The Best Italian Restaurants In Boston

We can’t believe we’re saying this about a restaurant in the North End, but The Red Fox is kind of sexy. The underground space (look for the handwritten “restaurant” sign and head down the stairs) hidden beneath a financial services office doesn’t feel like any other in the neighborhood. The dark, wood-paneled room is as sultry and louche as a Nick Cave song, so go with a date, slink into one of the clubby red booths, and order a drink from their martini- and Negroni-heavy cocktail menu, which is filled with genre-bending versions of the old standbys. The dinner menu is a murderer’s row of Italian classics with a few unexpected twists thrown in. Served with prosciutto and honey, the zeppole is closer to struffoli in texture than the globs of dough you get at the fair, and we could have eaten three orders. The mains don’t disappoint, either. Brisket stuffed into little pasta pillows in the cappelletti al ragu is near perfect, and the orecchiette manages to get more flavor out of pistachios than we thought possible.

We’d like to sign a second lease at Prima's gorgeous wooden bar, or at least crash for the night in one of the velvet booths and drink their olive oil-infused martinis until dawn. Prima is the sort of place people go to mark special occasions—or to feel like they’re marking one, even if it’s just dinner on a Tuesday night—and the room is almost always buzzing with family dinners, dates cozied up at the bar, and celebratory tables. In other words: every meal at Prima feels like a party. Order the garlic bread that’s basically just a tiny pizza with a handful of nutty olives, and the meatballs swimming in a tart and tangy sauce showered with pecorino cheese. We’re proselytizers for Prima’s cioppino: an ocean of seafood that's covered in a rich broth tableside.

Petula’s has an old world charm and a new world energy—like the Gardner Museum, but make it Southie—with those bentwood chairs and bistro tables you’ll find in every cafe in Europe. This casual spot lands smack in the middle of the Venn diagram between date night and a lazy afternoon cocktail with old friends. Small plates like the tomato burrata salad topped with crispy bits of prosciutto sit on the menu alongside comfort foods like vodka tomato pasta, the seasonal vegetable pizza (currently zucchini and summer squash with housemade pesto), and the pepperoni pie with curled, crispy ’roni cups. We also strongly endorse their $10 martini Mondays as the best possible way to start the week.

Rino’s is a cozy, family-owned East Boston institution known for enormous portions and long wait times. It’s worth it, but if you’re in a hurry, go early on a weeknight when it’s less crowded. Grab a spot in the long dining room, which feels a bit like a train car tunneling toward Carm and Tony’s kitchen on a Sunday night. Anything on the menu with fresh lobster or the house tomato cream sauce is a must order, especially if perfect pink sauce is your thing. The veal or chicken marsala isn’t a reinvention, but it’s the kind of staple dish you’ll sit on the T for over an hour to eat (true story).

Coppa is pretty much the perfect neighborhood Italian restaurant, filled with light from a wall of windows and plenty of excellent pasta. Go for the cavatelli with chicken sausage, soppressata pizza, and the Italian grinder loaded with cured meats and pickled cherry peppers that could give a full-time sandwich shop a run for its money. We love posting up in the colder months at the bar to eat enough charcuterie to forget the wind chill has dipped below freezing levels.

SRV is a small plates wine bar that sticks to just that, so don’t come here looking for pizza or a huge plate of veal parm. The service is warm, and the menu focuses on stuff like smoked trout toast, rabbit agnolotti, and a lobster risotto that isn’t too rich. It’s all served in an airy space that never feels too crowded, and their twinkly light-covered back patio is one of the best outdoor spots in town.

This Italian restaurant on the edge of Porter Square is consistently booked a couple weeks out, and you’re going to have to deal with that if you want to eat there. But let’s be clear: You want to eat at Giulia. Why? Well, for starters, they have a “pasta table” right by the kitchen that you can book for a big group and eat a bunch of family-style dishes. There's also a number of smaller tables and a dark bar in a back room that's always packed. But even if your dream isn’t to eat plates of housemade pasta with several other humans, the menu updates regularly, with delicious stuff like soppressata flatbread and swordfish over black Sardinian rice.

Delfino in Roslindale Square is a spot we aren’t going to gatekeep. Because, first of all, this is our job, and second, because everybody should have a meal here at some point. This tiny restaurant makes big plates of things like open-faced lobster ravioli, veal saltimbocca that oozes cheese from every nook and cranny, and a plate of linguine frutti di mare that’s bursting with mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops, and calamari. The portions are enormous, so you’ll have a nice plate for lunch the next day. It’s crowded just about every night, but they turn over tables efficiently, so you can usually walk in.

Tony & Elaine’s could have felt cheesy pretty easily. It’s a newer restaurant in the North End that was designed to look like an old-school spot—think white-checked tablecloths and red-sauce classics like meatballs and chicken parm. These types of places usually feel like they were designed by somebody who saw Goodfellas once and decided to open a restaurant, but Tony & Elaine’s is just a great casual spot that’s perfect for pregaming the Bruins at TD. The service is welcoming, the wine pours are heavy, and the rigatoni alla vodka is a top contender for the best in Boston.

Geppetto is cooking some of the most interesting Italian food in the greater Boston area. We’re talking about things like fried mozzarella made with delicate strands of pasta wrapped around a hunk of mozzarella, then deep fried and topped with (yes) more cheese. You’ll also find a menu packed with housemade mafaldine with braised lamb and plates of cappelletti with pumpkin. It’s a solid date night or dinner with the parents move where you can snag a big comfy booth or a window seat that overlooks Cambridge Crossing.

The only option at Table in the North End is the incredible, no-substitutions $125 pre-fixe. And while it might sound like a nightmare to your picky friend who only eats buttered noodles, you’re never going to have a bad meal here. The menu changes regularly, but almost always starts with whole bulbs of roasted garlic and bread, some kind of stracciatella and vegetable dish, a pasta course, grilled fish and/or meat, and meatballs for the table. Some past plates we’ve loved have been grilled octopus with cannelloni beans and chicken milanese smothered in arugula, red onion, sunflower seeds, and shaved parmesan. The restaurant is just one cozy room with two communal tables, and it’s the perfect place to come hungry with at least three friends and have an evening.

Tonino in Jamaica Plain falls into the category of restaurants we’re calling ZBVs, or places with zero bad vibes. It’s a small restaurant where people from the neighborhood actually have dinner, and it’s impossible not to find happiness on the menu. Especially if you order the taleggio cappelletti and pizza bianca that you can customize with pairings like ricotta and hot honey or eggplant caponata. There are plenty of two-tops for dates, but try and snag the two counter seats in the back that look into the open kitchen for a peak ZBV evening.

Via Cannuccia makes the best pasta in Dorchester and should be date night go-to. Use it when you’re trying to have one of those “let’s get out of the house and put on real clothes” nights—post up at a table in the colorful room covered with vintage-looking artwork, take advantage of the under-$30 wine list, and order a ton of plates off the vegetarian-friendly menu. The dishes rotate often, but look for the homemade gnocchi with butter and sage, baked chicken pie with mushrooms, and crispy eggplant parmigiana with tomato coulis and pesto basil.

There are a lot of restaurants in the North End serving reliable Italian-American food with solid wine lists and a good staff. Trattoria Il Panino is the best of the bunch, thanks to dishes like fluffy gnocchi tossed in a tomato sauce speckled with fresh herbs, stuffed zucchini flowers, and a veggie antipasto plate with six different vegetables and crostini that you might as well call dinner. This is the spot to take your friend visiting from the Midwest who wants an “authentic North End experience,” or your family after a long day of sightseeing around town.