Mother Anna brought me to Italy for the night!
A restaurant review
BOSTON- Mother Anna’s kicks off the North End Italian restaurants right with a warm environment, delicious cuisine, and an enjoyable experience. Located at the start of Hanover Street in the North End, Mother Anna’s offers heavenly Italian dishes that won’t disappoint!
This past weekend I dined at Mother Anna’s Restaurant located in the North End of Boston. Located at 211 Hanover Street, it has a large outdoor patio where tables and chairs are set up evenly, yet able to be pushed together to accommodate larger groups. It has an elegant inside restaurant but due to the beauty of the evening, we chose to stay outside. Inside there is an aesthetic bar with welcoming staff and a stunning warm brick interior. The bathroom is down steep stairs and is a small room with one single stall so it is not handicap accessible.
It was a Sunday evening and our group of 8 girls came to celebrate one’s 21st birthday. We made a reservation for 5:30 to secure a table without a wait but that didn’t seem to be an issue. We even pushed our reservation just an hour before because we were arriving late. It was not busy until about 6:30.
Driving into the city made parking an issue to figure out before our arrival. There is limited to no parking on the street of the North End. The North End is composed of restaurants that extend their seating onto the road leaving street parking hard to come by. We parked in a parking garage down the street and it was merely a 3-minute walk over to the restaurant. The weekend rate cost us $17 to park there for about an hour and a half.
The staff was welcoming and timely. We were greeted with water, a large pitcher to refill, and 2 baskets of sliced bread. They later brought more bread as we were waiting for our food. Our waitress was personable and the entire process went smoothly.
The menu is what you will typically find at the North End but probably a little bigger. We ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc ($34) and it was presented to us professionally. It was poured lightly to the birthday girl for her to try before pouring a glass for the rest of those drinking. We all got pasta entrees that came in very large portions as well as two Caesar salads to munch on.
I got the Ziti Bolognese ($28) because it is one of my favorite dishes and you typically can’t go wrong with it in the North End. Their take on bolognese was delicious. However, I have been to other restaurants on the North End where I’ve had better. The portions were big and super tasty, and the Caesar salad was light with creamy, flavorful dressing topped with freshly sliced parmesan cheese. I tried my friend’s choice, which was gnocchi with bolognese sauce and it was delicious; their gnocchi was cooked perfectly and was complemented well by the sauce.
Overall the experience was phenomenal, we had a lovely, relaxing, and fun night out. Everyone was satisfied with their meals and we all were certainly stuffed. The menu has a great variety of traditional Italian dishes along with a large cocktail menu and wine and beer list at a good price. While Mother Anna’s is enjoyable, I would still recommend a different restaurant because there are more interesting, flavorful Italian dishes found along the North End.
