I was in the city for one night and had picked several restaurants from the myriad of Italian spots in the North End. From those, I ended up choosing L'Osteria, and I'm glad I did.
I was seated quickly and brought a glass of water. After a few minutes, the server took my order of ravioli bolognese and a beer. I didn't time it, but the food came out in a reasonable time. The servers checked on me a few times, pleasant with each pass.
The ravioli was delicious! There might have been 10 ravioli, and they were stuffed. The sauce was tasty and they had used a good amount to cover the ravioli. The bread was a bit overly crunchy, but that was truly the only negative.
Also, the place was clean from the dining area to the restroom. The music was mostly Old World Italian and 1950s-60s pop music. It felt like visiting my Italian grandma's house. Nice place!
I waited tables through college so I can forgive a waitress having a crazy night. We had an 8:30 reservation. We arrived a little early and the hostess was able to seat us. The restaurant was packed and the atmosphere was high energy. Our waitress came and since we already knew what we wanted, we placed our order to save time.
This is when things for our waitress went downhill. She was seated several tables at once and then another gentleman client seemed to stand over at the staircase and argue with her for 10 minutes or so. Other tables around us started to complain about not having their order taken or being ready to go and not being able to get a check.
Our entrees arrived then our appetizer arrived. You know what makes everything better? The food was incredible. The flavor, the heat and the textures were so, so good. I’ll go back just for the food.
I was walking around the North End with my mother with no intentions of eating at any specific place. We found L'Osteria by chance and I'm very glad we did. It seems like just an average restaurant with some touristy looks to it but the food is where they shine the brightest. I'm not sure if these are family recipes or what but they are delicious and the portions are extremely generous. We got the stuffed mushrooms and while the mushrooms were ok, it was the sauce that added the kick they needed to soar. I wish the waitress would have told us to drizzle the sauce on them before we were already halfway done but I'm glad we thought outside of the box and did. The carbonara was perfectly cooked and had the right amount of sharpness from the cheeses but the creaminess from the egg and cream. Savory from the guanchale made everything sit in harmony. Definitely a place I will visit again just to see how the other dishes are presented.
104 Salem St. - Boston
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