This restaurant in Boston is serving up top-notch Italian

And you can't book into it for weeks, even months.

Hungry Traveller

Left: Skyline views from Contessa Trattoria.

By Craig Tansley

Updated April 1, 2025, first published November 21, 2022

You can't book into Boston's newest Italian restaurant for weeks, even months.

I don't really miss my hair. It's not like it doesn't grow; it's just best at buzz-cut level: there are fewer gaps. But here, I miss it a lot. I'd have opted for a wavy style, set with wax, hanging down to the collar of a linen shirt; calico-coloured, to match my tan. Everyone in Contessa Trattoria has beautiful hair because everyone in Contessa Trattoria is beautiful. This is where the beautiful people go to fill their beautiful faces.

That's if they can get in. You can't book into Boston's newest Italian restaurant for weeks, even months. It opened in June 2021 and is already regarded as one of America's best Italian eateries.

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I have no clue how I got in, though I am booked for dinner at a time most of us are digesting lunch. It's set in a glass terrace on the 17th floor of Boston's Newbury hotel and, when the lift doors open, I'm staring into a 400-square-metre Italian garden overlooking the city's Public Gardens.

It's all check-board tiles and black-and-white stripes with enough greenery to simulate a rainforest, without ever blocking the city views. The sun's high in the sky, bathing everything in a golden hue. Waiters in suits balance trays of cocktails, patrons sit beside the glass, peering out. The menu celebrates northern Italy, choreographed by celebrity chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi.

I order prosciutto and burrata with anchovies and sliced raw tuna with artichoke hearts for starters. I'm stuck between the shrimp al forno con fagioli and the scallops aglio olio peperoncino, but change tack with a sharp, sudden pang for rib-eye tagliata.

My meal arrives: the prosciutto and tuna melt in my mouth and I could slice the rib-eye with a spoon. The meal's magnifico but that's hardly the point. Broadway's 10 blocks from here, but the theatre's in here. Waiters pirouette, the barmen shimmy and patrons eat with a mix of wild enthusiasm and impeccable table manners. The bill's the encore, though it's not the heart-stopper I imagined.