Jun 25, 2023 1 min read Restaurant Reviews

Cantina Italiana

This is the oldest restaurant in the North End of Boston. It is comfortable and relaxed, with no air of pretension. Overall decent, but have had better.

Rating: 🍴🍴🍴 - - [ 3/5 ]

This is the oldest restaurant in the North End of Boston. It is comfortable and relaxed, with no air of pretension.

The hostess seated us quickly at a booth, gave us our menus and left. The seat was wet. She was immediately followed by a server who asked us whether we wanted sparkling water or tap, and was intent on filling up the glasses on the table, but did not seem to really understand that the seat at the booth was wet, and made no effort to help with that, except to go and get two more dry cloth napkins.

The menu is not a huge list of items, which is usually a good sign. My dining companions liked their meals. The hand made pappardelle was wonderful.
The rest of the party ordered Spaghetti con Palpette, Pappardelle alla Bolognese, and Wild Mushroom Pappardelle. I ordered the Veal Chop Milanese.
My veal chop was slightly "over fried", though not burnt. It was a bit greasy and was dripping oil. Possibly due to to being put into oil that was a tad too hot. It was also raw around the bone. This was topped with a lot of arugula with an over powering lemony dressing.

Overall decent food, but have had better.