The best rooftop restaurant in Boston — the Major Food Group's rooftop Italian restaurant atop The Newbury Hotel, serving the Manhattan luxury Italian playbook (spicy lobster capellini, clam-topped pizza, black truffle pizza, Florentine steak for two) with walls of glass facing the Boston Public Garden and Back Bay from one of the city's finest rooftop positions.
Why It Belongs on the List
Contessa is the restaurant that changed the conversation about ambitious dining in Boston — a New York Major Food Group production (whose portfolio includes Michelin-starred restaurants across multiple cities) applied to the rooftop of the newly renovated Newbury Hotel with a result that the Boston restaurant world received with a combination of excitement and competitive anxiety. The space — glass walls on three sides, Back Bay rooftop views, a design aesthetic that recalls the great Italian restaurants of late-20th-century Manhattan — frames contemporary Italian cooking of genuine technical ambition: the spicy lobster capellini is the signature pasta, the littleneck clam pizza and black truffle pizza the celebrated wood-fired options, and the Florentine-style steak for two the tableside theatrical centerpiece. Booking months in advance is often required during spring and fall; off-peak weeknights provide the best chances. Hotel guests receive an advantage in booking. The most talked-about table in Boston for multiple consecutive years.
What Stands Out
- The hardest reservation in Boston: book months in advance for weekend tables during peak season
- Major Food Group's Boston debut: the NYC Italian luxury playbook applied to Back Bay with full production quality
- Spicy lobster capellini: the signature pasta, the dish that reviews consistently cite first
- Florentine steak for two: the tableside theatrical centerpiece for special occasions
- Glass-walled rooftop with Back Bay views: the most dramatic restaurant setting in the city