Where Are the Best Boston Italian Restaurants?

Enjoy the best in the city - in every neighborhood

If you enjoy delicious Italian food, you'll love Boston Italian restaurants - and you’ll want to put at least a couple on your “must dine here” list.

You’ll find Boston Italian restaurants that celebrate the cooking style of every region of Italy . . . southern Italian, northern Italian, Sicilian. 

Combine these cuisines with Boston’s fresh seafood, locally-grown vegetables and herbs, premium meats . . . and of course, excellent wines and other beverages . . . and you have a recipe for bliss.

Best Boston Italian Restaurants Guide

Boston has mouth-watering options for fabulous Italian food in every neighborhood in the city.

Although you’ll find many outstanding Boston Italian restaurants in the city's North End neighborhood, you’ll also find many equally delicious Italian restaurants in other neighborhoods.

You'll also enjoy Boston pizza - one of the city's passions.

Boston pizza may be thin crusted or deep dish . . . drenched in olive oil or just touched with it . . . topped with only a little garlic and mozzarella, or covered with creative and unexpected combinations.

It’s all delicious!   And best of all, you can order it in some of the best Boston Italian restaurants - or just pop into a neighborhood spot for a slice or two.

Buon appetito!

Delicious Boston Italian Restaurants in every neighborhood

"What's the best Italian restaurant in Boston?"

We're asked that a lot.  And our answer is . . .

       "You'll have to decide which one you like the best!"

You're about to see why!

Northern Italian Steakhouse in Back Bay

Davio’s ($$-$$$ lunch; $$$$ dinner) features creative Northern Italian cuisine blending traditional favorites with some of the best steaks, chops, and fish in the city, plus a wine list that everyone will enjoy.

If you love Italian cuisine, you'll want to focus on the pastas that sport some of the best sauces in Boston.  Both vegetarians and vegans will appreciate the numerous offerings showcasing the freshest local and regional vegetables.

The lunch menu adds panini and pizza.  Long known as a popular place for power lunches, Davio's also offers "Davio's To Go" behind their kitchen, tucked away in an office lobby space at 10 St. James Court.   More about Davio's

Small Plates and Glasses of Wine in Back Bay

Piattini Wine Cafe ($ Lunch, $$ Dinner) serves up small plates of delicious, freshly made Italian specialties in this popular neighborhood spot on Newbury Street.  With great wines by the glass and affordable prices, you'll find a lot to enjoy here.  And that's even before you try the delectable desserts.   More about Piattini Wine Cafe

Roman-Style Cuisine on Beacon Hill

Antonio's Cucina Italiana ($$) specializes in yummy Roman-style cooking - so you can enjoy treats such as homemade fucili carbonara, gnocchi al forno, artichokes margarita, ciopino, veal braciolitine marsala. 

My personal favorite?  Probably the classic Italian eggplant parmigiana.

The small but well-chosen wine list perfectly accompanies the food choices. Tables are also small and close together, adding to the old-world atmosphere.  

Although Antonio's is quite popular with locals, its location at the edge of Beacon Hill near Massachusetts General Hospital and Government Center puts it slightly off the usual path for most tourists . . . so if you discover Antonio's Cucina Italiana, you'll enjoy a real Boston treat!

Directions to Antonio's Cucina Italiana

Address:  288 Cambridge St
Nearest T station:  Red Line/Charles-MGH
For more information:  617-367-3310, website

Gourmet Wood Oven Pizza on Beacon Hill and in Charlestown

Figs ($$), a small and casual but warmly inviting Boston Italian restaurant and bar created by famed local chef Todd English serves some of the best gourmet wood oven pizza, salads, and pasta in the city . . . and the bread is also great! 

If you order pizza, you may want to try Figs' signature fig and prosciutto on one half and something else—perhaps calamari and arugula—on the other half.

Figs' salads are also delicious. . . especially the dressings, which I always try (unsuccessfully) to duplicate as soon as I get home.

