Benevento
Great North End treat!
Boston's North End is the best place to go to get Italian food. There are lots of great restaurants to choose from and the food is excellent. Certainly worth visiting if you're coming to Boston for business for vacation.
If you're eating Gluten Free, you may think your best to stay away. You would be wrong. There are some restaurants that offer excellent gluten-free meals - Benevento is one such restaurant.
Gluten Free Garlic Bread and Alfredo Pasta
Nine Things We Learned visiting Benevento
We found Benevento via the Find Me Gluten Free ios App, it got a very good rating from other guests.
We made reservations for five at Benevento and ended up sitting in the basement. It was nice because it was quiet, but we were sitting next to the cleaning kitchen. (Not sure why we were put in the basement if we had a reservation.) You're much better off eating at street level since they have an open kitchen.
There is a TV downstairs where you can watch the latest Boston Sports. (I believe that there's one upstairs too.) There is no cellular service downstairs - so no chance of checking in. (You shouldn't be using the phone in a restaurant anyways.)
The downstairs bathroom was flooded and it took a while for it to get clean.
The server brought regular bread to the table even though we indicated that two people in our party needed to eat gluten-free. They did make some gluten-free garlic bread which is one of the appetizers. They don't have gluten-free bread as a regular table offering.
My daughter didn't really like the garlic bread. I think this is the first time that she tried Garlic Bread. It was a nice treat for her. I tried some and thought it was good. It was gluten-free flatbread that had garlic sauce on it.
We order my daughter the Alfredo Pasta, which is to her is just a different type of Mac & Cheese. She did enjoy it and ate a fair amount. I think she was saving her appetite for some dessert at Mikes Pastry. I also tried some of the pasta and thought it was good.
The other meal that was served gluten free was Puttanesca. It looked exactly like regular Puttanesca and tasted just as good. The person was planning on saving some of it for the next day but ended up eating the whole thing because it was so good.
We did take home the Alfredo Pasta and my daughter didn't really like it a couple of days later. She said that it tasted better at the restaurant. I asked if she wanted to go back to Benevento, and she said yes.
Finding Benevento
Benevento is located on 111 Salem Street, in the North End of Boston. It's about a block away from Bova's Bakery. They have their menu posted online so you can see all the gluten-free options.
We would go back, as we love visiting Boston's North End. Next time we'll ask her to eat more otherwise we wouldn't go to get ice cream at Mike's Pastry.