Contessa Boston
Italian restaurant · Back Bay
Rooftop, 3 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116
Highlights
Italian-inspired cuisine, brunch, and wine with city views
Italian-inspired cuisine, brunch, and wine with city views
"Opened in 2022 as a glamorous rooftop destination that quickly became one of Boston’s hardest-to-score reservations and later expanded with a Miami outpost, this restaurant was the subject of an arbitration settlement after 68 current and former employees alleged years-long mishandling of tip money. Workers say the venue ran a tip pool using a points system to allocate tips to front-of-house staff, but allegedly diverted tips to ineligible back-of-house employees for over a year and repeatedly shorted the pool over multiple years — practices that violate Massachusetts rules tying tips to the lower front-of-house minimum wage. The employer paid out employees as part of the settlement while denying any admission of wrongdoing, and former staffers described both frustration at having to fight for owed wages and fond memories of service nights, urging diners to tip more generously in light of what happened behind the scenes." - Erika Adams
"While this posh Italian restaurant doesn’t have an actual roof deck, as it’s actually on the roof, you can sink into the plush surroundings while basking in the birds-eye views of Newbury Street. On days when the weather is nice, the team will retract the restaurant’s windows for breezy open-air dining." - Tanya Edwards
"Operated in Boston by Major Food Group as a restaurant in the Newbury Hotel, cited as an example of New York groups bringing Italian concepts to the city." - Erika Adams
"Major Food Group’s celeb-favorite Italian hotspot, Contessa, will be open Christmas Day for breakfast from 7:30 until 10:45 a.m., and then 12 until 8 p.m. for lunch and dinner. The rooftop restaurant will be serving a family-style meal for $195 per person, and the feast will likely include dishes like burrata with caviar, Chianina beef carpaccio, spicy lobster rigatoni, prime rib grilled and a Nutella fudge cake panettone for the table. Reservations are available here." - Tanya Edwards
"How about Thanksgiving on a rooftop? Major Food Group’s decadent Italian hotspot, Contessa, will be open on the holiday serving a pre-set, family-style menu for $195 per person starting at 12 p.m. There’s ricotta-stuffed pasta with black truffles, roasted turkey with sage turkey gravy, and squash carpaccio, among other plates, and the meal finishes out with pumpkin gelato and apple pie. Reservations are available here." - Erika Adams