A nice wine and beer list rounds out the offerings at these comfortable Beacon Hill and Charlestown neighborhood locations.  

Directions to Figs

2 locations:
  - Beacon Hill - 47 Charles St; Red Line/Charles-MGH; 617-742-3447
  - Charlestown - 67 Main St; Orange Line/Community College; 617-242-2229
For more information: website

Delicious Italian classics on Beacon Hill

Grotto ($$ lunch, $$$$ prix-fixe 3-course dinner) must be one of the most un-promising looking restaurants in Boston from the outside . . . but once you're inside, you'll realize you've happened upon a special place.   You'll enjoy the great ambiance inside this popular Boston Italian restaurant near the State House.  Exposed brick walls and atmospheric lighting enhance the perfectly cooked Italian classics and Italian-American wine list. 

If you're exploring the downtown section of the Freedom Trail or visiting the State House or Beacon Hill, seek out Grotto.  It's the perfect place to relax over a great meal after a day of sightseeing - although unless you know where Grotto is, it's easy to overlook.  You'll find mostly Boston locals, as it's a bit off the usual tourist path and its exterior doesn't give much of a hint about how good it is. 

During the evening, Grotto is a popular spot for romantic dinners and celebrations.

Directions to Grotto

Address:  37 Bowdoin St, east side of State House, Beacon Hill
Nearest T station:  Red Line/Charles-MGH
For more information:  617-227-3434

Enjoy Italian Bakery/Bistro Treats All Day on Beacon Hill

You can begin your day at Panificio ($-$$), a favorite Boston Italian restaurant on Beacon Hill, with muffins, eggs, French toast, and fruit.

For lunch, you can choose salads, sandwiches, and great deep-dish Sicilian pizza, whole or by the slice. Dinner options include grilled panini, pasta, and creative bistro-type Italian-influenced dishes.

My personal favorite?  A slice of the deep-dish pizza with iced coffee in the summer or hot chocolate in the winter - and a seat at the long counter looking out onto Charles St., one of the best people-watching spots in the city.

Directions to Panificio

Address: 144 Charles St. between Revere and Cambridge St, Beacon Hill
Nearest T station:  Red Line/Charles-MGH
For more information:  617-227-4340, website

Sublime Mediterranean Food in Charlestown

You can enjoy Mediterranean food at its finest at Olives ($$$$), the stylish Boston Italian restaurant created by Boston’s celebrity chef Todd English.

First courses range from a salad of Boston Bibb and mache . . . to Wellfleet oysters with beef carpaccio and truffle aioli . . . to hand-crafted pastas almost too yummy to describe (so here's just one of them: mushroom tortelloni with stir-fried mushrooms, pulled duck, and brandied cherries).  

Main courses vary with the season . . . just a couple of examples are wood-grilled pork chops with leeks, bacon, and fingerling potatoes, and slow braised beef short ribs with whipped potatoes and asparagus.

Directions to Olives

Address:  10 City Square, Charlestown; website
Nearest T station:  Orange Line/Community College
For more information:  617-242-1999

Italian Food and Wine Pairings Near Downtown Crossing

A small, cozy Boston Italian restaurant near the Theatre District and Downtown Crossing, Ivy ($$$) specializes in “small plates” of Italian-inspired treats - size-wise, somewhere between tapas and main courses—and affordable bottles of carefully selected wine.  The idea behind this format is that you can sample a variety of wine and food pairings - and Ivy’s happy customers and fans do this with delight!

If you're looking for something fabulous and a little different, you'll want to come. 

But be prepared to make some tough decisions . . . should you order a plate of black pepper crusted sashimi-grade tuna?  Cabernet-braised short ribs?  Seared sea scallops with herbed potato risotto?  Carbonara with Italian sausage?  Cornmeal crusted shrimp with butternut squash risotto?

