The food was great! Good service. We ate outside and it was a beautiful day. I had the lasagna and my friend had the chicken parm. Both loved what we ordered. This was my first time there and I'd definitely go back.

We walked through Hanover street on a busy Thursday evening and found seating at Lucia. Actually at St Stephen's church across the restaurant location, which I assumed is basically "holy" ground. The main restriction we were told was no hard liquor, only beer and wine :-) Beautiful September evening outside. Had the Carrozza - awesome cheese and Prosciutto starter. Ordered the Harpoon IPA beer and was given two half-warm bottles (not stored long enough in the fridge), but got two ice cold replacements. :-)

My wife and I visited Lucia for a late lunch during a recent visit to Boston. The experience was awesome and the staff and management were so pleasant and welcoming. I will remember the experience as a highlight of our visit. The food was excellent and served quickly. Lucia is a great example of the wonderful beautiful Northern section of Boston. Frank, the general manager of the restaurant was so kind and gave us some great insights to the history of the area.

Rant: Some of the reviews for Lucia are mind-boggling to me. I get that service can really derail a meal, but the blatent blasting of the quality of the food makes me question what kind of food these people actually enjoy. The one thing that I was able to correlate was the complaints were primarily lumped in 2 major categories: service and lunch (sometimes BOTH). /rant Lucia lived up to it's roots - a 1970s mafia-capo-approved restaurant. It blends traditional with modern touches in the space and makes you feel like you are in a true trattatoria in Rome, Florence, or even Venice (minus the smell) when they have the windows and doors open. The food is perfection: pasta with a firm texture, calamari dredged and fried to perfection, meatballs that my Italian wife approves (not many places get that approval), and the sauce that accompanied my buccatini and my wife's gnocci tasted as if it was simmered from the day before. The price is inline with the North End, but one of the few places I don't actually mind paying the price for this type of quality. The menu boasts house specialties FROM Italy, not bastardized American versions of Italian classics. We shared 6 different dishes that were paired with perfect Italian wine selections (super Tuscans and montepulciano wine d'abruzzo, which makes sense since the theme of the place is the d'abruzzo region). While the service was not necessarily superb, it didn't leave us walking away begrudging the experience like a lot of the lower ratings ranted about. Could it improve? Sure. Enough to draw away from the amazing food and ambiance? No, not at all. Lucia moves at the pace that things do in Italy, it's a bit slow and not overbearing. The entire feel of the place transported me from Boston to Italy in an instant. While it may not be for everyone, there is nothing negative I have to say about Lucia - but that's because Italy is one of, if not my favorite places in the world. It's not America, it's not rude and fast-paced, but that's WHAT I love about Italy AND Lucia.

We absolutely loved this place! Everything in the north end is expensive, but we had a great experience!!! It was very loud upstairs, but it was fine. We ordered the calamari to start with and the Carrozza! I loved the light breading on the calamari and the Carrozza is a must! My friend got the carbonara. Solid!!! Further away from the camera! My husband got the Pollo Francesco - that was my favorite, to the right. I got the Quattro Formaggi with chicken on the left! We split the cheapest bottle of red and it was great!