Colin Lynch Will Run 790 Seats Downtown After Closing His South End Trio

Photo: Epicgenius, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo, March 2025). 10 Post Office Square in downtown Boston, the building where Leomatto and The NoX are planned.

Chef Colin Lynch will run nearly 790 seats across two new downtown concepts after he closes three of his South End restaurants on New Year’s Day. The Boston Globe reported on Nov. 5 that Lynch is partnering with COJE Management Group to open Leomatto, a Sicilian-inspired Italian restaurant, and The NoX, an invitation-only members’ dining club, inside about 26,000 square feet at 10 Post Office Square in the Financial District.

The move keeps one of Boston’s best-known chefs in the city after he had weighed leaving for the North Shore or Cape Cod. It also marks a sharp turn: from independent Ink Block rooms to a capital-heavy project with a hospitality group that already runs Mariel and My Girl in the same 1924 former bank building.

What Is Opening at 10 Post Office Square

According to the Globe, Leomatto will take the upper two floors and hold about 450 people. Lynch described a menu rooted in Sicily’s mix of Southern Italian, North African and Spanish influences — “not just a red sauce joint” and “not just pasta,” he said. The NoX will sit in the basement around the building’s old money vault, with walls about 38 inches thick, and is planned for about 340 people, including roughly 100 dining seats. Jamison told the Globe the club’s cooking will draw on Itameshi, a Japanese reading of Italian food.

Leomatto is expected in the first quarter of 2027, with The NoX following soon after. A ground-floor cafe is also planned for Italian coffee, pastries and sandwiches at breakfast and lunch. Membership at The NoX will be limited and invitation-based, with applications accepted; Jamison declined to disclose the fee. He compared the vibe to private clubs such as The ’Quin House in the Back Bay.

What Now Boston reported in mid-October that COJE was already expanding its footprint at 10 Post Office Square — filings and real-estate chatter pointed to a Sicilian restaurant and a subterranean members’ venue joining Mariel and My Girl — before Lynch’s role and the names Leomatto and The NoX were public. COJE’s portfolio also includes Yvonne’s, Lolita, Mr. H, Coquette and The Zebra Room, among others.

Bar Mezzana, Shore Leave and No Relation Close Jan. 1

Lynch’s Traveler Street Hospitality will close Bar Mezzana, the tropical lounge Shore Leave and the sushi counter No Relation on Jan. 1, 2027. The Globe first detailed those closings in July. Lynch said the decision turned on resigning the Ink Block lease with landlord National Development: “The new lease would have entailed a strain on the business. We would have limped along. Leases go up.” Bar Mezzana marked 10 years in June 2026; Shore Leave opened about eight years ago. The group’s South End brasserie Black Lamb will stay open. Its Allston pizzeria, FiDo, closed in June.

Bar Mezzana still serves from 360 Harrison Ave. in the South End. The restaurant’s own hours listing shows dinner Tuesday–Thursday 5–10 p.m. and Friday–Saturday 5–11 p.m., with Sundays and Mondays closed. Its site marks the room as $$, and the current dinner menu (PDF dated Oct. 16, 2026) lists antipasti and crudos from $4 to $33, pastas from $26 spaghetti to $47 lobster paccheri, and secondi such as chicken under a brick at $38 and porcini-crusted flat iron steak at $42. Those figures are from Bar Mezzana’s menu pages, not from Leomatto or The NoX, which have not published menus or prices.

Why the Partnership Matters for Boston Dining

Lynch told the Globe he does not want a project that “doesn’t scare me at least a little bit.” After more than two decades shaping Boston kitchens — including as chef de cuisine at No. 9 Park and later executive chef for Barbara Lynch’s former group (no relation) — he spent more than a decade building Traveler Street with his wife, Heather Lynch, and partner Jefferson Macklin. Joining COJE puts him under a deeper-pocketed umbrella as rents, labor and competition squeeze independents.

Jamison called the Post Office Square build-out “by far, by a long shot, the most capital-intensive and the biggest investment we’ve made,” without naming a dollar figure. He framed it as a show of confidence while familiar rooms disappear. Downtown wine-bar owner Haley Fortier told the Globe Lynch helped revive the Ink Block area and could draw followers who rarely visit Downtown Crossing.

The news lands in a hard week for Boston restaurant names. We covered Banyan Bar + Refuge’s permanent South End closing after a 2025 kitchen fire, and Cafe Barada’s December exit in North Cambridge. Axios Boston’s Nov. 5 roundup also flagged Saus in Somerville’s Bow Market and other pending closures. Against that backdrop, a 26,000-square-foot bet on the Financial District is a different signal — and one more reason to watch how the city’s best restaurants in Boston map shifts in 2027.

What Diners Should Know Now

Nothing is seating yet. Leomatto and The NoX have no public menus, hours or reservation links. Bar Mezzana, Shore Leave and No Relation remain open through Dec. 31, 2026, on the schedules their sites publish. Black Lamb continues in the South End. For a sense of what else is new around town this fall, see our earlier note on Boston restaurant openings and closings from late October, which flagged projects such as Uchi in Fort Point still on the horizon.

Lynch’s quote to the Globe about staying put still frames the story: Boston needs “a great representation of people that grew up here and that know this place.” Whether Leomatto’s Sicilian spice-trade angle and The NoX’s vault dining deliver that for downtown will be clearer once the first quarter of 2027 arrives. Until then, the verified facts are the January closings, the COJE partnership, the Post Office Square address and the planned scale — not the plates.

Sources

• Boston Globe: Two restaurants from Colin Lynch are coming to downtown Boston (Nov. 5, 2026)
• Boston Globe: Bar Mezzana, No Relation, and Shore Leave to close on New Year’s Day (July 24, 2026)
• What Now Boston: COJE plans Sicilian restaurant and members’ club at 10 Post Office Square (Oct. 16, 2026)
• Bar Mezzana menus (dinner PDF dated Oct. 16, 2026; hours and address on site)
• Axios Boston: Boston-area restaurant closures roundup (Nov. 5, 2026)

Additional sources

• Corbett Restaurant Group: Bar Mezzana closes at ten as the lease comes due (July 28, 2026) — lease and Ink Block timeline detail
• COJE Management Group — portfolio context for Mariel, My Girl and other venues
• Bar Mezzana — 360 Harrison Ave. location, $$ price-range mark, current hours block
• Wikimedia Commons: Downtown Boston Mar 2025 237.jpg — featured-image file page