Directions to Ivy

Address:  49 Temple Place, between Avon and Washington, Downtown Crossing
Nearest T station:  Green, Red Lines/Park Street; Orange, Silver, Red Lines/Downtown Crossing
For more information:  617-451-1416; website

Enjoy Rustic Italian Cuisine Downtown in the Leather District

Sorriso ($$$), a stylish and sophisticated Boston Italian restaurant in Downtown's trendy Leather District features brick oven pizza, rustic Italian cuisine focused on local seasonal specialties, and a full bar—making it a popular place for lunch and after work drinks followed by dinner.

But don't let “rustic” fool you - even simple-sounding menu items like Prince Edward Island mussels, fried zucchini blossoms, the dinner plate of local farm vegetables are perfectly prepared.

Ditto for some of the more innovative dishes . . . the local corn gnocchi with Maine lobster and porcini mushrooms . . . the grilled rib eye steak with almond and gorgonzola salad and truffled fried potatoes . . . the swordfish steak with caponata, raisins, capers, and pine nuts.  

You'll love how Sorriso’s food celebrates the best local ingredients, prepared so that you’ll think about the flavors in new ways.

Directions to Sorriso

Address:  107 South St, Downtown-Leather District
Nearest T station:  Red Line/South Station
For more information:  617-259-1560, website

Explore Regional Italian Cuisine in Downtown's Park Square

Via Matta ($$ lunch; $$$$ dinner) features Italian regional cuisine that relies on fresh, top-quality veggies, meats, and fish – all creatively prepared. Innovative pastas are also delicious.  The menu changes daily at this very popular Boston Italian restaurant . . . tantalizing choices will cause you to want to eat too much, and return again and again.

Via Matta also a separate bar menu . . . and a very nice wine list!

Directions to Via Matta

Address:  79 Park Square, Downtown - Park Square
Nearest T station:  Green Line/Arlington
For more information:  617-422-0008; website

Yummy Italian Comfort Food Near Fenway Park

But I'll warn you - the pizza is so good that you'll have a hard time ordering anything else.  The remedy?  Come here often, and eat your way through the menu. 

Vegetarians will find plenty tasty options among dishes featuring veggies alone.

And everyone loves the reasonably-priced desserts.   Envision tiramisu laced with liqueur and chocolate sauce, some of the best Boston cream pie in the city, and the complementary flavors of spumoni ice cream, and you'll understand the popularity of this casual Boston Italian restaurant in Fenway.

Directions to Canestaro's

Address:  16 Peterborough; Fenway
Nearest T station:  Green Line/Hynes Convention Center
For more information:  617-226-8997, website

Tuscan Treats in Fenway

Trattoria Toscano ($$$) is one of those "hidden secrets" restaurants . . . you probably won't know about unless you live here, but once you discover it, you'll be sure that it's the best Boston Italian restaurant that you've ever encountered!  The authentic Tuscan food is simply sublime.

Being Tuscan, it features items such as wild boar and Florentine-style tripe which you don't usually find in other Boston restaurants.  Sauces are rich with red wine and deep flavorings.  I'm crazy about the chicken liver with crostini, and the rigatoni with a sauce made from ground sausage and mascarpone cream that I can't come even close to duplicating at home.

Trattoria Toscano is a restaurant to seek out when you have worked off a few calories in advance (this is actually easy - just spend an hour or so walking around the nearby Museum of Fine Arts or Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and want a deeply satisfying dining experience with food that transports you to the Italian countryside.

Directions to T

Address:  130 Jersey Street (near Park); Fenway
Nearest T station:  Green Line E/Museum of Fine Arts
For more information:  617-247-9508

Homestyle Sicilian Seafood in Boston's North End and South Boston Waterfront

Locally known as “the calamari place,” the 6 or 7 tables in the North End location of the Daily Catch ($$), a small family-run Sicilian place, are almost always packed with happy diners.  The Daily Catch specializes in the very freshest seafood - especially squid (calamari).   Italian-style dishes are cooked to order and many are served in iron skillets.

