Visit
The dining room at Pagliuca’s — square tables under white linen with folded napkins and burgundy menu covers, a polished wood column, an arched wine niche set into the wall and a framed sepia photograph of the restaurant’s own storefront.

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
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Pagliuca’s from Parmenter Street — a deep red awning lettered RISTORANTE and Pagliuca’s over a brick front, geraniums in the window boxes, diners at tables inside the open window, and the lit bar visible through the doorway at number 16.
Chicken Campagna — sliced chicken breast tossed with roasted red peppers, sliced onions, mushrooms and browned potato wedges on a white plate, scattered with parsley.
A wide bowl of mussels, opened clams, calamari rings and shrimp in a brothy red tomato sauce, scattered with parsley.
A table mid-meal against an exposed brick wall hung with gilt-framed pictures — candles lit, several bottles of red wine open, glasses poured, a plate of chop with peppers and potatoes and a bowl of shellfish still going.

An evening here

  1. 01

    A red awning off Hanover Street

    Parmenter Street runs off Hanover, a block from the noise, which is how the regulars found it and the tour groups mostly did not. Look for the awning, the window boxes, and a room you can see people eating in from the pavement.

  2. 02

    Started when you order it

    Nothing sits under a lamp waiting for you. The menu asks you to be patient and it means it, because every plate goes on the heat after you have asked for it. Chicken Campagna is the whole idea in one pan — chicken, potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, onions, all of it cooked together until they taste like each other.

  3. 03

    Plates that land in the middle

    Family portions in the older sense of the phrase: one dish arrives, it goes down between everybody, and the table reaches across itself for the rest of the night. Order bread. Order less than you think you need — every table here over-orders.

  4. 04

    Nobody moves you along

    The wine list runs deep into Tuscany and out again through the rest of Italy, the States and South America. Downstairs there is a private room with its own bar. Either way the plates go and the table stays, which is the part people describe when they say it feels like eating in somebody’s mother’s kitchen.

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: cavatelli and fusilli rolled in this kitchen, chicken parmigiana, meatballs worked through with ricotta, a plate of roasted peppers and prosciutto to start, and nothing clever done to any of it.

  • Chicken Campagna — sliced chicken breast with roasted red peppers, sliced onions, mushrooms and browned potato wedges, scattered with parsley.

    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

  • Frutti di mare — long flat pasta tangled with calamari rings, black-shelled mussels and shrimp in a chunky red tomato sauce, under black pepper and chopped parsley.

    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

  • Veal braciolettini — rolled and sliced veal with prosciutto visible in each spiral, piled in pan juices and ringed by roasted potato wedges.

    Veal Braciolettini

    Veal pounded thin, rolled around prosciutto, tied, braised until it gives, and sliced. Sunday food on a Tuesday.

    $28.99

  • A bone-in chop seared golden, plated with wide strips of roasted red pepper, chunks of yellow pepper and browned potato wedges, parsley on top.

    Pork Chops with Vinegar Peppers & Potatoes

    A bone-in chop, seared and finished with sweet roasted peppers and potatoes that have been in the same pan. One of the plates people order without looking at the menu.

    $32.99

The dining room — white linen, folded napkins and Pagliuca’s menu covers on square tables, an arched wine niche in the wall and framed photographs of the restaurant on the wainscoting.
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

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.