Galleria Umberto
I had lunch here the other day and it was great! The food has gone up in price a bit from what was mentioned here and listed on menu websites. Still, $1.10 for a slice of Sicilian pizza is a great price! (For those interested, I believe wine is now $1.25 and arancini are $2.25.)
The pizza worried me when I saw it while waiting in line. It looked kind of like burned school pizza. But it tasted amazing. So flavorful. And the nice guy at the counter gave me a corner piece, which made my day. I can't wait to go back. Does anyone know if they're open on Saturdays? I forgot to ask.
Also grabbed a cannoli at Maria's. I definitely liked it better than Mike's or Modern's. The filling is not as sweet.
maillard
Aug 10, 2006 08:45PM
Umberto is open Saturdays. As on weekdays, however, they're open until the food runs out, so with weekend traffic, they're more likely to close early Saturday than on a weekday.
Umberto is easily my favorite place in the entire North End.
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Galleria Umberto, though different from Santarp's and Regina's, is probably in my top 3 along with those 2 as far as pizza in Boston is concerned.
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I was just here on Saturday. It was about 1ish and we had a 30+ minute wait. It gets a little touch and go towards the end because although they kept bringing out pizza, they stopped with everything else except for the arancini and they had a few spinach calzones sitting there. So they stopped making calzones and the other "side" dishes fairly early. They only bring out the arancini about 3-4 at a time, and then they stopped making those as well right after we got ours and there was quite a line behind us. So, if you are interested in the calzone and other items, don't wait until too late.
As far as the pizza goes, you are so right that it looked like burnt school pizza, but it tasted amazing! You could see the fresh tomatoes in the sauce. It was pretty much drowning in oil, so I did have to give it a good blot before devouring it.
For the arancini, I was so excited to get them, and although they were good, I wasn't floored by them like I expected I'd be. Believe it or not, I like the ones at the feast better. It seemed as if in the Umberto's ones, the rice had been almost pulverized, so you couldn't see any individual grains. This is not how other arancini I've had have been. I will say, the coating was perfect, and the filling was excellent as well. I just thought the rice seemed too smashed up.
Overall, definitely worth the wait!
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