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Sleeping With the Seven Fishes

Becoming a real Rhode Islander at Pane e Vino’s iconic Christmas Eve dinner

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I love to throw around the phrase “you’re not a real Rhode Islander unless…” You’re not a real Rhode Islander unless you count the days until Mr. Lemon reopens. You’re not a real Rhode Islander unless you’ve passionately debated the best chowder and clam cakes in the state (my vote is for Monahan’s in Narragansett, btw).

There are a specific set of these requirements at the holidays. You’re not a real Rhode Islander unless you’ve seen Trinity Rep’s A Christmas Carol more than five times. And you’re certainly not a real Rhode Islander unless you’ve experienced the Feast of the Seven Fishes, the iconic Italian Christmas Eve tradition.

Well, despite the fact that I’ve lived here for all of my adult life and I spend my work and life championing this state, by my own standards, I still wasn’t a Real Rhode Islander. Until, that is, I had the transportive La Vigilia at Pane e Vino. The Federal Hill mainstay offers the Seven Fishes for the two weeks before Christmas Eve, when the dinner traditionally happens (and if you’re lucky, you can still get reservations for The Day itself). It was an experience I will definitely be having again.


Pane e Vino offers the meal in three courses instead of the traditional (and way too time consuming) seven. We started with four fish for our appetizer: Insalata di Baccalá (salted cod salad), Pesciolini Fritti (fried smelts), Lumachine di Mare (marinated snail salad) and Sautee di Calamari (sauteed calamari). I loved that the course was old school. What I really wanted from the dinner was to experience some of the good old fashioned Italian cuisine I had heard so much about over the years. The next two courses, though, were perfectly modern. Our pasta course was Spaghettini alle Vongole (pasta with local littleneck clams in a San Marzano broth), easily the best version of this dish my companion and I have ever had. The second course, serving fish six and seven, was a plate of Pesce e Gamberi (pan-fried flounder with lemon-caper butter and baked stuffed shrimp). I loved that the dinner was a nod to the traditional, but also fresh and local. It was a really beautiful representation of what’s great about Federal Hill, and the Italian culinary traditions it still preserves.

A week later, and we still can’t stop raving about the food we had at Pane e Vino. Everything from the fresh pasta to the espresso at the end of dinner was perfect. Looks like La Vigilia is going to become one of my traditions, too.

pane e vino, federal hill, federal hill providence, providence ri, dining, dining out, seven fishes, christmas, christmas tradition, traditional italian seven fish dinner, julie tremaine, Feast of the Seven Fishes, La Vigilia, Insalata di Baccalá, Pesciolini Fritti, Lumachine di Mare, Sautee di Calamari, Spaghettini alle Vongole, Pesce e Gamberi

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