Turenne restaurant to open in Lincoln in April

This Lincoln Station property will soon host its fourth restaurant.

There’s a new restaurant in town — or there will be, when Turenne opens in April in the space most recently occupied by Real.

Tim and Bronwyn Wiechmann already run several food ventures in Somerville: Bronwyn, T&B Pizza, and Turenne (a “pop-up” takeout bagel/patisserie/restaurant within T&B Pizza). Others of their restaurants have come and gone, including Self Portrait/T.W. Food and Playska in Cambridge. Tim Wiechmann was named Best Chef (general excellence) by Boston Magazine in 2015.

Turenne in Lincoln succeeds Real, which was owned jointly by Lindsay Parker of Concord and Tom Fosnot and Ruth-Anne Adams of Sudbury but closed in November 2020 after less than two years of operation. The lease continues with Parker as sole owner of Turenne, said Geoff McGean, executive director of the Rural Land Foundation, which owns the property. 

The Boston Globe reported on February 25 that the new Lincoln restaurant would feature a pizza oven, live music, a wine shop, and provisions, but this could not be confirmed. The Wiechmanns did not respond directly to an email and voicemail from the Lincoln Squirrel, and Parker deferred to public statements by the RLF and the restaurateurs.

“We look forward to bringing back socially distanced dinner service in the dining room, on the terrace, as takeout and, in an especially exciting new additional dining room on the green in front of the restaurant that the Rural Land Foundation has so generously allowed us to create in hopes of serving the community in as many ways as possible in this still complicated moment for restaurants,” the three restaurateurs wrote. “We’ll share more soon, but in the meantime you can anticipate an early April start for dinner service Thursday thru Saturday with a la carte offerings and perhaps a prix fixe.”

“I hope you all will join us in giving them a warm welcome and wishing them, and our community, much success with this new endeavor,” said RLF/Lincoln Land Conservation Trust chair Michelle Barnes in a statement accompanying the one by the restaurant owners. “Our vigorous support of them will help that success come to fruition, and help make the mall an even more vibrant and exciting place to be for our community. And it wouldn’t be a message from me if I didn’t add that your support of the businesses at the mall helps sustain our conservation efforts in Lincoln.”

Fosnot and Adams now cook and deliver meals as Food for Home. After Real closed, the pair told former customers in a group email that Parker had sued them. The allegations and current status of that suit are unclear.

Turenne will be the fourth restaurant to occupy the Lincoln space. Preceding it were Real and Lincoln Kitchen, which closed in May 2018 after just 15 months. AKA Bistro was successful for several years until its closure in May 2016. Contributing to its demise was the lengthy closure of nearby Donelan’s after its roof collapsed in a snowstorm in February 2011, significantly reducing business traffic for the entire mall, and the closure of AKA itself for several months starting in December 2013 after a burst ceiling pipe caused extensive interior water damage.