L'Osteria

"Great food. Nice place! But no desserts served....had to turn the place over which I get. Was my wife's birthday so she was disappointed. Went to Modern instead."

"I was in the city for one night and had picked several restaurants from the myriad of Italian spots in the North End. From those, I ended up choosing L'Osteria, and I'm glad I did. I was seated quickly and brought a glass of water. After a few minutes, the server took my order of ravioli bolognese and a beer. I didn't time it, but the food came out in a reasonable time. The servers checked on me a few times, pleasant with each pass. The ravioli was delicious! There might have been 10 ravioli, and they were stuffed. The sauce was tasty and they had used a good amount to cover the ravioli. The bread was a bit overly crunchy, but that was truly the only negative. Also, the place was clean from the dining area to the restroom. The music was mostly Old World Italian and 1950s-60s pop music. It felt like visiting my Italian grandma's house. Nice place!"

"I waited tables through college so I can forgive a waitress having a crazy night. We had an 8:30 reservation. We arrived a little early and the hostess was able to seat us. The restaurant was packed and the atmosphere was high energy. Our waitress came and since we already knew what we wanted, we placed our order to save time. This is when things for our waitress went downhill. She was seated several tables at once and then another gentleman client seemed to stand over at the staircase and argue with her for 10 minutes or so. Other tables around us started to complain about not having their order taken or being ready to go and not being able to get a check. Our entrees arrived then our appetizer arrived. You know what makes everything better? The food was incredible. The flavor, the heat and the textures were so, so good. I’ll go back just for the food."

"Absolutely would NOT recommend, even if it’s the only place w/ reservations open in the North End (it’s not filled for a reason!) It was mediocre Italian food at best- not even close in quality to other restaurants that I’ve been to in the North End. Broccoli Dorati was probably the worst and was literally burnt. Server was unfriendly and fed up. Service was also super SLOW; it took over 45 minutes to get our food after waiting at least 20 minutes for our order to even be taken."