Giacomo's Boston North End — Restaurant in Boston

I’m not the type to wait in line more than 30 minutes for food especially for pasta. Also I am absolutely against cash only restaurants because it just so inconvenient in 2017! At least take Apple Pay! Also nothing is worth waiting for this long even though I’m a foodie! If the wait is 30 minutes at the most I highly recommend this place!! First of all, Giamocos offer $20 bottle of wines! Secondly, the pastas are on point! You can get house special pasta with 1/2 lobster, mussels and clams for $22. This is a steal. But regular menu is a good deal too - shrimp and scallop over linguine was $17. If you want cheap wine and hearty pasta, giacomo is the place!

We had a party of 3 people and we got the following: mussels with fra diablo sauce - it was really good. I’m a huge fan of mussels and it wasn’t even salty! Sauce is very good!!! house special 1/2 lobster, mussels, clams over linguine over fra diablo sauce - very good. Lobster was very good! shrimp and scallop over linguine with giacomo sauce - very good except the shrimps were over cooked. Scallops were cooked to perfection. Sauce was creamy and very good!! shrimp and scallop over linguine with fracomo sauce - fracomo sauce is half fra diablo and half giacomo. Again shrimps were over cooked. However scallops were cooked to perfection. Next time I will get scallops only.

Fra diablo sauce was really good but I recommend trying other sauces too. There had subtle differences.

All of these came out to 114 after taxes with 2 bottles of wine which is amazing!

Lastly, I don’t understand why people complain about the service. Servers were very nice and I have nothing but good things so say about the service. They were efficient and friendly! This is a busy restaurant with a long line up so be nice and be prepared to wait in lines but once you get seated you will love the food and wine!

Update - I went back to the restaurant the next day as I wanted to try it again before leaving Boston. I got there at 4:30 pm so there was no wait. My sister and I were seated at the bar even though there were plenty of 2-person tables. I requested to be moved to a proper table but this request was denied.

Ordered house special with 1/2 lobster/clams/mussels and fettuccine with scallops. Unfortunately Scallops were under cooked.

I still think this place is worth waiting for 30 minutes...

TLDR; One star for the rude and racist staff. I’m not one to quickly call someone racist but there were so many moments of microagression that leads me to believe that the staff members here are racist. Food is good (which is why we came back a second time) but no food is worth the disrespect and lack of welcome and safety we felt after this experience.

For context, we have dined here twice. The first time, we were seated at a wall-facing corner table. When we asked if we could sit at the empty table next to us for the window view, we were very curtly told no and ushered to sit down. We also noticed that neighboring tables got their bread before us even though they had arrived after. We brushed it off thinking it might have been an off day for our waiter, giving him the benefit of the doubt for his rude manner towards us.

The second time, we were given bread without any butter. When we asked for butter, the waiter wordlessly pointed to the oil and didn’t offer us any butter. Weird we thought given that there was butter last time and we were pretty sure other tables had butter with their bread.

The worst interaction was at the end of our meal. We left a smaller tip than normal given our weird interaction and lack of service. One of the other servers eyed the tip on our table and audibly confronted us in front of the restaurant to leave a bigger tip.

She yelled at my mom to say how she doesn’t get paid for working here and only makes money from the tip. She said “I don’t know where you are from but in America, we don’t make money…” etc etc. Bruh, I’m from America too. I can empathize but what she was saying also didn’t make sense. Is she volunteering there? I doubt that she is working for free out of the kindness of her heart. Not wanting to make a scene, we left some additional cash and left.

I am disappointed that there was such a blatant difference in the way we were treated and judging from the other reviews, we’re not the only ones. Will not return and...

Food Swordfish Steak ★★★☆☆ Looked pretty! The vegetables didn't have too much flavor though. Same for the Swordfish. Typically I don't like adding lemons to dishes because it takes from their flavor to me, however, in this case it felt necessary for it to have any flavor.

Meatballs ★★★★☆ The marinara sauce brought together the whole meal and the presentation of it wasn't bad. It looked super appetizing but the taste of the meatball by itself was bland.

Mussles ★★★★☆ The mussles had a great taste and the sauce tasted good. It made me wish for more napkins though. Plus some of them are super small and don't really have much with them.

Lobster ★★★★★ Came out super easy and tasted delicious! I would have ordered lobster if I knew it would taste this good!

Drink Water ★★★★★ You can't mess up water. The water was perfectly clean and the perfect temperature. My only complaint is that the cups were small and I wish they were bigger so I could have more to drink during my meal.

Service Initial introductions ★★★☆☆ They were fairly aggressive whenever we tried to enter as a group of five and yelled at us to leave. Thought this could be chalked up to it being loud inside and they thought it was loud outside too.

Inside ★★★★☆ They were a lot nicer Inside, however, I wish they had larger cups so that we could have more to drink. At times they still kind of seemed annoyed with us. They seemed fine after a bit and would fill up our water from time to time. They brought out plates and everything, and all was good.

Paying ★★☆☆☆ You can only pay in cash. They do have an ATM inside the building, but it is a hastle.

Atmosphere ★★☆☆☆ The building is quite small so it felt very cramped and made it claustrophobic. The bathroom was downstairs which isn't too bad but it...