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Serafina to bring pizzas, pastas, and an impressive bar to the Seaport
The second Serefina location is slated to open this month.
Veteran Boston restaurateur Seth Greenberg is opening Serafina Seaport, an Italian-inspired restaurant on Fan Pier, this month. The restaurant is an expanded version of Serafina on Newbury Street.
“Newbury is more of a pizzeria with pastas and some dishes like organic chicken Milanese,” Greenberg said. “Serafina Seaport will be a full menu with more dishes, like salmon in a kale pesto, branzino with cherry tomatoes, and a real cioppino.”
The menu, helmed by chef de cuisine Hector Hernandez, a Serafina veteran, includes scratch-made pastas like rigatoni alla bolognese with a beef, veal, and pork sauce, as well as avocado San Pietro, which includes baby shrimp, arugula, grape tomatoes, and cannellini beans in a Champagne-mustard dressing.
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Serafina Seaport includes a separate pizza kitchen and bar with four 65-inch TVs.
“Boston is a sports town, and Bostonians like to watch a game, but not necessarily in a sports bar,” said Greenberg, who is also a co-owner of the Mistral Group. “A great beer and a pizza go together so well.”
Beers “will be local and crafty,” Greenberg said, and include Sam Adams, Harpoon, Jack’s Abbey, Night Shift, Maine Lunch, and Mighty Squirrel. Wines will be predominantly Italian, and seasonally changing cocktails will be creative, he said. On the list is a tequila Negroni and a zero-proof old-fashioned.
With floor-to-ceiling windows, the bright interior has 114 seats in the dining room, 20 bar seats, 14 pizza station counter seats, 22 patio seats, and two private dining rooms, The Capri Room and The Seaport Room, each with a colorful design: the former spotlights pinks and mauve; the latter pale melon green.
Designer Petra Hausberger, of Somerton Park Interiors, transformed Greenberg’s idea of 1950s Italian Riviera dolce vita into a bright space with curvy sand-toned banquettes dotted with Italian pottery, Italian fashion photography, two big olive trees, and spectacular wallpaper.
“It’s casual, it’s elegant,” he said. “It was designed to be comfy. It was designed to be loungey.”
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Greenberg’s Sterling Group Management has the New England rights to the Serafina brand, whose parent company, Serafina Restaurant Group, operates locations in New York City, San Juan, and Miami, as well as Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, and Israel.
Greenberg is aiming for a mid-May opening, and the restaurant will eventually provide daily lunch and dinner, along with weekend brunch. Initial hours are still being determined.
“It’s a question of whether we can have a full staff and have them properly trained,” he said.
After a considerable period of anxiety for restaurateurs during the pandemic, Greenberg said Serafina Seaport feels like “… a Phoenix rising and shining in the sunlight. That’s how I feel about it. It came out so pretty.”
Serafina Seaport, 11 Fan Pier Blvd. serafinaboston.com
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