Pammy's
The lumache come slicked with a Bolognese that turns out, halfway down the bowl, to have gochujang in it. It has been on since Chris and Pam Willis opened in July 2017, and he will not put a second red-meat pasta beside it.
Why go
Chris Willis credits five kitchens for how he cooks: fundamentals at Rialto, discipline at Clio, balance and spice at Café Gray, pasta at Sfoglia, and flavor impact at ABC Cocina.3 What that produced is a short menu of everyday dishes taken further than they need to be. Devra First's example in 2018 was Spaghetti 2.3: pasta made in house from flour milled in house, with tomatoes marinated overnight in soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and honey, then slow-roasted to concentrate them.1 She gave it three stars.1 Willis told the Globe in March 2026 that the lumache is why people found the place, and that taking it off would start with an apology letter.2 Pam runs the room, and First's review opens on finding her at her own bar with a drink, laughing.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the lumache. It is the reason the kitchen has no other red-meat pasta.2
- Order: the pork chop, if the current card still has it. In 2018 Willis brined it, rubbed it with peppercorns, cardamom and fennel seed, and sent it out on cream of freshly ground wheat in a pool of pancetta dashi.1
- Avoid: treating a short menu as a guarantee. First found a subdued fish dish and an unexciting pasta on the same visit.1
What locals & experts say
- Devra First, The Boston Globe (February 2018), three stars:
Lumache, snail-shaped pasta also made in house, are slicked with a Bolognese sauce that steadily reveals a gentle heat: It's gochujang, the Korean chile paste. I'm stealing this idea the next time I make Bolognese; the best restaurant meals are often those that reinvigorate your own home cooking.
1 - Chris Willis to the Globe (March 2026), on why there is one and only one:
You can't have two.
2
Good to know
- The wine list is natural and small-producer, built by Katie Hubbard, whom the restaurant's own bio names a 2024 StarChefs Rising Star Sommelier.3
- The dish notes above are from 2018 apart from the lumache, which Willis confirmed this year.2
Verdict
should-visit — One dish has held its place for nine years and the chef says it costs him the rest of the red-meat pasta section, which is a stronger statement about a kitchen than any list placement. The technique behind the plates is documented rather than asserted: tomatoes marinated overnight in soy, rice wine vinegar and honey then slow-roasted, a chop brined and rubbed before it meets pancetta dashi. A Globe critic gave it three stars and named the weak spots on a short menu, and both halves of that are printed here.