North End Italian Feasts

With the warm summer weather (finally) has come the ongoing series of Boston North End Italian Feasts, mini celebrations of saints, cannolis, classic Italian songs and cheap handbags! If you haven't been to one yet, you're in luck! There's a feast nearly every weekend through Labor Day.

Check out the Schedule of North End Italian Feasts, keeping in mind that the biggest is yet to come on August 28: The 90th annual Saint Anthony's Feast will basically consume the North End with food, music and weekend-long festivities. View the full St. Anthony's Feast Program for details about this "feast of feasts." 

We attended Saint Agrippina's Feast last weekend. We didn't indulge fully in the feasting, as we were saving our appetites for the massive amount of food we were about to consume at Ristorante Fiore, a trendier restaurant with garden and rooftop dining, and Famiglio Giorgio's, a fine, family-style restaurant with plates so big you'll eat leftovers for a week.

Stop by Fiore for a pre-dinner cocktail in the air-conditioned, no-wait bar area. There you'll find an excellent cocktail list (try the Frozen Limoncello) and extra spicy homemade potato chips. Then head over to Giorgio's for serious eating. While still not as tasty or fresh as pasta made in Italy, Giorgio's has value-packed portions of well-made pastas, nice salty Italian pizza, and an amazing waitstaff. Our waitress was actually the owner, who was most accommodating and encouraged us to take our time eating, drinking and just relaxing, despite the fact that we stayed longer than most tables to consume our large pizza "appetizer" before the two family-style entrees plus wine. Try the Linguinie Matriciana if you like jalapenos in your marinara (so good!) or the Chicken, Broccoli Ziti if you love garlic and a whole chicken in your pasta.

As for dessert, don't bother with the North End gelato shops. I don't care what awards they say they've won, that gelato is more like Italian ice than creamy, rich Italian gelato. If you like a nice flaky dessert, go for Modern Pastry over Mike's Pastry. You'll be eating your treat much sooner and you'll probably like it a lot better than anything you'd get at Mike's.

Happy feasting!
FC