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Boston – Feast Time in the North End

If you live in or are visiting Boston, and are here on a summer weekend in August, it’s mandatory that you experience a Feast in the North End, Boston’s Little Italy.  This weekend was the opener, Festa di Sant Agrippina.

The North End is Boston’s Italian neighborhood, a few tightly packed blocks full of restaurants, cafes, shops and a lot of local color.  On Feast weekends it’s wall to wall people, lights, live music, old fashioned carnival games and FOOD.  Have some raw bar or sausage with peppers and onions at one of the street stalls or have dinner in one of the many restaurants that line the streets and then after dinner, take a stroll, have a cannoli and enjoy the street scene.

At the beginning of each Feast, the Madonna is paraded through the streets.  She is slowly covered in cash which goes to the Church.

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Music – every weekend has a free show.  People dance in the street and the old timers pull up lawn chairs  or hang out their windows to enjoy the music!  Some people (I’m not saying who!) have been known to get up on the stage to sing Disco Inferno with the original group, The Trampps!

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A little raw bar anyone?

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Boston’s Finest!

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The street scene

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North End Feasts – one of the many reasons Boston is a “wicked awesome” city!

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I’m speechless…

Coppa.  Just a sliver of a restaurant on Shawmut Avenue in the South End of Boston.  It has a pedigree. Ken Oringer and Jaime Bissonnette own the restaurant and also own Toro together.  Hailed by every food critic far and wide I can see why.  It’s serious not fussy.  Just really great ingredients put together in inventive ways.  The people that work at Coppa are artists, committed and proud of what they do and it shows, from the bartender to the sous chef making the Tuna Crudo.

We were on our way to another restaurant but when I mentioned Coppa to Roy on the street, someone passing by said, “you have to go there , it’s the best”.  And, so that’s where we ended up.  Since it was only 5P we knew we’d get 2 at the bar.

And we did  Already, a buzz at 5 o’clock we grabbed a couple of seats and ordered 2 Prosecco to toast the beginning of summer.  And then, what to order.  Hard to choose, we started with ostriches  (2 oysters) with hint of rhubarb verjus, set on a mound of salt, incredible.  Then, we ordered the Pizza Pepe Blanco named after Pepe’s in New Haven.  We’ve had the pizza blanco at Pepe’s, but Coppa’s is probably the best pizza we’ever had.  A white clam pizza with bacon and baby leeks.  The crust perfect with not a hint of oil.  Made in a wood burning oven.  And, an order of arancini with fontina cheese.

I was watching as one of the chefs was preparing the tuna crudo.  He did it with such intense attention to detail and it looked so good, I had to order it.  A thick slice of the pinkest tuna, radish, sriracha and sweet sicily.  Who thinks these concoctions up? That’s why Coppa is what it is!

I had a delicious sparkling Rose which the bartender who looked like Rosaria Dawson recommended, and Roy had a good, old Narragansett beer!

A special shout out to Nicole who was sitting next us.  She’s an open water swimmer and going to Istanbul next week to participate in a swim across the Bosporus along with 4,000 other swimmers.  Cool right???

It was such a beautiful night we decided to go elsewhere for dessert and ended up at Beehive, at the bar of course, and had a fantastic rhubarb and berry bread pudding with vanilla ice cream.

A good way to start the summer, don’t you think?

See you at the bar….

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