Winning bidder will receive a gift certificate valued at $50 for Terramia Ristorante in the North End of Boston.

About Terramia Ristorante:

Review: Fodor's

Nearly everything this little autumnal-color restaurant kicks out tastes home-cooked and authentic. The simple, regional Italian cuisine includes rich, freshly homemade pastas tossed with equally fresh ingredients and risottos that come perfectly cooked and powerfully flavored. A newer favorite is frittelle di aragosta: fresh Maine lobster fritters and crispy vegetables in a balsamic honey glaze. The dessert list, once nonexistent, stops after tiramisu and bread pudding, but who needs more choices than those? Lines can get long on weekends

Review: Improper Bostonian

A true gem among all those rhinestones in the North End, this rustic but cozy trattoria with stucco walls and beamed ceilings specializes in creative interpretations of Italian classics. The bad news is that there's no coffee or dessert. The good news is that you can work off dinner with a stroll around the neighborhood before stopping someplace on Hanover Street for an espresso and a pastry.  Behind Terramia's pane-windowed storefront on Salem Street is a busy 39-seat trattoria decked out in linens, candlelight and paintings of the Italian countryside. Like the cuisine here, the atmosphere is elegant yet understated. Since opening in 1993, Terramia has aimed to convince North End diners that there was always more to Italian food than red sauce. Over the Years, the inventive and beloved restaurant has done a great deal of convincing. You'll find creative interpretations of seasonally-based classics here. But come early because you won't be alone.( The Improper Bostonian)

About The Owner:

Like many Italian-Americans, North-End native Carla Agrippino Gomes, owner and general manager of Terramia and Antico Forno, grew up on her mother’s Italian cooking. Then in 1993, she opened Terramia and her perception of authentic Italian cuisine was changed forever.

Prior to becoming involved in the restaurant business, Carla was a graduate of The Forsyth Dental Hygiene School at Northeastern University. Upon graduation she moved to California to work and expand her studies in Dental Hygiene. She worked as a dental hygienist for 10 years before her children were born. Although, extremely busy at the time raising her two young boys, Carla was interested in getting into the restaurant business and opened Terramia with former partner Mario Nocera  in August of 1993.

“I was intrigued by the food Mario was preparing,” Carla remembers. “The presentation was exquisite and the cuisine wasn’t like any Italian food I had ever tasted.”

The first few months after Terramia opened, she remembers were the toughest. “I didn’t realize how much work went into opening a restaurant; however, it didn’t take long for the Terramia concept to catch on.”  People either read the menu and came in wanting to try something different or read the menu and walked away hoping to find a restaurant that served chicken parmigiana Still, Agrippino-Gomes remained confident that Terramia would succeed. She evokes the movie “Field of Dreams” when saying “I knew that if we built a restaurant serving authentic Italian cuisine, people would come.” And indeed they did.

In August 1996, three years after the opening of Terramia, Carla opened her second restaurant, Antico Forno, Cucina a Legna, across the street. The meaning, “Old Oven, Kitchen of Wood, was used to describe the wood burning authentic Southern Italian cuisine and pizza, which was completely different from  Terramia. Antico Forno was the first and only wood burning brick oven pizza in the neighborhood. Like Terramia, people flocked to Antico Forno to try the pizza and Italian rustic country fare. Carla credits Nocera and happily boasts, "Mario Nocera has single-handedly changed the face of Italian cuisine in the North End".

In 2008, Antico Forno was expanded from 45 seats to 80 seats and also added a bar which serves beer, wine and cordials. Agrippino Gomes made sure that if Antico Forno expanded it had to retain the same warmth and coziness that it had originally. And that she did!

Carla participates in numerous benefits and charities in the North End and the surrounding Boston area. Over the last 10 years she has been committed to fundraising for The Joslin Diabetes Center and The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). She began CityFeast: Dining Out To Conquer Diabetes to benefit The High Hopes Fund at Joslin Diabetes Center, which takes place every year on the last Sunday in January. This cause is very near and dear to Carla's heart! She has been committed to both these organizations since her son David was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on his 1st birthday. It is her way of "thanking" the institution for taking incredible care of her son over the last 20 years.

Link is www.terramiaristorante.com