The Best Italian Food in Boston

A grand staircase leads you from the ground-floor bar up to a high-ceilinged dining room of globe lights, gold accents, and big windows that have clearly been briefed on the assignment. Inside Raffles Boston, La Padrona is an opulent, high-energy Italian restaurant where the pastas are made in-house and the plates are sized for sharing. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list, and the chef is a James Beard Northeast semifinalist.

1. Eater Best New Restaurant
2. The New York Times 2025 · The Restaurant List
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Twenty-eight seats in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood that has somehow gotten by without Italian restaurants until now. Tonino is a pasta-and-pizza spot where the chef's whole philosophy seems to be finding a handful of good ingredients and then leaving them mostly alone. The tiramisù has built a devoted following. A James Beard semifinalist and on the New York Times' 25 best in Boston, it reads like someone's favorite neighborhood secret that stopped being secret.

1. Boston Magazine #25 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Boston Right Now
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Boston

Pasta is the point at this Italian restaurant on Mass Ave, where around nine varieties rotate through the menu on any given night. The all-Italian wine list keeps things honest, and the counter seats along one wall are held for walk-ins if you didn't plan ahead. It fills up fast and stays full, but the room handles it without breaking a sweat. A Michelin Selected pick that also made the New York Times' Boston shortlist.

1. Yankee Magazine Pastry Chef of the Year · Yankee Food Awards · Renae Connolly
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Boston Right Now

Karen Akunowicz's Italian restaurant in South Boston earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand for the kind of pasta that makes you quietly resent every other pasta you've ever eaten. The long bar up front fills fast, banquettes stretch back for the slower evening, and focaccia stuffed with taleggio lands before you've figured out what else to order. The room runs from parents with kids to couples just starting their night, which somehow all works.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Boston

Candles on every surface, amaro on a lengthy list, and pasta made in-house: Karen Akunowicz's Southern Italian wine bar and pastificio in South Boston earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand by sweating the small stuff. The menu leans hard into the flavors of southern Italy, with handmade pasta and a kitchen that clearly knows what it's doing. Two bars keep the energy up, and the crowd leans into it.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Boston Magazine #36 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston

A brick townhouse on North Square, deep in the North End, sets the scene for this intimate Italian restaurant where the menu changes daily around whatever's fresh and local. The cooking leans northern Italian, with creative enough combinations that it reads as a special-occasion room rather than a red-sauce institution. AAA Four Diamonds. Reservations are the right instinct here.

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Yankee Magazine Best New Restaurants in Boston
3. Boston Magazine #39 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Boston Magazine 2025 · Best Espresso Martini · Best of Boston

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Boston Magazine 2025 · Best Sky-High Scene Stealer · Best of Boston

The puffy, air-bubbled crust known as canotto is the thing here, a contemporary Neapolitan style where the dough does the talking before any topping gets involved. Si Cara is a cozy artisanal pizza spot on Mass Ave, running seasonal pies alongside the classics, with wines and cocktails to match. It landed on 50 Top Pizza USA, if you need a reason beyond the margherita. The room feels like someone's dining room, which is sort of the whole point.

1. 50 Top Pizza #47 · 50 Top Pizza USA
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Boston

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Carmelina's sends food to the table in the pans it was cooked in, which tells you most of what you need to know about this North End Italian. Garlic, butter, cream, and tomato do the heavy lifting across a seafood-forward menu, and the portions are large enough to require reinforcements. There's no dessert, though that turns out to be less of an omission than it sounds. Weekday lunch is your best shot at a table.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Douglass Williams
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Seth Gerber and Douglass Williams
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northeast · Douglass Williams

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Douglass Williams
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Seth Gerber and Douglass Williams
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northeast · Douglass Williams

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Douglass Williams
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Seth Gerber and Douglass Williams
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northeast · Douglass Williams

The wood-fired oven sits in plain sight from every table, which is either a promise or a dare depending on how the pizza turns out. This Neapolitan pizza spot in Assembly Row keeps things bright and airy, with big windows and a long bar stocked for cocktails alongside the pies. The team has been sourcing Italian flour, dairy, and tomatoes for years, and the crust shows it: soft, properly blistered, with a little lift to the cornicione.

1. 50 Top Pizza #35 · 50 Top Pizza USA

Neapolitan-inspired pizza shares the menu with pastas and grilled dishes at this North End Italian restaurant, where the neighborhood's old-school density of red sauce joints makes landing here feel like a small victory. The dough holds up under generous toppings, the crust comes out blistered and colorful, and the wine list is worth a look. It landed on 50 Top Pizza USA, which the regulars probably already knew.

1. 50 Top Pizza #49 · 50 Top Pizza USA

1. AAA Approved

Sicilian-style square slices, thick and airy, come out on paper plates at this cash-only North End slice shop that's been an institution forever. The compact menu runs to arancini, calzones, and potato croquettes, all at prices that feel like a clerical error in 2024. Arrive early on weekdays; on weekends they only open for dinner, and popular items have a habit of disappearing before the line does.

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Douglass Williams
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northeast · Douglass Williams

A server once warned a full room of strangers, "It's a marathon, not a sprint," and they were not wrong. This tiny North End prix-fixe seats guests at two long communal tables for six courses of Italian comfort, the kind that leans into abundance rather than elegance. Staff T-shirts reading "Come hungry, be friendly" set the tone before the focaccia even lands.

1. Boston Magazine #49 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston
2. Boston Magazine 2025 · Best Sandwich · Best of Boston