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The Basics: Sportello restaurant information

Sportello

348 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210
617-737-1234

Sportello restaurant information
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A modern interpretation of the classic diner, Sportello (Italian for counter service) offers a menu of chef Barbara Lynch's trattoria-inspired Italian dishes for both lunch and dinner. Sportello's casual, lively, Italian spirit is captured in the sleek, minimalist design, in the cuisine - fresh pastas, creamy polenta, and simple soups - and in the supremely approachable, artisanal wine list created by wine director Cat Silirie.

Sportello's bakery and retail counter serves a selection of Italian-inspired breads and pastries baked fresh each day so Fort Point Channel dwellers and diners can stop in for a delicious treat for breakfast or lunch whether they're in the mood for a cup of organic Peruvian coffee and an impossibly flaky croissant or a sandwich from the refrigerated case.

News and Events at Sportello restaurant

Summer School is in Session at Stir
Spend the summer sharpening your kitchen skills at Stir, Barbara Lynch's intimate, South End cooking studio.

Cochon 555 is Coming
Word is out - the line-up for this year's Cochon 555 pork party includes Tim Cushman of O Ya, Jamie ...

Feast Your Eyes - Sportello
Fresh from Fort Point – savories and sweets from Sportello.

Barbara Lynch

Chef at Sportello

Chef Barbara Lynch at Sportello

Her culinary talent is by now a given, but Barbara Lynch seems also to have a talent for success. How else did the hard-working girl from Southie create one of Boston's most highly anticipated restaurants - in the city's most affluent neighborhood?

Lynch's professional biography just might be the ultimate Boston success story, right up there with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Raised in the projects of South Boston, she is now perched at the top of Beacon Hill as proprietress of No. 9 Park, perhaps the toniest of the city's dining establishments.

Introduced to cooking in a high school home economics class, Barbara took jobs in restaurants all over Boston, working her way into some of the city's best kitchens and alongside two premier chefs - Todd  English of Olives and Michaela Larson of Rialto.

Such empowering practical experience translated to personal enrichment, as she sojourned to the kitchens of Italy and Southern France, further honing her European approach to cooking.

Upon her return to Boston, Lynch became Executive Chef at Galleria Italiana, turning the unknown, offbeat eatery into one of the city's best, and acquiring numerous accolades on both the local and national levels. Her name on the map, she began to focus on a restaurant of her own.

No. 9 Park opened to instant success and a tidal wave of critical applause. Its celebrated location across from the Boston Common and the Massachusetts State House lends the restaurant an air of historic venerability, as though it has been there for years. The same can be said for Barbara Lynch, a Chef who is already an institution, and a woman who knows the city from both sides of the tracks.

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Dictionary
 
Agnolotti
1. noun Small, half-moon-shaped ravioli.
Carpaccio
1. noun Wafer-thin slices of raw beef served cold; named after the Renaissance Venetian painter.
Chanterelle
1. noun A wild and nutty mushroom with a trumpet-shaped head.
Cipollini
1. noun Small, yellowish onions that add sweet and savory accents to cooked dishes.
Crostini
1. noun The Italian word for "little toasts" (referring to bread, not grappa).
Foie gras
1. noun Expensive, silk-textured goose or duck liver that has been enlarged by a process you don't want to read about if you're going to eat this dish.
Mascarpone
1. noun Ultra-rich, soft cheese known best for its role in tiramisu.
Polenta
1. noun A slow-cooked cornmeal porridge popular in northern Italy; can be served soupy or firm, sometimes fried.
Queso
1. noun Spanish for cheese.
Ragu
1. noun Tomato and meat sauce from Bologna.
Semolina
1. noun Very coarse flour used to make pizza and bread. Also refers to rounded parts of wheat used to make a pudding of the same name.
Shank
1. noun The front leg of beef, pork, veal or lamb. Often a very tough cut of meat, the shank requires slow-cooking methods like braising.
Tagliatelle
1. noun What they call fettuccine born in northern Italy.