Maria’s Trattoria
Maria's Trattoria in Braintree is on a real busy, crowded street. I could take a meatball and hit a house or a business, but if you follow those tomato red walls inside, you are going to get made from scratch, amazing Italian food. So let's get in there.
This is the oldest restaurant in Braintree, 80 years. You can kind of tell it harkens back to a different time when the bar was separated from the dining room. So you really can get two very different experiences. But I love all over the restaurant, they have those big, beautiful Italian murals. Really makes me want to dig into some great Italian food. Edmond Cela was in the restaurant business, bought a produce company he still owns, took over Maria's. So this is a man who knows how to produce Italian restaurant food featuring great produce. “I wake up in the morning. I'm at the produce market one o'clock in the morning every day, walk the market, see what fresh farmers have around... So we have a lot of rotation in the produce. So I bring whatever is the best out there.”
The food here is so fresh and so hand crafted entrees are going to take a little while, so you got to get some appetizers while you wait. Believe it or not, this is one heirloom tomato. Then it has homemade burrata, pesto and basil. This is like the ribeye steak of tomatoes. If you're really starving, get the bruschetta. It's got garlic and super fresh tomatoes. "You're getting the crunch here from the homemade bread. It's nice and crunchy, very crunchy. And then you get getting the freshness from the garlic and tomatoes. Very simple, traditional Italian dish."
The Antipasto here is beautiful, gigantic and delicious. You have your prosciutto, salami, mortadella, imported really high end cheeses. There’s cucumbers here, because Edmond is so passionate about produce, but the real star of this dish is the olives. These are imported from Albania. They crack them open, and his mom actually soaks them in water so you get the ultimate flavor. “We use some of the finest cured meats from Italy…Prosciutto di Cotto, salami, mortadella, fresh cheeses, and we put a little of our fresh produce in there, which most antipastos Don't come in with any produce, but we added a little bit of locally grown cucumbers in there. You have to come in and try it.”
Some Italian restaurants make their own pasta. Very few cut the pasta after you order it. And I'm about to show you some of those. Lobster ravioli is really more of a Southern Italian dish, but here they put a Northern spin on it. When you order this dish, they hand roll the ravioli, they stuff it with Maine lobster, they add the orange cream sauce, and then whatever mushrooms are the best that day at the nearby farm in Hingham, they put into this dish. “We get Maine lobster, ricotta cheese, little bit of thyme. We hand roll it per order…served with a little bit of…orange creamy sauce, traditionally Italian. That's where northern meets south we mix it and some of the are locally grown mushrooms. So it might take a little bit longer, but it's worth the wait.”
The fettuccine here is a traditional carbonara, but they add an egg yolk, giving it that much more flavor. "It's like a Fettuccine Alfredo, just finished up with an egg yolk in the end. The cream sauce and the flavors from the guanciale, you just never want to finish it. It's just delicious.”
When you order the pappardelle here, they actually cut it right on the spot. They add a Ragu of braised pork, beef and veal, not just your standard ground beef, between the fresh cut pasta and that Ragu. You got to try this. “It's an excellent pasta. It's also, it's hand rolled, we cut it for per order, homemade pasta really sucks the sauce into it, so it just makes the pasta taste a lot richer, a lot more flavor. You are going to love this.”
Maria's makes delicious Neapolitan style pizzas, so they're super thin, super crispy, served on the wooden peel. I recommend the Ricotta pie. Believe it or not, they go to a local milk farmer. Make the ricotta themselves. They add broccoli rabe and sweet sausage, so it's a little sweet, a little bitter, a little buttery, a little crunchy, like this is everything you could possibly expect in one bite of food. To me, this is like a food dream come true.
You may think you'd want to end your meal here with tiramisu or cannoli, but you would be wrong. You want the mega magical chocolate cake. This thing is stacked up way high in each of the seven layers has a different flavor. So that is one lucky way to end an Italian dinner.
“Everybody every time it's walking through the dining room, everybody's looking at it, and once you sell one, then every table has one in the end of the meal." There was a Maria 80 years ago, and I think she'd be very proud of the pasta they're putting on the plate at Maria's Trattoria in Braintree. I'm telling you, this is a real find. “If you've been here before, great. If you haven't, please come in. Try it. See our fresh, homemade pasta, fresh produce, fresh meats, everything. It's made on the house. You are absolutely love it.”
