If you’re from the Boston area, you’ve probably heard about the new installment of Eataly in the Prudential Center. But let us tell you it’s not your typical Italian restaurant. Eataly is meant to mimic an Italian marketplace. It’s a unique addition to the Italian food scene in Boston, given the city’s Italian background and entire North End neighborhood that’s known for Italian restaurants and bakeries. Visitors can buy goods, sit down for a meal at one of the four restaurants, or pick up some food on-the-go.
With a huge amount of options, any food lover would have a hard time choosing what to get at Eataly. However, we decided to help you out by visiting Eataly ourselves. We waited in lines, tried lots of foods, and hand-picked the most unique foods you can find at Eataly Boston.
1. Huge Cases of Meats
All meat sold at Eataly comes from humane, sustainable farms, including these giant hunks of cured meat on display.
2. Panettoni
Eataly Boston claims to have the biggest Panettoni in New England, which is pretty impressive (it’s 22 pounds). If you don’t know what Panettoni is, it’s a sweet, rich, and fluffy bread that Italians eat around the holidays. These cakes are are given to symbolize luck and prosperity for the New Year, so get one ASAP. I mean, we could all use some luck and prosperity all year long.
3. Satsumas
A satsuma is a type of seedless mandarin orange with thin skin. It tastes bright, sweet, and has a refreshing citrus flavor. Getting sick of oranges and clementines? Head to Eataly to try out this unique fruit!
4. Wheels on Wheels of Parmesan Cheese
Any Italian knows that you can never have enough Parmesan cheese; to run out of it would be a crime. But never fear, Eataly has got you covered with excessive amounts of the stuff sitting around waiting to be eaten.
5. Italian Black Truffle Sauce
If you’ve never tried truffles before, we highly encourage you to run to your nearest Italian restaurant and order some truffle pasta. Truffles are magical. Once you are addicted like us, you may find yourself staring at these jars in Eataly with your mouth watering, wishing you had enough money to buy enough to make an infinite amount of truffle pasta.
6. Pasta Shaped like Roman Coins
This pasta is not your run-of-the-mill spaghetti. Croxetti is shaped like Roman Coins, probably because they taste like pure gold. This pasta shape is a Ligurian specialty, a delicious part of that local food culture.
7. Giant Salumis
Good quality salumi is a highly underrated food. Salumi is Italian cold cuts made primarily of pork. You may be familiar with salami, which is a type of salumi. Whatever the name, any salumi or salami from Eataly is bound to be delicious.
8. Italian Chocolate Kisses
Luisa Spagnoli invented the “Baci” in 1922, a little chocolate with a love note hidden inside for her lover. “Baci” is Italian for “kisses.” Today, these Bacio Peruginas, or hazelnut kisses, still have little love messages hidden inside each chocolate.
9. Olives from Sicily
At this point, it was pretty clear to us that any food from Italy was probably superior than the same food from America. Including olives. These olives are in bags and they’re from Sicily, meaning they probably taste awesome.
10. And of course, PIZZA!
Enough said. Italian Pizza. In Boston. Game over.