RFK Cuisine · Italian · Boston
Best Italian Restaurants in Boston 2026
Italian · Boston · 6 rooms ranked · Updated June 2026
Compiled by the Restaurants for Kings editorial team · Published June 20, 2026 · Updated June 20, 2026
Karen Akunowicz folds her tortellini the way she learned to in Modena, and that small act of stubbornness is the most useful guide to eating Italian in Boston right now. The city's Italian story used to begin and end in the North End, three tight blocks of red sauce, cannoli lines and sidewalk hosts waving menus. It still matters, but the better cooking has migrated south. Over the past decade the South End filled with regional kitchens — a Venetian wine bar, a coastal-Italian crudo room, a salumi-driven enoteca — and Michelin arrived in 2025 to put Bib Gourmands on the new guard. Ranked here on the cooking, the room, and what the bill buys, with the dish to order at each.
1.Fox & the Knife
Karen Akunowicz's Modena-trained enoteca on West Broadway, a 2025 Michelin Bib Gourmand; book for a pasta dinner worth dressing up for.
Karen Akunowicz opened Fox & the Knife at 28 West Broadway in South Boston in 2019, after years cooking in Modena, and it is the clearest expression of serious Italian cooking in the city. The tortellini in brodo and the rotating handmade pastas are the reason to come, built on the Emilia-Romagna technique she earned a James Beard Best Chef: Northeast award for in 2018. When Michelin launched its Boston guide in November 2025, the room took a Bib Gourmand, and Akunowicz's nearby Bar Volpe — a Southern-Italian pastificio — took a second. The dining room is small, loud and wine-led, more neighborhood enoteca than special-occasion temple. Book on Resy a week or two out and order whatever pasta the kitchen is rolling that night.
Reserve on Resy; tortellini in brodo and the pasta of the day.
2.SRV
Boston's first Venetian bàcaro, cicchetti and made-to-order risotto on Columbus Avenue; go for a low-key, wine-led night of small plates.
Michael Lombardi and Kevin O'Donnell opened SRV — Serene Republic of Venice — at 569 Columbus Avenue in the South End in 2016, modeling it on the bàcari of Venice where two-bite cicchetti are eaten standing with a glass of wine. The kitchen mills its own flour for the pasta and cooks risotto to order, and the cicchetti board — fritto, crostini, polpette — is the way to start. It is the rare Boston room that commits to one Italian region rather than the whole peninsula, and the wine list runs deep into the Veneto and Friuli. The mood is convivial and grazing-led, not a sit-down marathon. Reserve on Resy and build a meal from the cicchetti out, then a risotto.
Book on Resy; the cicchetti board, then a made-to-order risotto.
3.Bar Mezzana
Colin Lynch's coastal-Italian crudo bar by the Ink Block; book for a long lunch or a date built on raw fish and pasta.
Colin Lynch opened Bar Mezzana with Heather Lynch and Jefferson Macklin at 360 Harrison Avenue, in the South End's Ink Block, in 2016, and built it around the lighter, sea-facing cooking of the Italian coast. The crudo bar is the signature — a daily run of raw fish dressed simply with citrus and oil — backed by handmade pasta and wood-grilled fish. Lynch, a repeat James Beard Best Chef: Northeast nominee, cooks with more restraint than the North End tradition allows, and the bright, modern room suits it. It is one of the easier ambitious Italian tables to get on a weeknight. Reserve on Resy, start at the crudo bar, and follow with a pasta.
Book on Resy; the crudo selection and a coastal pasta.
4.Coppa
Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette's salumi-and-pasta enoteca on Shawmut; squeeze in for pork tagliatelle and a board of house-cured meats.
Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette run Coppa, the tiny enoteca on Shawmut Avenue in the South End, as a salumi-first Italian room — Bissonnette built his reputation curing meat, and the house charcuterie board is where any meal here begins. The pork tagliatelle, rich with offal and egg, is the pasta to order, alongside blistered pizzas from the small kitchen. Bissonnette won the James Beard Best Chef: Northeast award in 2014 for the pair's nearby Toro, and the same precision runs through Coppa's short, meaty menu. The room is genuinely cramped, which is part of the charm and the catch. Book on Resy and lead with the salumi board, then the tagliatelle.
Reserve on Resy; the house salumi board and the pork tagliatelle.
5.Prezza
Anthony Caturano's North End mainstay since 2000; reserve for the veal chop marsala and handmade pasta away from the tourist crush.
Anthony Caturano opened Prezza at 24 Fleet Street in the North End in 2000, naming it for his grandmother's hometown in Abruzzo, and it has outlasted most of its neighbors by cooking with more ambition than the red-sauce strip around it. The veal chop marsala is the signature secondo, but the handmade pastas and the wood-grilled meats are where the kitchen's care shows, backed by one of the deepest Italian wine lists in the quarter. It sits a block off the main Hanover Street churn, which keeps it calmer than the rooms with hosts on the sidewalk. This is the North End table to book when you want the neighborhood without the circus. Reserve on the restaurant's site and order the veal chop.
