9 Best Restaurants in East Side, Providence

James Beard Award--winning chef Benjamin Sukle’s downtown Providence restaurant has been called the place to take out-of-town friends you want to impress—no small praise in a city brimming with culinary talent. Take a seat by the open kitchen or in the attractive dining room and savor local seafood in creative preparations, fresh pasta dishes, and paired wines and sake.

When it opened in 1980, Al Forno put Providence on the national dining map as the originator of its distinctive grilled pizza. Still consistently good, the restaurant retains a loyal following for its thin-crust pizza, handmade pastas, and wood-grilled or roasted entrées.

This intimate neighborhood bistro seats only 38 patrons, so reservations are essential on summer weekends. Neutral walls, white table linens, and simple but elegant china focus attention on the artfully composed dishes of chef and co-owner Champe Speidel, a four-time semifinalist for a James Beard Foundation Award. The meats, bacon, and sausage on the seasonal menu come from the restaurant's own butcher shop. Pan-seared Hudson Valley foie gras is an excellent appetizer, well followed by bread-crusted Atlantic halibut—if available—which is accompanied by a ragout of Brussels sprouts, celery root, mussels, and clams. The wine list isn't huge, but it is impressive.

The informal first floor of this two-level Italian restaurant has a deli case stocked with cured meats, cheeses, olives, and traditional Italian-style small plates; upstairs is a more traditional dining room with impressive views of the Providence River. Every table receives a separate checklist of the cured meats, cheeses, and accompaniments, which are then arranged as a beautiful charcuterie board.

A tiny Warren restaurant known for offbeat beers, hot chicken sandwiches, and a burger stacked 10 inches tall has blossomed into this second location with more expansive indoor-outdoor seating and an equally enticing menu of decidedly adult, made-from-scratch comfort grub. Pair zesty Mozambique chicken tenders that are definitely not your kids' chicken nuggets with frozen sangria on a summer's day.

One of the area's most popular gathering spots, the Coffee Exchange is the place to come for pastries, a coffee (hot or cold), and a chat. Family-run, the coffee shop has been an East Side landmark for more than 40 years, adopting socially conscious sourcing long before that was common or trendy. If you don't have time to sit a spell, stop by the to-go window on the deck. 

In a city where culinary newcomers tend to garner all the attention, Hemenway's continues to be one of the state's best seafood restaurants. The high-ceiling dining room's huge windows look out on Providence's World War II Memorial; in warm weather, dine outside on the front patio. The raw bar here is superlative.

Handsome brick walls and vaulted casement ceilings lend a cozy New England vibe to this contemporary, French-influenced American restaurant. The menu includes selections from both land and sea, mostly cooked in the open kitchen's wood-fired oven, as well as an extensive wine list.

A giant fork hangs outside this neighborhood brasserie in Wayland Square, and the chefs do things big here—from the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink chopped salad to supersize sangrias. The menu is eclectic, but you'll find plenty of Italian- and French-inspired bistro items, including French onion soup, steak frites, rigatoni Bolognese, and mussels prepared six ways and served with hand-cut frites.