England-born, Venezuela-raised chef is happy to. “We’re on a roll right now,” he says. “We’re packed every day.”

Dailey’s original vision was to have an everyday cafe serving three meals a day to his Bolton Hill neighbors. When he was forced to close operations for daily dining, he transformed the space into a hybrid marketplace/coffee shop that really showcased his range, from smoking his own salmon to making pot pies and large jars of mango chutney, an ode to his English mother. Ultimately, he settled on dinner service four nights a week and a no-reservations policy.

The concise menu rotates weekly and changes with the season. But despite the size of the menu, from gnocchi with beef Bolognese to pork chops with sweet potato purée, there’s truly something for all palates, and you’ll rarely find the same preparation from visit to visit. Even the vegetarian option, a lovely mushroom tikka masala swimming in a tasty coconut sauce, was fantastically flavorful. The seemingly simple endive salad with ribbons of the vegetable tossed with hearts of palm, blue cheese, and pecans, was bright, light, and nicely dressed with a vinaigrette. It was a great way to start the meal without being overly filling.

Across two visits, we enjoyed a first-rate crab cake sandwich served on a house-made roll bathed in beurre monté and a satisfying truffle burger doused with truffle aioli, topped with porcini-truffle cheddar, and stacked with fried shallots on a brioche bun held together by a toothpick threaded with fabulous house-made pickles. (The accompanying fries were a bit standard issue.) The swordfish steak served with paella-style bomba rice doused with lemon-garlic sauce, flecked with green olives, and kissed by saffron, offered a burst of bold flavors. Small details, like the frisée greens poking out of the burger or the steamed shrimp appetizer served in an adorable basket and split down the middle for easy shelling, were evidence of the care that comes out of the kitchen.

We also enjoyed a round from Valladares’ gorgeous cocktail menu, including his bracing version of a Manhattan (almost blackened by Foro Amaro). On our most recent visit, we indulged in the crema Catala (think Spain’s version of crème brûlée). As we settled with our server, she asked if we’d enjoyed the meal.

“We’re excited to come back,” we said. And as we headed out into the night, we knew with certainty that CookHouse—and its wonderful staff— would be there waiting.

Before George Dailey opened CookHouse on the site of the former B Bistro, his hope was to offer an everyday cafe for Bolton Hill denizens and visitors. “Then the pandemic happened,” he says.

In fact, mere weeks after opening CookHouse, the England-born, Venezuela-raised chef, who also owns the nearby On the Hill Café, consolidated his operations, as they struggled for survival.

“I married On the Hill with CookHouse, which has more space,” he says.  It also has a liquor license, so “we can sell liquor and wine.”

In all the uncertainty, Dailey was forced to let go of most of his team. To date, he is one of three people on staff and the only person handling food preparation, from smoking his own salmon to making lasagna family meals.

Tables, once used ever-so-briefly for indoor dining, are now pushed aside for a hybrid café/market. In their place are baked goods in a display case, to-go soups in the cold case, and dry goods like pasta and wine stocked high on the shelves.

In the months ahead, Dailey is hoping to restore On the Hill as an all-day café and recast CookHouse as a full-service restaurant, as he’d always intended.

“I have to start from zero,” he says. “Hopefully it will work out.”

Where did the name CookHouse come from?
One hundred years ago or so, kitchens were not in the same building as the house because of fire. They called it the “cookhouse.”

What was your plan when you reopened?
When I reopened, I didn’t have a plan. I just went into the restaurant and reorganized everything and made a little market. I started working and people were coming in to get coffee. What they were really missing was a latte, so I started making that and added pastries.

With so many varied offerings, how do you decide what’s on the menu?
I was raised in Venezuela, so I know a lot about Latin cooking, and I thought, “Let’s make something that people can grab and go that’s easy.” I make hand pies and pot pies and things that people can take to go. I’m not saying I’m happy that this happened, but it actually opened my mind to making other things, like doing 10,000 gallons of tomato sauce and selling it in the jar or smoking my own salmon. I make whatever I want.

