L’Osteria Ristorante

10 Reviews on “L’Osteria Ristorante”

• Steven Barry

  It was a busy weekend in Boston, my friend and I were in the North End for some Italian. The place we wanted to try had a line down the block, at least a 2-hour wait. I was impatient and didn’t want to wait that long so we walked around looking for a comparable establishment. It’s the North End after all. Supposedly Boston’s finest authentic Italian restaurants are in this neighborhood. My friend chose L’osteria and we walked in. Dimly lit interior was aged and gaudy. Reminiscent of Sole Proprietor or Ken’s Steakhouse. For those of you not familiar, these are dusty fossils kept intact solely by regulars and tourists.I immediately knew this was a mistake and begged my friend to leave for another place, but we ended up staying. But it is the North End, right? So, it couldn’t be that bad. Then we get the bread. It was some premade stuff from a bag. Pillsbury easy bake at least be warm and soft. This trash on a gaudy silver plate was hard and tasteless. And the butter is not even served on a plate, but comes in the tiny plastic containers you’d find at a cafeteria. We ordered the Fried Calamari as an appetizer. The red sauce tasted like it was poured directly from a can. No thought or care was put into enhancing the flavor. The Calamari itself had no taste other than the greasy coating. The texture indicated that it was most likely frozen. This was the best dish of the L’osteria experience. I ordered the Bolognese and the sloppy presentation alone hollered the clientele they cater to. We are talking about a pile of some $1 store spaghetti, overcooked. And there was no Bolognese sauce. Instead I got chunks of overcooked meat, what was supposed to be veal with some red water. This is hardly even Bolognese. I can do better on my own. And they charge $20 for this, way overpriced. My friend got the veal marsala and it was a few slices of veal, again overcooked and tough as hell with no flavor save the one note sweetness of the marsala sauce, which must be from a can or constituted from powder. If you are in the North End and come across a long queue, trust me, sometimes it is worth the wait. And my preconception of the North End just got destroyed. The idea this neighborhood has a high concentration of superior Italian trattorias is a myth. There are some very good restaurants here, but don’t think they are all comparable. Honestly, Cambridge has several excellent trattorias and because no one knows about them, no lines! Bottom line, you can make better Bolognese at home with some De Cecco pasta and some premade Bolognese from the supermarket. Life is too short to waste on food like this.

  January 2, 2020, 5:19 am

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• Gluttonfree

  Not all Italian restaurants in the neighborhood are excellent. And this is just average. It’s Osteria, so I did not expect a luxury restaurant, but a normal classic Italian Osteria. This attracted me already out, so I went. However, I feel that the chef had lost contact with Italy and accordingly looked even food. The service was quite fast, the man who carried water and free us probably wanted to take a shower because the water was everywhere on the table and around the table. Appetizer platter with ham and vegetables, was delicious. Also bean soup. But that was all. Spaghetti was overcooked and not al dente, the sauce was very average and meatballs. Worse were scallops in batter (I think it’s totally inappropriate way to fry in oil scallops) and Veal Francesca drowned in sauce. I think this is true of Italy. Chianti, which I had been really primitivo, a very inferior quality. Prosecco was the opposite of good. They’re around here really better restaurants and this just would not recommend gourmets. Who is used to eating in Italy, he will be disappointed, and I was. And I still unpleasantly surprised ? Automatically are charged gratuity of 20% , which, while Europeans perceive as absolutely not, but I’d rather give smaller tips. But around here knows that tourists come here once a local apparently not. Ne vechny restaurace v italsk tvrti jsou vborn. A tahle je jen prmrn. Je to osteria, neekal jsem tedy luxus restaurace, ale normln klasickou italskou osterii. Tahle m u venku lkala, tak jsem zael. Bohuel mm pocit, e kucha u ztratil kontakt s Itli a podle toho vypadalo i jdlo. Obsluha byla celkem rychl, mu, kter nosil vodu ns i zdarma zejm chtl osprchovat, protoe voda byla vude na stole i kolem stolu. Pedkrm, tal se unkou a zeleninou, byl vborn. Tak fazolov polvka. Ale to bylo ve. pagety byly pevaen, ne al dente, omky bylo hodn a masov koule prmr. Hor byly hebenatky v tstku (podle m je to naprosto nevhodn zpsob, smait v oleji hebenatky) a telec francesca utopen v omce. Myslm, e tohle nen prav Itlie. Chianti, kter jsem si dal, bylo opravdu primitivo, tedy velmi hor kvality. Prosecco bylo naopak dobr. Jsou tady v okol opravdu lep restaurace a tuhle zrovna bych gurmnm nedoporuil. Kdo je zvykl jst v Itlii, bude zklamn, a to j byl. A co m jet nemile pekvapilo? Automaticky se zde tuje spropitn ve vi 20%, co sice jako evropan chpat pln nemusm, ale radi bych dal men spropitn. Ale asi tady v, e turista sem pijde jen jednou a mstn zejm ne.

  December 3, 2016, 2:00 am

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• Soimhere

  Splendid evening – delicious!. This is the place to go. What a treat! Small, lighted beautifully, wonderful staff. The kind of place you hunt for.Special for the night – Friday evening…shrimp, asparagus, penne pasta, light cream/red sauce. 5 of us, and that was the best dish. The others were all wonderful but that one was full flavored and brought out the asparagus and the sauce was awesome. It should be on the menu permanently. Portions were sized properly. We did take some with us. But we’d had a big lunch. The prices were very reasonable. Enjoyed our evening.

  January 27, 2015, 1:37 am

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