Piattini Wine Cafe
At Piattini, we want you, our guest, to experience the true flavors and culture of our homeland, Italy.
We are committed to using the finest ingredients like those our ancestors used to create the authentic flavors of yesterday while adding the creativity and diversity of today.
We don’t believe in one stop shopping – Our ingredients are chosen individually, we choose our purveyors carefully to find the best products from the original source whenever possible.
Piattini means “small dish” in Italian and our menu of small plates allow you to sample a variety of different tastes.
Our location on Newbury Street in the heart of the Back Bay offers three intimate dining rooms, and two sunken Tuscan inspired patios.
Piattini offers a large selection of exceptional wines, enhanced by the Piattini Wine Education program. Each glass of wine ordered comes with a small card detailing the region, tasting notes, and other pertinent and interesting facts about the wine.
Our Mission
We engage, we innovate, we inspire, we ELEVATE !
Excite your taste buds
Love and passion overflow
Educate, train, develop
Value all relationship
Aspire to create memories
Think out of the box
Enhance guest experience
Buon Appetito!
Owner
Josephine Oliviero Megwa
Josephine Oliviero Megwa, the owner of Piattini didn’t grow up thinking she would own a restaurant. Though she came from a family of restaurateurs, she began a professional career in a completely different field: fashion. For some time, Josephine was an executive at luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue in both Boston and New York. Despite her success, Josephine had become restless and tired of New York, yearning to return to her Massachusetts roots. In 2000, with the idea of Piattini fresh in her mind, she packed her bags and moved her life back to Boston.
As the youngest of ten children and the only child born in the United States, Josephine had very different tastes than her siblings. Piattini was a childhood nickname given to Josephine by her mother as an endearing reference to Josephine’s eating habits. She was, and still is, quite a picky eater. Growing up she loved antipasti and foods that were appetizer-like more than anything else.
Thus, the name Piattini was a perfect fit with Josephine’s original concept: a restaurant dedicated to small plates, serving antipasti, bruschetta, ravioli, tortellini, and Piattini’s beloved layered eggplant, among others. Josephine envisioned groups of friends sipping wine and sharing these different plates with friends.
In 2001 that vision became a reality, when Piattini opened on Newbury Street in Boston’s fashionable Back Bay, the restaurant became a neighborhood favorite. The dishes at Piattini are a unique combination of Josephine’s family recipes mixed with new, exciting dishes created with the freshest possible ingredients.
Aside from the cuisine, Josephine wanted to make Piattini a place where customers could sample and learn about many different wines in a casual and comfortable environment. With Piattini’s wine education program each bottle served is accompanied by a small card describing the varietal, grapes and tasting notes, so that customers may also drink in knowledge while enjoying their wine.