Tony & Elaine’s, a red-sauce joint from North End restaurateur Nick Frattaroli (Bodega Canal, North Square Oyster, Ward 8). The restaurant is new, but it feels like a throwback, intentionally: red-checked tablecloths, raffia-wrapped Chianti bottles, cheesy vintage posters, the works.
It follows in the footsteps of restaurants like Carbone and Parm in New York, opened by a younger generation of Italian-Americans paying homage to the spaghetti and meatballs and chicken parm they grew up eating. Surprisingly, given the North End and its rich history, Boston hadn’t really jumped on this bandwagon. Now it has. Come for the lobster ravioli, stay for the adorable downstairs grotto strung in colored Christmas lights.