How did you learn to cook?
My mom, who passed away in 2019, was my inspiration for cooking. She taught me everything. She lived in England for many years and did a lot of English cooking. She made her own mango chutney. I found her recipe in her apartment and started making it. Now, I have quart jars and pint jars. I’m making curries for family meals and making curries for pies. Also, reflecting the Latin part of my upbringing, I make empanadas. But I don’t have many set menu items. One day it might be Cubanos, another day it might be a Swedish meatball sub on a pretzel roll.

Can you share a favorite memory of your mom?
She was an amazing cook. She had a black pot with a blue lid. You knew that when you saw it, something good was cooking. She taught me a lot about many things, like how not to burn the garlic and how to brown meat. She had people saying, “My god, this lady cooks like heaven.”

The idea is for CookHouse in Bolton Hill to be the quintessential buzzy neighborhood hangout—featuring all-day service, outdoor seating, a full bar, and a thoughtful carry-out program. But there is one thing that chef/owner George Dailey says diners shouldn’t expect to see at his forthcoming restaurant.

“We’re not going to have TVs in the place,” says Dailey, a Bolton Hill resident who also operates mainstay cafe On The Hill in the neighborhood. “You’re there to eat, not to watch TV. They’re just really impersonal.”

Aside from wanting the focus to be on the food, the English-born chef says that he wants CookHouse to be the type of place where neighbors of all ages can come to connect and converse with one another. “They will still have their phones, though,” he says with a laugh. “So maybe nevermind that.”

CookHouse is slated to open in the former home of B. Bistro on the corner of Bolton and Mosher streets in October. Dailey and his realtor wife, Jessica, purchased the building from the Karzai family last year, and have been working to transform the look and feel of the space ever since.

“We removed everything and started over,” Dailey says of the slow-and-steady construction process. “It’s an old building, so it takes a lot of work, but we’re really hoping people’s expectations are met.”

One of the larger tasks that the team took on was breaking up the open floorplan with a mix of banquette and table seating, a newly built bar, and a seperate area for takeout service.

“B didn’t have a bar, so that was the first thing that we thought the place needed,” Dailey says, adding that the bar will highlight beer, wine, and classic cocktails like a Negroni and French 75. “It was also an open dining room, so when you entered, it was kind of like you were standing right in front of somebody having dinner.”

The “classic yet modern” design of the 75-seat restaurant (which will also have outdoor sidewalk seating) will pay homage to the historic architecture of the building, while also incorporating neutral tones, warm woods, marble accents, and textured wallpaper.

In addition to the drastically remodeled space, the food will also be unrecognizable to Bolton Hill locals. Dailey says that the menu of European and American staples will be completely different than the sandwiches, soups, and burritos that diners have become familiar with at On The Hill.

For starters, the CookHouse menu will be much smaller. It will offer full breakfast plates (think eggs cooked to order, French toast, Belgian waffles, and steel-cut oats with berry compote), and a curated list of salads and burgers for lunch.

The restaurant will close briefly from 3-5 p.m. before reopening for dinner service, which will feature more intricate dishes like steak frites, steamed mussels, Beef Wellington, and a classic sole meuniere with lemon and brown butter sauce. For the more adventurous eater, there will also be a small section of nose-to-tail cooking with dishes like pig’s feet and veal kidneys: “It’s this whole philosophy of, if you’re going to butcher an animal, you better eat it all,” he says.

Learning from his experiences at On The Hill, Dailey is also streamlining a takeout program with dishes that are specifically designed to travel well. “There won’t be any soggy fries or things like that,” he says. “I want people’s food to arrive in a good state.”

That focus on hospitality is a major part of the mission behind CookHouse. Because there aren’t a ton of commercial restaurant spaces in the area (Noona’s recently opened near Mount Royal Station and The Tilted Row will soon debut in the new Jordan apartment building), Dailey feels lucky to be able to offer two eateries in the place that he and his family call home.

“I fell in love with the neighborhood when we first came here,” he says of his move from Boston nearly 20 years ago. “What really drives me are the big beautiful buildings that have so much history behind them. You try to picture this neighborhood 100 years ago when there were horses in front of the houses and you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool.’ We really want to honor that.”