The Daily Catch North End — Restaurant in Boston

The food is very good-my lobster fra diavolo was good and the food of the other people in the restaurant that I saw was as well. If you come here you can be pretty confident the food will be somewhere between really good and great.

My first impression of the restaurant is that it created a lot of hype and anticipation for itself. It's small even by north end standards, only about twenty seats. There is no room inside to wait for a table, and no bar seating, so you have to stand outside in a line with basically no guidance from the staff regarding how the process works or how long the wait will be. Reservations are not accepted, credit cards are not accepted (only cash), and beer and wine are served in plastic cups.

Part of the charm of the North end is that the restaurants are somewhat inconvenient... What I mean by that is that spaces are tight, you will probably bump into other people's chairs, and many places have a wait. But this restaurant seemed on the extreme end of all of those, to the point that it made the experience less enjoyable.

I attended on a Thursday night, and on this particular night I saw three employees. There was one server, one dishwasher, and one chef. When I arrived the restaurant was full, and I waited in the outdoor line for about an hour. As the tables in the restaurant finished one by one, the people in the line were not immediately admitted inside. Instead, they waited for the entire restaurant to empty, then filled all 20 seats with people waiting in line. This put a lot of pressure on the server because there was only one of him and all of the tables wanted something at the same time. Not a great operational plan in my opinion.

The server was very nice and very good. I am confident that if I ever see him again we can have a beer together and it would be fun times. The problem with having 1 server is, no matter how good that server is, if 20 people sit down at the same time there is no way anybody gets good service. If you happen to be one of the last tables the server gets to, not only will you wait a very long time in the outdoor line, but it will also be slow service even once you sit down. Similar with the chef--even a great chef can only cook so many dishes at a time, and many tables waited a long time to get their food. At least that was the case on the night that I went.

All of this puts a lot of pressure on the food. The lack of other amenities essentially acts like a promise that the food will be so great as to make up for the other issues. And make no mistake, the food comes close to doing just that. My dish had good flavor, good consistency with the sauce, fresh ingredients, and a really big portion. I really had no complaints with the value, my glass of wine was $11--in a restaurant that had fancier glasses they probably could have sold the same glass of wine for $20. My entree was around $65, which is definitely expensive, but it included a whole lobster, shrimp, mussels, clams, calamari, and homemade pasta. I thought the price was fairly reasonable.

Everything about this restaurant implied that the food wilould be the best you've ever had. While extremely good and fresh, for me the food fell just a little bit short of that expectation. I thought the lobster, calamari, and pasta were overcooked by a minute or so. Not terrible and certainly not enough to ruin the dish--but just slightly imperfect.

If I had the choice again, I would probably choose a restaurant that had a little bit more efficient of a process. I still thought this restaurant was very good, with good food and staff, but just slightly falling short of what...

We come on Friday at around 10:50. There is no one in line. The restaurant is small and can sit about 20 people. We finish our meal at around 12:10 and the restaurant is full at that time. We order two pastas and one starter. They all taste really good.

The calamari is lightly breaded and crispy. The calamari itself is fresh and the batter has some spicy so the crispy layer also has some flavor!

Aglio olio - black pasta: At my first glance, the pasta is not that appealing comparing to others with a lot of seafood. The first bite of the pasta is not that surprising. However, after taking a few more bites, I gradually know why this pasta is so popular. The olive oil has a rich flavor of garlic, calamari and anchovy. The black pasta is well-cooked so it is still chewy. After finishing the pasta, we use the bread to mop the pan so that the bread is soaked with the olive oil and the minced garlic and calamari. We even asked for extra bread.

Frutti di mare: This dish is cooked with 5 kinds of seafood (calamari, clam, mussel, scallop and shrimp). If you want to try out all the seafood on the menu, but do not want to order the lobster FRA Diavolo, this is the dish to go. We choose the red sauce, which is tomato based. The linguine is thinner than the black pasta and the sauce has the strong seafood flavor in it. We not only soak the bread in the sauce, but also ask for a spoon to drink the sauce. The sauce is not heavy and tastes like a tomato soup with rich seafood flavor.

In addition, the service is good and we got a clean plate for every dish so that the flavors are not mixed together. Overall, I would recommend to my friend and would like to come again in the future. Also, this restaurant...

I have lived near Boston for 30 years and have visited the North End on dozens of occasions. Most of my visits are spontaneous without a reservation. The wait time at most restaurants in the area is never that bad.

Last night (June 6th) my wife and I spent the night in Boston and went to the North End in search of dinner.

While walking down Hanover Street we passed a line of people waiting for a table outside the The Daily Catch restaurant. It's not like most other restaurants where you check in and they tell you it's a 30-minute wait. Nope, here you just wait. The restaurant has seating for 20 people. You are literally sitting at tables in their kitchen.

It is a cash-only establishment which was another reason for me wanting to skip the line. My wife points out that we are in no hurry and luckily my bank (Citizen's Bank) is next door and they have an ATM. I get some cash while she waits in line. We end up waiting around 40 minutes for a table, a cosy table for 2 up front next to an open window.

We order: 2 glasses of red wine (they also sell by the bottle, and they sell beer) Lobster fra diavalo, for 1 (there is also a 'for 2' option) Black pasta with Aglio Olio (crushed calamari with garlic and romano cheese)

Bill was approximately $125, before tip.

Service was excellent. The food was without doubt my best meal ever in The North End and possibly the best meal I have had in the past 30 years. I now understand why people wait outside for a table.

Don't be the old me and dismiss the line. It is...