The South Boston waterfront location overlooks Ft. Point Channel and part of Boston Harbor.  It's just across the Moakley footbridge, so it's quite convenient from South Station and the Financial District.  In warm weather, terrace tables give you awesome waterfront and city skyline views.  I like to eat very slowly here, and watch the boat traffic.  This location is larger than the North End site, especially when the outdoor tables are in use.

Despite the tempting fish and other shellfish choices, I love Daily Catch's fried calamari with lemon so much that I always order that . . . but bites from family members' skillets prove that everything is delicious.   Their black pasta, tinted with ink from the squid, is always a huge hit.

Daily Catch is a great place to go if you want to relax over a leisurely meal and don't mind waiting if a table isn’t immediately available.   You'll also have more fun here if you have a relaxed attitude about service - think of The Daily Catch as basically home-cooking from your great aunt's kitchen, meaning that you'll get your food when it's done. 

Here are a couple of tips for how we usually get a table quickly at Daily Catch: go with a total of 4 or fewer people, and avoid the busiest times, like noon - 2pm or 6 - 8pm.

And here's my best tip for enjoying the Ft. Point Channel location - arrive around 2 - 3pm on a sunny summer weekday afternoon, bring a book or your favorite companion, sit at an outside table, and savor the experience.

Directions to Daily Catch

Address:  323 Hanover St, North End; a waterfront location at 2 Northern Ave, in the South Boston Seaport District
Nearest T station:  Orange, Green Line/Haymarket
For more information:  617-523-8567; website

Mouth-Watering Roman Italian Comfort Food in the North End

If you want to experience classic Southern Italian comfort food, just like your mom makes if your mom's Italian, you'll want to visit La Famiglia Giorgio ($ lunch, $$ dinner) in Boston's North End.

You'll find all the traditional favorites - lasagna, eggplant parmigiana, an antipasto that's a meal by itself, pasta e fagioli, chicken marsala, veal saltimbocca - plus fabulous pizza.  And then there's the pasta, with over 20 difference choices of sauce, each one too delicious to resist.

Portions are large, prices are low . . . and a nice touch is that Giorgio's gives students and teachers a 20% discount when they show their ID. 

Directions to La Famiglia Giorgio

Address:  112 Salem St; North End
Nearest T station:  Orange, Green Line/Haymarket
For more information:  617-367-6711; website

Out-of-this-World Northern Italian Food in North End

Do your Boston travel plans include enjoying a romantic dinner?  Celebrating a special event?  Clinching an important business deal?  Impressing your pretentious oenophile brother-in-law?  Or simply creating a memorable Boston evening?

If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," Mamma Maria ($$$$) is the perfect Boston Italian restaurant choice – and one of the best restaurants in Boston.

The delicious and innovative Northern Italian food uses the freshest local ingredients.  Just to give you a brief taste, imagine roasted fennel and red pepper soup with pan-seared Nantucket Bay scallops . . . slow-roasted duckling over house-made fig and Gorgonzola ravioli . . . local Massachusetts cod with a braised medley of Maine lobster, calamari, and risotto.

And as a bonus, Mamma Maria has one of the best wine cellars in the city.

Directions to Mamma Maria

Hours:  Dinner only
Address:  3 North Square (near Paul Revere's house), North End
Nearest T station:  Blue Line/Aquarium
For more information:  617-523-0077; website

Mouth-Watering North End Italian Bakeries

Do you love Italian pastries?

If so, come to Boston’s North End and discover the best pastry in Boston!

I can never decide which one of the fabulous North End pastry shops is my favorite - so you'll have to try them all and decide for yourself!

You'll get to select from incredible arrays of goodies . . . cannolis (pastry tubes filled with sweet ricotta cheese) . . . aragostas (“lobster tails”—pastry filled with whipped cream) . . . sfogliatelles (flaky, slightly crispy cream-filled pastry fans that look like clam shells).

But don’t worry about the names.  Just pick out what you want, and point.   Then order an espresso, a cappuccino, or a hot chocolate to go with it.   Bliss!

