Alma Nove
Alma Nove is known as one of the top Italian restaurants in the Boston area. The name comes from Alma, their mother, who was the matriarch of the Wahlberg family and her nine children.
“Alma is my mom's name, and Nove is Italian for nine, for her nine children... It's Italian Mediterranean restaurant….. Great location in the Hingham ShipYard. We're right along the water. We've got a beautiful outdoor patio with a fire pit….and it's just a really warm and inviting location. “
Paul Wahlberg is no new kid on the block. He's been running this restaurant for a decade and a half, and it's more popular than ever. You could say he's hanging tough.
Sean Fitzgerald and Paul have been working together for a decade, and they remain just as passionate, working together everyday to put out a first rate product.
“We're all about freshness and seasonality. Here, we try to play the hits as much as we can, so that it's something that people are familiar with and something that feels like home while also trying to elevate that a little bit to be more of like that fine dining kind of feel.”
For appetizers, you have to get the meatballs. This is one of Paul's specialties. It's a pork and beef blend with marinara sauce, a whipped Burrata cheese. That's unusual. That's got the garlic crostini. You can wave that around in the marinara sauce and the cheese, it is amazing.
You see crab cakes on a lot of menus. You don't see a lot of cod cakes. I think this is a tribute to when the wahlbergs used to keep lent on Fridays.
“These cod cakes have a mango sweet and sour chutney and a curried tomato butter sauce. That beautiful texture, that beautiful salt cod flavor… all of these great components, again, to it, and it really, for me, it's one of those things that's very reminiscent of being when I was a child.”
I love a sirloin. Paul likes to cook with wood, not just for the flavor, but for the aroma. And believe me, you can smell this steak. It's served with roasted mashed potatoes and roasted garlic on top. It's great steak.
“So we're using a prime sirloin, and just the beautiful, that nice char from the wood grill, and you own that good sear on it, and then with the garlic, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, all it's like it's just such a perfect thing, and that steak is so delicious.”
There are two sides here not to be missed, even though they both involve truffle one is the truffle fries, with those beautiful truffles and those herbs. You can really smell them coming off the plate. And then this mac and cheese. This is a much more gourmet version of this dish than the Wahlberg used to eat back in Dot.
“Mac and cheese was a staple, because when you're talking about feeding nine kids….Our was a classic. It was milk, government cheese, and if you were lucky, you got a little bit of ham in it, but that was it, elbow macaroni.
So, what we've done an elevated version of it, and we add that truffle oil to it because it has a great flavor, and then we truffle the crumbs that go on top of it. But everybody loves mac and cheese and we sell so many… a lot of times people will get it as a double order and have it as an entree.”
Paul Wahlberg is a gourmet chef who also owns 120 Wahlburgers. So the guy's one of the world's leading experts on the hamburger when you see it on this menu, order it.
The A9 is really an interesting gourmet type of burger. It's got fried egg, truffled Pecorino, roasted tomato, bacon jam, fried shallots, Parmesan, Herb, frites, and it's all on top of that beautiful brioche bun.
“You get the crispy little shallots on there, and you've got the egg and so the creaminess of the egg yolk, when this yolk, egg yolk runs and then having the Parmesan frites with it, is just so good. It's a really great finish to a great classic burger. “
The menu here is Italian Mediterranean, but they have an Italian Cubano. This features ham, porchetta, Swiss cheese and pickles.
“When you get that cheese melted in there, and you've got that mustard and those pickles and everything, and all that brightness that adds to that beautiful salty from the ham. And we use a beautiful and Italian ham. It's, it’s amazing.”
I definitely recommend the gnocchi. It's got sweet potato, lobster, lobster sauce and chives. This is an amazing flavor combination.
“So the sweet potato gnocchi, when you are using it's just using the sweet potatoes, because it's just that nice sweetness. And then we add a little bit of potato starch, and we have some wheat flour in there, and that keeps it like Cloud light, because literally, they're supposed to be little clouds. It's New England, and having that beautiful lobster meat and that beautiful silky lobster cream, it just makes a huge difference."
This is one of those beautiful restaurants with the breathtaking view that are going to make you want to stick around, get dessert so you can stretch out the night.
The vanilla cake is like a fudgy tiramisu with great espresso flavor served in a mason jar. I like any drink or dessert served in a mason jar.
"The vanilla cake we're putting in there. We're soaking that in the espresso and so there's layers of flavor and layers of texture all the way through. You gotta try it. It’s amazing."
The Wahlbergs are Boston royalty. I know there's a lot of Mark fans, a lot of Donnie fans. I was excited to meet Paul, and I guarantee you will love him, his food and his restaurant at Alma Nove in the Hingham shipyard. They are a Funky Bunch.
