I once went to a dinner where the hosts were promoting the idea of Mezcal as a quirky-posh accompaniment to fine food. Not even close, I’m afraid. The spirit was far too rustic to bring out the nuances of what was served. So I did a Loony Toons double take when I heard about Sushi-Teq, one of several restaurants in Boston’s InterContinental Hotel. It’s a sushi restaurant and Tequila bar.

Tequila being fiery and assertive; sushi being delicate, refined and steeped in tradition; and sushi chefs being vigilant guardians of tradition and also quite skilled with knives, I wondered how this happened, let alone whether it worked.

So I made arrangements with the hotel to visit. I discovered that Sushi-Teq’s cheeky take is in keeping with the overall vibe. For a hotel with a strong business angle (proximity to airport, convention space, business district), there’s a sly aura of mischief and fun.

The InterContinental is located on the city’s waterfront at the Four Point Channel, the very site of the Boston Tea Party. It has a two-acre promenade and garden on the harbor, which it needs in warm weather, because the party inside tends to spill outside— patrons of the rum bar and the Tequila restaurant, as many as 300 of them, enjoy live Samba music and dancing.

After my brief interval at RumBa (named not for the dance, but for the way a Bostonian pronounces “rum bar”) and the hotel’s ultra-sexy, red-velvet-lined Champagne Lounge, Christina Altieri, the assistant bars manager, herded me to Sushi-Teq.

With color-changing LED walls, a large-screen TV showing Salsa, Kumbia and Merengue videos and sushi chefs doing their intricate work under banks of 69 premium Tequilas, it was a very entertaining place to be. And for the Tequila fan, the drinks menu made fascinating reading, with its abbreviated, but uncannily accurate notes, written by Altieri and her staff. Here’s a sample:

Chinaco Blanco (Red hot candy)
El Conquistador Reposado (Spicy pear)
Herradura Seleccion Suprema (Raisins & tobacco)
Sol Dios Anejo (Bourbon & green tea)

Sauza Tres Generaciones was described as bacon & lavender, so naturally I had to try it. Hosts and guests agreed: it was more porky than bacony, and not a great Tequila. What were we thinking?

Enough fooling around; on to the food. Sashimi and sushi subtly tinged with salt and lime was served with a shotglass of Garita, a ginger margarita. A sweet and buttery Corralejo reposado was paired with tuna mozzarella in a Korean spicy miso sauce. An oaky, caramelly Tezon reposado was sipped with Atlantic Maki—torched salmon and mozzarella. When the Tequilas were on the peppery side, the flavors of the fish were simpler and more mellow; smoother Tequilas were matched with spicier rolls and sauces. The small discs of cheese served to mediate and ground the palate. Overall, it was continual fireworks, intense and long-lasting.

Chef Taki-ishi and Altieri had designed my courses and pairings; any customer can do the same: express preferences for certain Tequilas, and the chefs will create sashimi and sushi flights to match. The chef discourages the use of soy sauce, and wasabi and ginger are provided only when the chef approves; sauces are custom-crafted for rolls that call for them, and some of these sauces employ Tequila.

For all those reasons, I’m reluctant to generalize about sushi and Tequila. It was a controlled environment. I’ll continue my experiments—if I can find another sushi restaurant that has Tequila on the menu.

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