Book direct or on OpenTable; the veal chop marsala and a handmade pasta.
6.Bricco
Frank DePasquale's Hanover Street flagship with its own pasta shop; book for gnocchetti baked in bufala on a buzzing North End night.
Frank DePasquale's Bricco anchors 241 Hanover Street, the busiest stretch of the North End, and its edge is the pasta shop tucked in the alley behind it, which supplies the kitchen with fresh-made noodles daily. The gnocchetti baked with bufala mozzarella is the dish the room is known for, alongside generous plates of veal and a long Italian wine list. It is unapologetically a scene — loud, late, dressed-up — and it does the polished side of North End dining better than the tourist rooms a few doors down. For a buzzing night in the old Italian quarter with cooking to match, this is the pick. Book on the DePasquale group's site or OpenTable and order the gnocchetti.
Reserve on OpenTable; the gnocchetti baked in bufala mozzarella.
How Boston eats Italian
Boston's Italian map is really two maps. The North End is the historic one — three blocks of Hanover and Salem Streets settled by Italian immigrants a century ago, still dense with trattorias, pastry shops and the cannoli rivalry between Mike's and Modern. It is where you go for atmosphere, a walk after dinner, and the older red-sauce tradition done at its best by rooms like Prezza and Bricco. Go for the neighborhood as much as any single plate.
The newer, more regional cooking lives across town in the South End and South Boston, where rents and ambition pushed a generation of chefs to pick a corner of Italy and commit: Venice at SRV, the coast at Bar Mezzana, an enoteca menu at Coppa, Emilia-Romagna at Fox & the Knife. Pasta is where the kitchens spend their best work, so order more of it and fewer secondi than you would at a steakhouse. For the full picture beyond Italian, the Boston dining guide maps the rest of the city by neighborhood and occasion.
Where not to look for it
Skip these for serious Italian
The Hanover Street rooms with a host on the sidewalk. If someone is waving a laminated menu at you on the North End strip, that is a room trading on foot traffic, not the kitchen. The six above are a different category, and worth seeking out a block off the main drag.
Mike's Pastry as a dinner plan. The famous cannoli line is a North End ritual, but it is a takeaway counter, not a meal. Have the cannoli for the walk home after dinner — not as the reason you came to the neighborhood.
Frequently asked
What is the best Italian restaurant in Boston?
Fox & the Knife, Karen Akunowicz's enoteca in South Boston, is the city's strongest Italian kitchen, built on the Emilia-Romagna cooking she learned in Modena and recognized with a Michelin Bib Gourmand in the 2025 Boston guide. For Venetian small plates, SRV in the South End is its closest rival, and Bar Mezzana is the coastal-Italian pick. Choose by neighborhood and by whether you want tortellini in brodo or a crudo bar.
Which Boston Italian restaurants are in the Michelin Guide?
When Michelin launched its Boston guide in November 2025, Karen Akunowicz's Fox & the Knife and her Southern-Italian room Bar Volpe both took Bib Gourmands, the only Italian spots to do so. North End classics Carmelina's and the seafood-leaning Neptune Oyster landed on the recommended list. No Italian restaurant in the city holds a star yet; Boston's single 2025 star went to 311 Omakase, which is not Italian.
Is the North End or the South End better for Italian in Boston?
Both, for different meals. The North End is the historic Italian quarter, where Prezza and Bricco cook handmade pasta in a dense grid of red-sauce rooms and pastry lines. The South End is where the modern, regional kitchens cluster: SRV for Venice, Bar Mezzana for the coast, Coppa for an enoteca menu. Walk the North End for atmosphere and tradition; book the South End for the more ambitious cooking.
How far ahead should I book Italian restaurants in Boston?
Book the top tables one to two weeks out. Fox & the Knife takes reservations on Resy and fills weekend windows quickly since the Bib Gourmand. SRV, Bar Mezzana and Coppa release tables on Resy and are easier midweek. Prezza and Bricco take bookings on their own sites and OpenTable; the North End is busiest Friday and Saturday, so a weeknight is the smart play for a walk-up or a same-week table.
What should I order at an Italian restaurant in Boston?
Lead with the pasta. Order the tortellini in brodo at Fox & the Knife, the cicchetti and a made-to-order risotto at SRV, the crudo and a coastal pasta at Bar Mezzana, and the pork tagliatelle at Coppa. In the North End, Prezza's veal chop marsala and Bricco's gnocchetti baked in bufala mozzarella are the dishes regulars order. Across all six, the handmade pasta is where the kitchens spend their best work.
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