Here are just 3 of the delicious North End bakeries that you can discover:

Maria's Pastry $

46 Cross St; 617-557-4925; website

Maria's Pastry serves authentic Italian cakes, pies, cannoli, breads, and pastries. 

In nice weather, you can site outside or take your goodies and perhaps a cup of coffee to a table or bench on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a few steps away. 

In less pleasant weather, sit inside and enjoy the pleasant family-like atmosphere.  (But exercise self-control and don't go back for seconds too many times!)

Mike's Pastry $

300 Hanover St; 617-742-3050; website

Lots of tourist guides mention Mike's Pastry, but don't worry that it's some sort of tourist trap - it's not! 

Like other North End Italian bakeries, it's a neighborhood favorite.  Although Boston visitors do stop by - who can resist the chocolate cannoli? - you're as likely to see local neighborhood residents enjoying their expresso and perhaps reading a book or answering e-mail on a laptop at the small marble-topped tables.  Or stopping by for loaves of freshly baked bread and fragrant anise-scented cookies to take home.

Modern Pastry $

257 Hanover St; 617-523-3783; website

At times, lines snake outside the door of Modern Pastry as happy customers wait to get their specially ordered cakes and pies. 

A tempting assortment of pastries for immediate consumption ensures that the few tables, like those at other North End bakeries, are almost always filled.  In the on-going debate about where you'll find the best cannoli in Boston's North End, Modern Pastry usually ranks high on the list.

Where you find the best cannoli in Boston?  You'll have to spend some time visiting North End bakeries and decide for yourself!

Closest subway to all: Orange and Green Lines/Haymarket.  Walk across the Greenway to the North End. 

Italian-Inspired Splendor in the West End

Scampo ($$$-$$$$), an attractive brick-walled restaurant inside the Liberty Hotel, features rustic Italian-inspired cuisine with an occasional touch of India and sports both a wood-fired pizza oven and a tandoor.

The nice thing about the dinner menu created by Lydia Shire, one of the city's great Boston Italian restaurant chefs, is that you can opt for a fairly simple meal—perhaps choose the white clam and bacon pizza or the spaghetti Bolognese or even a perfect risotto with fresh peas and couple your choice with an arugula salad. 

Or, you can order a more substantial entree such as the cherry charred duck or poached lobster or on Friday nights, the oven-roasted suckling pig.  

The carefully chosen wine lists features mainly French and California selections.

If you love casual dining, well-prepared hearty food graced with garlic and olive oil, and fabulous breads, Scampo is sure to please.  And if you also love lush desserts . . . well, Scampo will be at the top of your list.

On your way out of the restaurant, be sure to walk through the Liberty Hotel's lobby and admire the amazing restoration.

Directions to Scampo

Address:  215 Charles St in the Liberty Hotel, West End
Nearest T station:  Red Line/Charles-MGH
For more information:  857-241-1150; website

Line Up for Tasty Italian Carry-Out

Office workers love Viga ($), a carryout-only favorite, even though it is only open for a few hours around midday during the week and not at all on weekends. You'll understand why if you try their selection hot or cold sandwiches, creative wraps, pasta, freshly made salads, and pizzas, available whole or by the slice.

Viga’s freshly-made Italian calzones are among Boston's best.

Directions to Viga

3 Locations: 
   Bay Village:  304 Stuart St at Columbus Ave; Green Line/Arlington; 617-482-1113
   Downtown Boston: Pi Alley, 275 Washington Street, (right on the Freedom Trail); Blue, Orange Lines/State; 617-742-8446; also 291 Devonshire St; Orange, Silver, Red Lines/Downtown Crossing; 617-482-1113
For more information:  www.vigaeatery.com; all locations open weekdays for carryout only.

If you enjoyed Boston Italian Restaurants, you may also enjoy:

• French restaurants in Boston
• Our Boston Restaurant Guide
• Our guide to Boston neighborhoods
• South End markets for gourmet goodies to take home
• Return from Boston Italian Restaurants to Boston Tourism and Discovery Guide home page