Visit
The front of a small Italian restaurant — a red and white striped awning, a terracotta facade, geraniums in the window boxes and the menu in a frame beside the door.

Parmenter Street · Boston’s North End

Like mama used to make.

A small family trattoria on 14 Parmenter Street, in the same hands for decades. The recipes came over from Montefalcione, in Avellino, and nothing has been modernised since. Every dish is cooked to order. Open seven days from 11.

Find usWhat to order
Scroll
An older woman rolling out pasta dough by hand on a stone table in a plain kitchen.
Hands shaping small rolled pasta shells on a floured wooden board.
A table seen from above, covered in shared plates with hands reaching across it.
A long white-clothed table of people talking over wine and cleared plates in a warm-lit room.

How we cook

  1. 01

    Recipes from Montefalcione

    The family grew up in Montefalcione, in the hills of Avellino, and came to this country with the recipes already in their hands. None of it was written down. It is still cooked the way it was learned — standing next to somebody at the stove.

  2. 02

    Made by hand. Cooked to order.

    Nothing sits under a lamp waiting for you. The pasta is made here, the sauce is made here, and your plate is started when you order it — which is why the menu asks you to be patient, and why it promises the wait is worth it.

  3. 03

    Portions meant to be passed

    Thick pasta, heavy red sauce, big meatballs, family portions in the older sense of the phrase. Plates land in the middle and everybody reaches across somebody. Order less than you think you need — every table here over-orders.

  4. 04

    A table that feels like home

    Brick walls, white cloths, pictures on every inch of every wall, and a room small enough that you can hear the kitchen. People keep saying the same thing about it: that it feels like eating in their mother’s kitchen. That is the whole ambition.

What to order

The dishes people come back for

Everything is cooked to order — the menu asks you to be patient and it means it. What arrives is the old country: thick pasta, heavy red sauce, big meatballs, and nothing clever done to any of it.

  • Sliced chicken in a pan with roast potatoes, red and green peppers, mushrooms and onions.

    Chicken Campagna

    Campagna means “on the farm”, and it eats like it — a boneless breast of chicken sautéed with potatoes, peppers, mushrooms and onions, all finished in the one pan. The dish the family puts its own name beside.

    $29.99

  • A bowl of short rolled pasta in tomato sauce, draped with prosciutto.

    Homemade Cavatelli

    Little rolled shells made in this kitchen, thick enough to hold on to the sauce instead of letting it slide off. The one to order if you want to find out what “homemade” is actually claiming.

    $24.99

  • Linguine with shrimp, calamari, mussels and clams in a red seafood sauce.

    Frutti di Mare

    Shrimp, calamari, mussels and clams over pasta in a red sauce built to be mopped up. Ask for bread, and do not be polite about it.

    $33.99

  • A breaded cutlet baked under tomato sauce and melted cheese, with bread alongside.

    Chicken Parmigiana

    Pounded, breaded, sauced and buried in cheese, the way this room has done it for decades. There is no reinvention here and none has ever been asked for.

    $26.99

  • Rolled and sliced veal in pan juices, fanned out with roast potato wedges.

    Veal Braciolettini

    Veal pounded thin, rolled around prosciutto and cheese, tied, braised until it gives, and sliced. It comes with pasta, like everything else in the veal column. Sunday food on a Tuesday.

    $28.99

  • Large meatballs in tomato sauce in a bowl, with torn bread beside them.

    Homemade Meatballs with Ricotta

    Big, soft, made here, with ricotta worked through them so they stay tender under the sauce. Officially an appetiser. Nobody stops at one order.

    $17.99

  • A platter of prosciutto, salami, provolone and roasted red peppers.

    Peppers, Salami, Provolone & Prosciutto

    The antipasto, listed on the menu by exactly what is on it: roasted sweet peppers, salami, provolone and prosciutto on one plate, to pick at while the kitchen cooks. This is the right way to start.

    $18.99

Small tables in a warm-lit trattoria, set with plates and glasses, bentwood chairs pushed in.
One small room, a lot of tables, and every one of them booked on a Friday.

Our family

Recipes that came over
from Montefalcione.

The Pagliuca family grew up in Montefalcione, in the province of Avellino, and when they came to this country the recipes came with them. Not written down — carried. Pagliuca’s Ristorante Italiano has been family owned and operated for decades, and it is still the family in the kitchen and on the floor.

“Home cooking at its finest” is the brothers’ own phrase for it, and it is the honest description. Everything is prepared to order. Nothing is trying to be modern. Thick pasta, heavy red sauce, big meatballs, generous plates and down-to-earth prices — the food people mean when they say they want real Italian.

It is one small room on 14 Parmenter Street, off the busiest stretch of the North End, with brick walls and pictures on every inch of them. Downstairs there is a private dining room with its own bar, and that is where the birthdays, the holiday parties and the office dinners end up.

  • 100%Cooked to order — nothing sits waiting under a lamp
  • 2Rooms — the trattoria, and a private room and bar below
  • 7Days a week, doors open at 11

The room

A small room with pictures on every wall

A plate being set down on a white-clothed table beside a lit candle and wine glasses.
A table laid for dinner in a panelled room, wine glasses set out under a gilt-framed mirror.
Rows of framed pictures in gilt frames along a warm, dimly lit restaurant wall.
A table laid with white linen, folded napkins, glasses and cutlery in warm light.

Visit

14 Parmenter Street,
the North End

14 Parmenter Street
Boston, MA 02113

Parmenter Street runs off Hanover, a block from the noise — which is why the regulars found it and the tour groups mostly did not. The room is small, so reservations are a good idea. Downstairs there is a private dining room with its own wine, beer and cordial bar, set up for birthdays, holiday parties and business functions, and available for small weddings and banquets. Every dish is cooked to order, so give the kitchen a little time.

Call (617) 367‑1504Get directions

Open

Monday – Thursday
11 AM – 10 PM
Friday – Saturday
11 AM – 11 PM
Sunday
11 AM – 10 PM

The doors open at 11 every day of the week. Friday and Saturday the kitchen stays on an hour later.