A new place for comfort food will take the place of an old favorite in Arlington later this month. Via the Arlington Advocate, Boston Restaurant Talk noted that a restaurant called Sugo Cucina Italiana will open soon at 162 Massachusetts Ave., which housed Francesca's Kitchen for much of the past decade.
Francesca's served home-style Italian classics, like chicken parmigiana, chicken marsala, and Sicilian-style pizzas; as well as comfort food dishes like pot pie and roast turkey. "If you want to taste Italian food like your Italian mother makes, eat here," reads one Yelp review from 2007. BRT reports the restaurant officially shuttered in late May.
Owner Rudy Maniscalco is opening Sugo Cucina Italiana after a career in the restaurant industry, notably at Donatello's in Saugus and as general manager of Temple Bar in Cambridge. "I've always been a culinary guy," the North End native said, though he's not the chef.
When Sugo Cucina Italiana opens, hopefully by the end of June, it will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner on weekdays, with Sunday brunch, too. The dine-in restaurant will offer free Wifi, and there will be a coffee bar, the Advocate noted. Maniscalco added there will be artisan cheeses, imported cured meats, and local products available for purchase, and he plans to offer office and event catering.
An under-construction website launched in May has the correct contact information for the forthcoming Arlington Sugo, but social media links on the site bring up the pages of two separate, but similarly-named establishments in Maryland and Georgia. Employees at each of those restaurants denied affiliation with the Arlington Sugo when reached on the phone today, and both people expressed concerns about the new business's false claims.
Maniscalco said he was unaware of the wrong links. "I thought [those buttons weren't] even activated yet," he said, adding his social media pages haven't gone live yet.
In the same restaurant news brief, the Advocate zeroes in on a July 1 opening for the vegan restaurant Zhu's Garden (which the newspaper refers to as Zhu's.)