If you’ve spent enough time in Providence, chances are you have a story about Angelo’s Restaurant. The Federal Hill red sauce joint has been serving its signature meatballs and fries to everyone from politicians to pizzaiolos since 1924, which made the local institution a fitting home for SAVEUR’s “Local Legends” industry afterparty.
The soirée closed out the second annual Providence Culinary Collective, a weekend of ambitious food and beverage programming across Rhode Island’s capital. Afterparty guest Congressman Gabe Amo—who used to frequent Angelo’s with his high school football teammates before big games—praised the city’s dining scene, which was on full display during the festival. “If you want to have a good food weekend, come to Rhode Island,” he said. “The whole hospitality industry [here] is authentic, from Angelo’s…that’s 102-years-old and run by a brilliant young businesswoman to emerging [restaurants] like Club Frills and Fred. They’re all doing things that excite them, and that’s what makes the food here really delicious.”
For the second year running, SAVEUR was the festival’s exclusive national media partner. Editor-in-chief Kat Craddock—a Rhode Island native herself—and other members of the editorial team were in attendance throughout the weekend. “Providence’s food scene has always punched above its weight,” Craddock said. “Rhode Island has long been this incredible cultural melting pot; that and [Johnson & Wales University] help make the city fertile ground for top-tier culinary talent.”
Robert Andreozzi (co-owner of Club Frills and Pizza Marvin) was raised on Angelo’s eggplant parm, and he was sure to make an afterparty appearance alongside his partner in life and in business, Liz McDonnell of Pizza Wine. Other notable attendees included Ben Sulke and Bethany Caliaro of Oberlin and Gift Horse; Luke Mersfelder and Britt Simons of the highly anticipated Kingfish; Frank & Laurie’s co-owners Eric Brown and Sarah Watts; Charleston, South Carolina-based crabber and coastal conservationist Tia Clark; oyster farmer and Matunuck Atelier owner Perry Raso; Giusto and Mother Pizzeria chef and co-owner Kevin O’Donnell; artist and knifemaker Joyce Kutty; Culture magazine managing editor Alana Pedalino; Myrth Ceramics cofounders Abigail and Eric Smallwood; Rhode Island Monthly editor-in-chief Jamie Coelho, and Hannah Smokelin of America’s Test Kitchen.
The evening’s co-host, Angelo’s fourth-generation owner Jamie Antignano, buzzed around the room, ensuring guests had food and drinks in hand at all times, including her restaurant’s signature meatballs, Rhode Island-style fried calamari, cavatelli in vodka sauce, and grazing boards piled high with Italian cheeses, salumi, and assorted antipasti. The bar served the beloved local Narragansett lager alongside a selection of Angelo’s seasonal spritzes topped with Prosecco DOC. Antignano even added a special signature cocktail to the menu: the SAVEUR Spritz, made with Prosecco, Chambord, and fresh basil.
Angelo’s is a storied family restaurant that has remained a constant as the Providence hospitality and dining scene has evolved over the decades. “When we first opened in 1924, we were one of the few restaurants up here—Fed Hill was primarily Italian,” Antignano explains, pausing her duties to perch on one of the restaurant’s iconic red vinyl booths. “The neighborhood still has the Italian [flag] stripe running through the middle of the street, but we have a Mexican restaurant now (Don Jose Tequilas), an oyster bar (Providence Oyster Bar), and all sorts of other spots, which create great diversity here.”
Today, the neighborhood’s old-school Italian American markets and red sauce institutions coexist alongside Indian, Middle Eastern, Caribbean, and Japanese restaurants, as well as newcomers like Latin-inspired cocktail bar Loma—one of Antignano’s favorite local haunts and a James Beard Award finalist barely a year into opening.
Congressman Amo sees that same evolution in Angelo’s, which was founded by Angelo Mastrodicasa, an Italian immigrant from Abruzzo. “Whenever I’m in here, I feel the history,” he says. “It’s a reflection of Rhode Island.”
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