Barbara Lynch doesn't flinch. Not from boxing gloves (she boxed this morning), not from deadlines (it's two weeks and counting until the April 3 opening of Menton, the sixth installment of her Boston restaurant empire), not from the quizzical sages who wonder whether a fine dining restaurant is "the wisest idea in this economy." Screw that, Lynch says, using a slightly more intense verb. "Menton is going to be my vision of fine dining. No chargers on the table. No rows of glassware that have to be removed. None of that 'what fork do I use?' Less is more. It's Barbara Lynch's vision of fine dining."

Lynch, a James Beard Award winner, is one of Boston's premier chefs. Raised in South Boston, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks kid who placed bets for her teachers in high school, she credits an influential home ec teacher for getting her interested in cooking. Her first job, at 13, was in a rectory, cooking for the priests. Initially, Lynch fibbed her way into kitchens, lying about her experience then pulling all-nighters with cookbooks before her first day on the job. In her 20s, she got noticed at Galleria Italiana, a tiny trattoria in Boston where she earned a Best New Chef award from Food & Wine. She worked with Todd English at Olives, then Figs, and soon after her first solo venture, No. 9 Park, an elegant Beacon Hill restaurant with a French-Italian menu, opened in 1998 it was named one of the 25 Best Restaurants in the U.S. by Bon Appetit. Since then, Lynch, something of a one-woman machine, has created an empire: B & G Oysters (an oyster bar), The Butcher Shop (a wine bar-butcher shop), Stir (a cookbook shop-cum-teeny cooking school), Drink, (a high-end bar) and Sportello (a noisy Italian "luncheonette"). She published her first cookbook, "Stir," last year, and also has a catering company.

And now, Menton. Named after a tiny village on the border of France and Italy, the highly anticipated restaurant is expected to be Boston's reservation of the year. It's the toniest of the Lynch properties, with a menu offering just two choices: a four-course prix-fixe for $95 and a seven-course chef's tasting for $145. In spite of the economy -- and because of Lynch's reputation -- with just 15 tables and 60 seats, chances are that diners will have to be beaten off with a stick.

In Menton's private dining room -- a first for Lynch -- guests will have a full view of the kitchen's choreography. During my visit, the table, which seats 14, had yet to arrive, so Lynch and I sat on a plastic-covered silver banquette and watched as the kitchen came to life. Chef Colin Lynch (no relation) cleaned the new equipment with a toothbrush, setting an example for his crew of white-jacketed young chefs. In the main dining room, sommeliers and general managers prepped the new team of servers. Lynch kicked off her black clogs and took the lid off her coffee before settling in to answer a few questions about nerves, fine dining and butter soup.

Does anything scare you?
Are you kidding? Everything scares me. I'm always worried that people's expectations of me are too high and I'll fall short.

Why a fine dining restaurant now?
The old idea of a fine dining restaurant as a stuffy place where you go to be impressed by opulence, that's over. Finished. I wanted to do fine dining my way. I wanted to pick every single thing in the restaurant. I wanted to hold a butter knife in my hand and understand what it would feel like spreading butter. I wanted to feel and smell the lotion in the ladies' rooms. I wanted glamour, luxury and refinement in a small perfect, 60-seat bistro. This is my year of refinement.

You've been in this business for a long time. Do you view it differently now than when you were starting out?
When I started out, it was cooking, cooking, cooking. What can I taste? What can I make? I'm in my 40s now, I don't want to be overweight anymore. I want to get myself set up for my 50s, as healthy in my body as I am in my work. After all, I'm going to be doing this for the next 25 or 30 years.

Tell me about your Molteni stove.
It is fantastic; a flat range that works at very high heat. I first used one at the Auberge in Lille. Then I used it again and thought, 'If I blow this place up, they'll never invite me back.' It's just beautiful.

What's the worst thing that could happen on opening night?
The oven dies. Or a table collapses. Another flood -- we've had that before. Or a water main break, like one New Year's Eve at No. 9 Park. My husband Charlie and I had to ferry people around to other restaurants in our car. But I'm not so worried about anything going wrong. I have an amazing team and we can rally to handle whatever happens.

As a chef, how did you learn management skills?
My staff reined me in. They knew I wanted to grow, and wanted to do so many things. They told me that I couldn't realize any of it if I didn't listen to the team, that it would be insane and they weren't going to work for me.

Can you sleep?
I am sort of hysterical with anxiety. But I work out so much during the day that I pretty much can sleep like a rock. But every time I open a restaurant, I get sick. Let's see. I got ulcers with Sportello, the flu with Drink …

What's the best dish on Menton's menu?
Butter soup. You'll want to take a bath in it. It's 87 percent butterfat with butter from Diane St. Clair's Animal Farm in Vermont. We make a butter sauce and poach local shellfish, razor clams and little flippers from the lobster tail. We add a dollop of caviar from Iran, and whip a honey emulsion into a foam. When I made it for the James Beard Awards, everybody said, "Oh, you must be crazy." It was total hit. [Award-winning N.Y. restaurateur] Danny Meyer's wife, took three gallons of it home.

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